"Tell Me on a Sunday" Has Its One Woman

The musical "Tell Me on a Sunday" (music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by Don Black) is a one-woman show. Or a one-girl show, since I believe the one role in the show is usually simply called The Girl.

That "Girl" has been portrayed by Marti Webb, Lulu, Sarah Brightman, Bernadette Peters, and most successfully, Denise Van Outen (seen at left), the British blonde who served as one of the hosts of NBC's "Grease: You're the One That I Want!" and the BBC's "Any Dream Will Do." The latter show was looking for a new Joseph for a West End "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat," after which Ms. Van Outen married Lee Mead, the winning contestant. I haven't got a clue how I managed to watch all the episodes of "Any Dream Will Do," considering it was only broadcast in England, but sometimes the internet is a magical place.

In any event, "Tell Me on a Sunday" was significantly (and successfully) rewritten and refurbished for the 2003 London production that starred Van Outen, and that version has become the official one used all over the world. "Tell Me on a Sunday" is the musical story of one British girl's journey across the US, looking for love, meeting men, facing disappointment, and eventually, maybe finding herself. The songs "Take That Look Off Your Face," "Unexpected Song" and "Tell Me on a Sunday" have emerged as the best-known pieces in the score, which has been called one of Lloyd Webber's best..

Soprano Natalie K. Stephens, who arrived in Bloomington-Normal in the summer of 2011, kindly dropped me a note to let me know that she has been cast as the Girl, the one woman on stage who carries the whole show, in the Prairie Fire Theatre production of "Tell Me on a Sunday" opening June 29. This is exciting news for Stephens and for those of us who'll be seeing (and hearing) her for the first time.

According to Stephens, "Tell Me on a Sunday" will be her Prairie Fire debut, as she stars in performances June 29 and 30 and July 1, 2012, all scheduled to be performed at St. John's Lutheran Church in Bloomington. She also fills in a few blanks on the technical side, noting that "Sunday" is directed by Cyndee Brown, with Tim Pitchford acting as conductor and Julie Kasa as musical director.

Natalie Stephens received a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance at SIU in Carbondale, and a BFA in Music Theater from Elon University in North Carolina. She also studied opera and voice in Perugia, Italy with Carmen Gonzalez. Stephens was also a soloist in the premiere of Dr. Frank Stemper's "A Brief Message from Makanda, Illinois" at Orchestra Hall in Chicago, and last Christmas, she sang in State Farm's Sounds of Christmas with the Groove Emperors jazz group.

Stephens currently offers voice lessons, does photography, and keeps a blog, all under the umbrella of Blossom Studio @ 309.

What's Next for Prairie Fire Theatre?

Some of the details (like specific dates) are yet to come, but Prairie Fire Theatre has announced its plans for 2012, including one children's opera, two books musicals and one revue.

The children's show is "Tortoise and Hare's Big Race," which looks like it's scheduled for May 12 in the Bloomington Public Library, if this calendar is to be believed. "Tortoise and Hare's Big Race" is billed as Prairie Fire's 2012 school tour, which means it just may be showing up at a school near you (or near your children) in May.

Next up is "Tell Me on a Sunday," a one-woman show about a British girl's romantic (and not-so romantic) journey across the US. With music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Don Black, "Tell Me on a Sunday" looks at an unnamed woman simply called "The Girl," who arrives in New York intent on starting a new life in the US. After finding out her boyfriend has been cheating on her, our Girl finds her way (musically) through several more adventures as she looks for love and independence.

"Damn Yankees," the 1955 classic baseball musical, will be Prairie Fire's summer production. As a famous dance show (with Bob Fosse choreographing for Gwen Verdon in both the original Broadway and film versions), "Damn Yankees" is something of a departure for Prairie Fire, which usually goes for Gilbert & Sullivan or other more vocally-based shows. George Abbott and Douglas Wallop wrote the book about a Washington Senators fan who makes a deal with the devil to get his team a pennant, while Jerry Ross and Richard Adler wrote the breezy, fun score, which includes standards like "Heart" and "Whatever Lola Wants," a song that's currently being used in a Pepsi commercial starring Sofia Vergara. Actors Ray Walston, Vincent Price, Van Johnson, Jerry Lewis, Victor Garber and Sean Hayes have all played the diabolical Mr. Applegate through the years.

And in the fall, Prairie Fire will look to a revue of songs by Burt Bacharach and Hal David, whose distinctive pop sound was all over the charts in the 60s and 70s. "Back to Bacharach and David" was first produced Off-Broadway in 1992 with a cast of four, and it included such Bacharach/David hits as "The Look of Love," "Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head," ""A House Is Not a Home," "Promises, Promises," "I Say a Little Prayer for You," "Close to You," and "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?" Comedian/actress Kathy Najimy and actor/singer/composer Steve Gunderson put the show together, with Najimy directing and Gunderson doing the musical arrangements and orchestrations.

You'll need to watch this page to get the details as Prairie Fire fills in dates and locations for their performances.