UWM Peck School of the Arts opens its production of Little Women: the Musical tonight. Rebecca Holderness directs an intimate staging of the contemporary musical on the stage of Kenilworth Studio 508. Louisa May Alcott’s 1868 novel was adapted for the musical stage some ten years ago on Broadway. Since then, it’s been granted numerous stagings all over the country. Most notably, the Skylight did a production back in 2005.
It’s been interesting to follow the little behind-the-scenes glimpses into the show that have been popping up on the show’s Facebook event page (which appears to be curated by cast member Morgan Braithwaite.) There have been little snapshots of the rehearsal process accompanied by quotes drawn from the play. The director is quoted in one of them. There’s a picture of some of the cast wearing petticoats for the show over contemporary casual student clothes. One of them holds a very contemporary cup of coffee. It’s fun stuff.
It may not have become the standard of advance promotion for a show and this IS a university production that’s only running for one week or so, but it really does a lot to draw potential audiences into an intimate production to have the cast themselves providing glimpses into the production via social media. This sort of thing is going to continue as the latest generations begin to filter onto the stage. The marketing ends of theatre companies would do well to pay attention to this sort of thing. Nothing sells local theatre quite like the people who are going to be onstage actually performing it.
Stay on top of the news of the day
Subscribe to our free, daily e-newsletter to get Milwaukee's latest local news, restaurants, music, arts and entertainment and events delivered right to your inbox every weekday, plus a bonus Week in Review email on Saturdays.
UWM’s production of Little Women runs March 4 - 8 at Kenilworth Studio 508. For ticket reservations, visit uwm.edu.
