How To Succeed At Business Without Really Trying at Sunset

The Sunset Playhouse will be opening its production of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. It's one of those musicals that has had such longevity that it's kind of weir to think that when it was originally staged it wasn't a period piece. Based on the book How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying: The Dastard's Guide to Fame and Fortune, the musical has kind of a more interesting story that the man who wrote the book who inspired it. Shepherd Mead started off  in the mail room at an ad firm and went on  to become vice-president of the company. Yawn. That sort of story was getting boring after Horatio Alger beat it into the ground half a century before Mead started working that mailroom in the first place. Even the fact that he wrote a parody of an instructional book about the experience seems kind of generic. The story of a musical based on a parody of an instructional self-help-style book from the early 20th century? That's a  story.

Anyway . . . Jake Konrath stars in the production. There he is at the top of this blog entry. Evidently a Waukesha native, he graduated from UW-Stevens Point  with a BFA in acting. You may have seen his face larger than life backlit on a PSA at a bus stop around town. Now you can see him presumably sing and dance in Elm Grove. 

The Sunset Playhouse's production of How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying runs July 18th through August 11th at the Furlan Auditorium in Elm Grove. For ticket reservations, call 262-782-4430 or visit Sunset online.