It’s Show Time|VTG opens 74th season tonight with Broadway tunes
Published 12:00 am Saturday, September 19, 2009
The Vicksburg Theatre Guild will open its 74th season tonight with a performance of “The Best of Broadway III,” the third in a series.
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The Vicksburg Theatre Guild will open its 74th season with “The Best of Broadway III,” set for 7:30 tonight. Shows will continue at 2 p.m. Sunday and Sept. 27 and 7:30 p.m. Friday and Sept. 26. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for 55 and older, $7 for students and $5 for 12 and younger. Shows are at Parkside Playhouse, 101 Iowa Ave. Call 601-636-0471 or visit www.e-vtg.com. Other shows planned this season:
• “The Foreigner,” a comedy — Nov. 6-8 and 13-15.
• “Tracks,” a one-act drama — Dec. 11-13.
• “Godspell,” a musical — Feb. 19-21 and 26-28.
• “Gold in the Hills,” a melodrama — March 12-13, 19-20 and 26-27; July 9-10, 16-17, 23-24 and 30-31.
• “Bad Seed,” a thriller — May 7-9 and 14-16.
• Fairy Tale Theatre, for children — June 24-27.
The show’s director and narrator, Jim Shirley, who directed the first two, said the musical revue will feature 28 songs from eight Broadway shows such as “Camelot,” “Annie” and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.” The show will also be presented Sunday afternoon and next weekend.
“Musical revues have always been extremely popular,” said Shirley, who has more than 30 years of directing and producing experience. “The show is set in an informal setting. It’s light and airy with lots of dance and choreography.”
Shirley has been with the VTG since 1975, and has worked with Walt Disney Productions in California and Florida.
VTG president Mike Calnan said, “The show is really fast-paced” and features “our A-list cast.”
In addition to the Broadway-themed show, the VTG’s 74th season will feature two musicals, a comedy, a drama, two runs of “Gold in the Hills,” Fairy Tale Theatre for kids and a special addition — a one-act play.
“We think we’re the oldest chartered community theatre in Mississippi,” Calnan said. “We have a chartered document that says we started in 1936.”
Since 1936, the VTG changed venues four times, and has been headquartered at Parkside Playhouse on Iowa Avenue since 1978.
Following a fire in the summer of 2006, shows were briefly moved to Vicksburg High School and the Southern Cultural Heritage Center.
Tickets for all main-stage shows are $12 for adults, $10 for 55 and older, $7 for students and $5 for 12 and younger.
“Gold in the Hills,” the Guinness Book of World Records’ longest-running show, will have 14 performances in 2010, beginning in March. The show, set in the 1890s, has been produced in Vicksburg since 1936. In addition to other venues, shows have been presented on the Sprague, a sternwheeler.
It features a relentless hero, winsome heroine, ruthless villain and the wilder side of city life in the infamous New York Bowery, said Calnan. Tickets for “Gold” are $10 for adults and $5 for 12 and younger.
“Gold” is also being presented by a newbie on the Vicksburg theater scene, the Westside Theatre Foundation.
The one-act drama the guild is planning is called “Tracks.” It will be entered in the 2010 Mississippi Theatre Association Festival. Local performance dates will be Dec. 11-13, and tickets are $5.
VTG is a nonprofit organization, and operates solely by volunteers.
“We rely on people coming to see our productions,” Calnan said. “We try to put on the best productions.”
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Contact Manivanh Chanprasith at mchan@vicksburgpost.com