Dancing Back to 1979 with 9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL at IWU

Nine to Five, the 1980 movie, was very much a piece of its time. This bright, cheerful flick about women's empowerment in the workplace gave us Dolly Parton in her film debut, plus she contributed the bouncy title song, set to the clicketyclack of a typewriter.

Dolly was always an original, a natural, somebody whose bodacious exterior belied her brains and talent. When she played Doralee, a secretary whose bodacious exterior belied her brains and efficiency, it was a perfect fit.

9 to 5: The Musical is full of Dolly Parton's music, and the character of Doralee is very much like Dolly, no matter who's playing the role. That's a double-edged sword, however. It gives the show a certain energy and charm, especially in the music, but without Dolly herself pulling you along for the ride, the flaws in the book (written by Patricia Resnick, co-screenwriter back in 80) are more apparent.

Or maybe it's just that 2009 isn't the same as 1979, and what seemed funny and righteous then seems kind of tacky, kind of wrong now. As 9 to 5: The Musical unfolds, as underappreciated, mistreated Doralee, Violet and Judy kidnap and immobilize Franklin Hart, their sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot of a boss so that they can run the biz, as Resnick's script wends its way through various fantasy sequences, including the lurid and squicky sexual yearnings of uptight office drone Roz, who has a thing for Mr. Hart, things get a little unpleasant. Why is it so wrong for Hart to demand that Violet get his coffee, but dandy for Violet to make Roz go get hers? Are we supposed to think Hart is a pig for ogling Doralee's butt when she fantasizes about branding his? There's a crudeness to the situations it's hard to get past.

Judy (Christine Polich) arrives for work in 9 to 5:The Musical

Still, director Scott Susong and his able cast at Illinois Wesleyan make the most of what 9 to 5: The Musical offers. Kate Rozycki is a warm and appealing Violet, and Christine Polich is reminiscent of the fabulous Christine Ebersole with her tuneful, graceful turn as Judy. As Doralee, Lizzie Rainville is in the unenviable position of trying to compete with Dolly Parton, plus her wardrobe is curiously buttoned-up, undermining her "Backwoods Barbie" image, but she's sunny and fun, and her red cowboy boots are adorable.

Kristin Ellert's burnt orange and olive green scenic design (see the poster, way up at the top) is also nifty, with set pieces flying in and out smoothly and Joshua Levinson's Mr. Hart flying up and down (as in the image at left).

In general, the costumes, courtesy designers Maggie Sheridan and Marcia K. McDonald, are kicky, bringing back the late 70s and all that era's sartorial disasters in living color. And wait till you get a load of Elaina Henderson's wigs and hair designs... Mullets! Wispy shags! Wings!

Kudos also to Jean MacFarland Kerr for choreographing funky dance numbers that fill the stage with maximum moves and minimum people. There are quite a few production numbers built into the show, and they all come off well.

9 TO 5: THE MUSICAL
Music and lyrics by Dolly Parton
Book by Patricia Resnick

Illinois Wesleyan University School of Theatre Arts
McPherson Theatre

Director: Scott Susong
Scenic Designer: Kristin Ellert
Costume Designers: Maggie Sheridan and Marcia K. McDonald
Lighting Designer: Stephen Sakowski
Sound Designer: Ian Scarlato
Assistant Director: Anna Klemperer
Musical Supervisor/Conductor: Saundra DeAthos-Meers
Musical Director: Saul Nache
Choreographer: Jean MacFarland Kerr

Cast: Heather Priedhorsky, Patsita Jiratipayabood, Jack Courtard, Emilie Hanlet, Savannah Sleevar, Halimah Nurullah, Katryce Bridges, Jenna Haimes, Marek Zurowski, Adam Walleser, T. Isaac Sherman, Kate Rozycki, Jacob Sussina, Mandi Corrao, Lizzie Rainville, Will Henke, Adrienne Fisk, Annie Kehler, Kayla White, Ian Stewart, Jordan Lipes, Zach Wagner, Brittany Ambler, Joey Chu, Christine Polich, Elliott Plowman, Joshua Levinson.

Remaining performances: November 16 and 17 at 8 pm, and November 18 at 2 pm

Running time: 2:15, including one 15-minute intermission

For ticket information, click here.

With November Here

Pack way the Halloween costume -- November is here for real. And it's starting with a veritable onslaught of theatrical options.

From November 1 to 18 Heartland Theatre Company offers the local premiere of Red, the Tony-Award winning Best Play from 2010, which concerns artist Mark Rothko and his attempt to finish an important commission for New York's posh Four Seasons restaurant. As Rothko works with his assistant, Ken, he also questions his own choices, artistic integrity, and whether it's possible to create in the face of mortality. Christopher Connelly directs Dean Brown as Rothko and Rian Wilson as Ken for this production. Note that there is a special post-show discussion with artists Harold Gregor and Ken Holder after the Sunday matinee on November 11. Click here for showtimes and here for ticket information.

The Maids also opened last night, and it runs through the 10th in the small space tucked inside Illinois State University's Centennial West 207. Second-year MFA directing candidate Vanessa Stalling directs Jean Genet's disturbing play about class, gender and repression, with Fiona Stephens and Elizabeth Dillard as the sisters playing dangerous dress-up games while their employer is away. You can visit ISU's Facebook page for the play here. (As a side note, the poster image you see here for The Maids may be my favorite graphic of the season.)

Lanford Wilson's Home Free!, directed by Leah Cassella, is the second ISU show with November 1 as its start date. It's a short one-act (coming in at about 35 minutes) so the School of Theatre and Dance at ISU has scheduled it with a 5:30 pm curtain so you can see it before you head off to either The Maids or Noises Off. Given its uncomfortable subject matter -- an incestuous and agoraphobic brother and sister -- it's probably a better fit with The Maids. Just a thought! Click here for more info on Home Free! and its four performances.

November 2 is opening night for New Route Theatre's for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow is enuf, Ntozake Shange's  "choreopoem" that deals with the many angles and identities of African-American women. You are invited to join New Route at the YWCA on Hershey Road in Bloomington to "Rediscover the REAL you, reclaim YOUR stuff, put a melody to your dance, be born and handled warmly..." Don Shandrow and Phil Shaw are co-directing the show, with Lyndetta Alsberry choreographing. Performers include Leola Bellamy, Jennifer Cirillo, Melissa James-Shrader, Gabrielle Lott-Rogers, Jennifer Rusk, Claron Sharrieff and Christie Vallela.

And then there's Noises Off, a show I absolutely love, which opens November 2nd and plays through the 10th at ISU's Center for the Performing Arts. It's a farce, it's hilarious, and it's a great introduction to theatre as we see all the wheels come off a very bad production of a terrible sex farce called Nothing On. The Noises Off Facebook page is available if you have questions. Your only real question should be, "How do I get tickets to this laugh fest?"

The musical theatre options at Illinois Wesleyan University are almost always top-notch, and with Scott Susong, head of the Musical Theatre program at IWU, directing 9 to 5: The Musical, it's bound to be a good one. The musical version of 9 to 5 is pretty much the same as the 1980 movie, with Dolly Parton's score adding more music like the bouncy title song to its all-in-good fun female empowerment plot. For IWU, Kate Rozycki, Lizzie Rainville and Christine Polich play the three fed-up, feisty businesswomen who take matters in their own hands after their sexist pig of a boss pushes their buttons one too many times.What a way to make a living! Performances begin November 13 at IWU's McPherson Theatre, continuing till November 18.

Mid-month, Rhys Lovell directs A Kind of Alaska, Harold Pinter's one-act play about a woman who awakens from a 30-year coma, for Eureka College Theatre, with performances November 13-18. Pinter's play deals with Deborah, now middle-aged on the outside but still 16 inside, as she tries to come to terms with the fact that she and the world around her have changed considerably since her last conscious moments.

Getting a jump on the holiday season, ISU's Civic Chorale performs Handel's Messiah at 8 pm on November 14 with John M. Koch conducting at the Center for the Performing Arts.

The National Theatre Live project brings Timon of Athens direct from London to Champaign's Art Theater on November 16. This is a filmed version of the stage show directed by Nicholas Hytner and starring Simon Russell Beale as the titular Timon, who is popular with the fashionable set while he is doling out the bucks, but on his own as soon as the cash is gone.

The Shop Around the Corner, the exquisite little romantic comedy about pen pals who don't know they're also bickering co-workers, hits the big screen at the Normal Theater November 17 and 18. You may know the plot from later versions like You've Got Mail and the musical She Loves Me, but Shop Around the Corner stands apart, an elegant, lighter-than-air confection given the "Lubitsch touch" from director Ernst Lubitsch.

Keeping up the holiday spirit, the Normal Theatre adds The Bishop's Wife with Cary Grant as a ghost/saint/guardian angel for Loretta Young on November 22 and 23,  the Judy Garland musical Meet Me in St. Louis November 24 and 25, and the amazing Fred Astaire hoofing it up with Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn on November 29 and 30.

What better way to close out the month than a little Astairiffic magic?

"Adaptation" and "Alice" This Week at IWU

The Illinois Wesleyan School of Theatre Arts completes its season this week with a double-bill of Elaine May's "Adaptation," directed by Peter Studlo, and an original version of Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland" books called "Alice's Golden Hour," written and directed by Megan Lee Francomb. Studlo and Francomb are graduating seniors in IWU's Theatre Arts program.

May's "Adaptation" was a staple on the stage in the 70s, when this kind of inventive satire was all the rage. May combines elements of the game Parcheesi with Shakespeare's "Seven Ages of Man" speech to create a sharply funny look at how life plays out in all its humor, insanity and quirks of fate. May set up her "Adaptation" with only four actors playing a variety of characters, including a taxi driver, college students, Conrad Hilton and a psychologist named Jo Jo, to show how Man (and Woman) move from the "mewling and puking" infant stage to "whining school-boy," lover, soldier, wise "justice" in maturity, "pantaloon" who is past his prime and beginning to be a bit ridiculous, and finally, a child again as he approaches death "sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." Yeah, that doesn't sound too funny, but May's Parcheesi/Shakespeare approach is both biting and hilarious.

Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking-Glass," often just called "Alice in Wonderland," have been adapted for the stage and screen many times, including a silent film, an all-star Paramount version with W.C. Fields and Cary Grant, the Disney cartoon, a stage version by Eva Le Gallienne that opened on Broadway in 1933 and was revived in the 40s and again in the 80s, each time with Le Gallienne herself as the White Queen, a very different version conceived by the Manhattan Project and directed by Andre Gregory, where audiences entered the theater through an entrance meant to feel like the rabbit hole Alice fell into, and "Lookingglass Alice," a signature piece from Chicago's Lookingglass Theatre that adds acrobatics and a high level of visual spectacle to the proceedings. Oh, and there was a Tim Burton/Johnny Depp movie in 2010 that was also quite spectacular visually. The Mad Hatter even showed up on ABC's "Once Upon a Time." Alice never really goes out of style, does she? It will be interesting to see what angle writer/director Megan Lee Francomb takes with the familiar material, what "Alice's Golden Hour" refers to, and just which scenes and characters from Carroll's books she chooses to include. I'm also curious as to whether Francomb will build a rabbit hole for her Alice within the cozy confines of the E. Melba Johnson Kirkpatrick Laboratory Theatre.

Performances of "Adaptation/Alice" begin Friday, May 18, at 8 pm, and follow on Saturday the 19th at 8 pm and Sunday the 20th at 2 pm. For more information, you can call the IWU box office at 309-556-3232 or check out the Illinois Wesleyan Theatre Facebook page.