Legend has it that the bank that floated the loan that built the Sunset Playhouse in 1959 demanded a simple rectangular building it could sell to other businesses when the theater failed, as they surely thought it would. Instead, the Playhouse enters its 60th season in excellent shape, financial and otherwise.
The original rectangle expanded in 1998 with the addition of a studio theater and enhancements to the entrance and lobby. The mainstage theater was redone this summer to improve sightlines, and a multi-purpose kitchen is being remodeled as artistic director Nancy Visintainer-Armstrong takes me through the labyrinthine complex just off Elm Grove Road—rehearsal, dance, music and dressing rooms, conference room, costume and scenic shops, storage spaces, offices and archives. “People don’t realize how much we have here,” she says.
Actor, director, choreographer and former owner of the popular Viktor Viktoria clothing boutiques, Visintainer-Armstrong has led the Playhouse for the last five years. “We’ve come a long way,” she tells me. “Our shows are much better attended. We have a good handle on what our audience wants to see. We’re doing shows that people want to be in. We have actors and singers willing to drive from as far as Racine and Cedarburg. We had 135 people audition for Hairspray; 145 for Into the Woods. We can cast a show two or three times over with people so talented coming here now.”
Sunset Playhouse presents a staggering 36 productions a year. It also tours children’s shows and holds improv, musical theatre and acting classes. Its mission, Visintainer-Armstrong says, is “to give actors who aren’t necessarily professional but who love the craft the opportunity to perform. But it’s also a place for volunteers who want to be involved in something, to be part of a family. No matter who you are or what you do, we’ll find something for you to do. That’s what it’s really about. We have 600-800 volunteers a year. A lot of people have been here for 50 years. That’s a lifetime. They started in high school. Their grandkids are here now.”
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The main theater, Furlan Auditorium, is a 291-seat traditional proscenium space named for Alan Furlan, who led the organization for 26 years. The Playhouse’s first director, Ian Dobbie, had hired Furlan, an actor from New York, for 10 weeks of professional summer stock in 1959. As that experiment ended, Sunset Playhouse was founded as a community theater by 52 theater-loving couples. It debuted in September 1959 with Dobbie at the helm. Dobbie left in 1962, and Furlan took the directorship. No one is more strongly associated with the company’s history.
A Look at the 60th Season
Eight Furlan Mainstage shows headline each season now. This 60th season includes two farces by playwright Ken Ludwig. A Comedy of Tenors, which opens on Thursday, Sept. 5, is a sequel of sorts to his Lend Me A Tenor, a hit with Sunset audiences in 1995 and again in 2012. As in most Ludwig farces, the zaniness involves show biz folk and looming stage catastrophes that can be rendered with comically alarming authenticity. Here, the fiery Italian tenor, Tito Merelli, returns, years older, and refuses to sing with a younger tenor he thinks is courting his wife. Merelli will be played by Bob Fuchs, who created the character in Sunset’s 1995 production of the earlier play.
The Furlan series continues with the big-cast musical Mamma Mia!; then Ludwig’s The Game’s Afoot or Holmes for the Holidays, which thrusts the lead actor of a Broadway spoof about Sherlock Holmes into a real-life Sherlock Holmes murder mystery. January brings The Marvelous Wonderettes, directed by Becky Spice, part of the cast of the musical’s world premiere at Milwaukee Rep. Next, the great backstage-onstage farce Noises Off, the musical Cabaret and Neil Simon’s Barefoot in the Park.
The anniversary season closes with the first musical ever staged at Sunset Playhouse, West Side Story. Ian Dobbie somehow finagled the first rights for a non-professional production of that masterpiece in 1960.
If Visintainer-Armstrong’s goal for the Furlan series is “entertainment and home by 10 p.m. to watch the news,” the After Sunset series in the studio theater offers “what I would call more edgy plays.” Doubt, the moving response to the Catholic Church’s child abuse scandal, opens the series on Thursday, Sept. 12, followed by Frankie & Johnny in the Clair De Lune and The Vagina Monologues later this season.
With table seating, munchies and a working bar, the studio theater is also the setting for Sunset’s fully professional SideNotes Cabaret series, opening Thursday, Sept. 26, with “Crown Jewels of Jazz.” A second professional series, Musical Mainstage, takes place in the Furlan on off-nights. It offers an entertaining education in music history through stories and performances. The series opens on Monday, Sept. 16, with “Peter, Paul, Mary & Friends.”
For more information, call 262-782-4430 or visit sunsetplayhouse.com.
