Every June, the local theater scene switches gears from its regular schedule to the strange haze of the summer season. Standard shows vanish from Milwaukee stages, making way for touring productions and a mishmash of edgier, less tested endeavors. Leading the way into summer this year is a touring production of one of the most commercially successful musicals of all time. The current revival of Marvin Hamlisch's A Chorus Line makes it to town next week for a six-day engagement at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts.
A Chorus Line tells the story of a group of dancers auditioning for a spot in a Broadway musical. The show's long-running success makes it easy to overlook the strange, postmodern implications of audiences paying money to see performers who have made it into a Broadway show performing as actors struggling to get into a Broadway show.
The current touring production has only been around for a few years, so it doesn't have the longevity of other touring Broadway shows like Cats, which breezed through Milwaukee earlier this year. But the city should have renewed interest in the composer of A Chorus Line, Marvin Hamlisch. He recently took up the baton as principal Pops conductor for the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra. It remains to be seen if Hamlisch will bring the same appeal that Doc Severinsen had in that role before him, but this production will give local audiences an opportunity to get reacquainted with one of Hamlisch's greatest successes.
The touring Broadway production of A Chorus Line runs June 23 through June 28 at the Marcus Center.
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One of the first locally written pieces of the summer is a staged reading of playwright Erik Ebarp's Giant Days. The reading serves as an introduction to the newly formed Vanity Theatre Company. Conceived by Ebarp long before the current economic downturn, the story follows a rural family that is dealing with the problems of a global economy. Years ago, Ebarp saw a production of Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard and was inspired to write a similar drama cast in a contemporary American setting. The staged reading of Giant Days takes place at the Tenth Street Theatre on June 20 at 7:30 p.m.
