BrightSide Theatre's Youth Project Presents THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE, JR.
By: A.A. Cristi Jan. 16, 2017
BrightSide Theatre, Naperville's only professional theatre performing in the historic downtown district, is pleased to announce its fifth production of the BrightSide Theatre Youth Project with the musical -Thoroughly Modern Millie Jr. Directed by BrightSide Artistic Director Jeffrey Cass and playing March 11-19, 2017 at the Theatre at Meiley-Swallow Hall at North Central College, 31 S. Ellsworth Street in Naperville, tickets are on sale now atwww.BrightSideTheatre.com or by calling 630-447-TIXS (8497).
Thoroughly Modern Millie Jr., is the high-spirited musical romp that has all of New York dancing the Charleston! Filled with fun flappers, dashing leading men and a villainess audiences will love to hate, Thoroughly Modern Millie JR. is a clever adaptation of the Academy Award®-winning film.
It's 1922 in New York City, and a young Millie Dillmount has just moved to the Big Apple in search of a new life. Her grand plan is to find a job as a secretary for a wealthy man and then marry him. However, her plan goes completely awry. Millie's wealthy boss is slow in proposing marriage, and the man she actually falls in love with doesn't have a dime to his name - or so he tells her. What's a small town girl to do?
PRODUCTION DETAILS:
Title: Thoroughly Modern Millie Jr.
Book by: Richard Morris and Dick Scanlan
New Music by: Jeanine Tesori
New Lyrics by: Dick Scanlan
Director: Jeffrey Cass
Music Director: Sarah Giordano
Choreographer: Jeni Donahue
Cast: Thoroughly Modern Millie Jr. features Kids Performing for Kids who are ages 8 to 16 and from the local area.
Jordan Berger, Neris Gorener, Amanda Kornak, Kylie Martin, Mikaela Opaso, Claire Potter, Grace Potter, Annabel & Chloe Punzel, Lara Risdon all of Naperville; Maggie Clark, Ruby Konopacki, Abby Rook of Downers Grove; Logan Baffico of LaGrange Park; Kali Cassarino-Sulit of Lisle; Morgan Brown of Oswego; Felix David, Finn David, Summer Jarka, Kayla Miller, Kara Riveraof Bolingbrook; Mehervaan Heneghan, Christina Pettinger of Lombard; Nicole Pelters of Plainfield; Toby Micheletti of Glen Ellyn; Christopher Charles of Woodridge; and Lila Thome of Burr Ridge.
Location: Theatre at Meiley-Swallow Hall at North Central College, 31 S. Ellsworth Street in Naperville.
Dates: March 11-19, 2017
Curtain Times:
Saturdays - 11 am & 2 pm performance
Sundays - 6 pm
Sundays - 6 pm
Tickets: $12 Discounts: Students $10. Tickets are on sale now by at www.BrightSideTheatre.com or by calling 630-447-TIXS(8497).
About the Composer:
Jeanine Tessori won the Tony Award for Best Original Score with Lisa Kron for the musical Fun Home, which is currently playing on Broadway. She has also written Tony-nominated scores for Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center; Thoroughly Modern Millie (lyrics, Dick Scanlan); Caroline, or Change (lyrics, Tony Kushner); and Shrek The Musical (lyrics, David Lindsay-Abaire). The production of Caroline, or Change at the National Theatre in London received the Olivier Award for Best New Musical. Her 1997 Off-Broadway musical Violet (lyrics, Brian Crawley) opened on Broadway in 2014 and garnered four Tony nominations, including Best Musical Revival. Opera: A Blizzard on Marblehead Neck (libretto, Tony Kushner; Glimmerglass) and The Lion, The Unicorn, and Me (libretto, J. D. McClatchy, Kennedy Center). Music for plays: Mother Courage (dir. George C. Wolfe, with Meryl Streep and Kevin Kline), John Guare's A Free Man of Color (Lincoln Center Theater, dir. George C. Wolfe), and Romeo and Juliet (Delacorte Gala). Film scores: Nights in Rodanthe, Every Day, and You're Not You. Ms. Tesori is a member of the Dramatists Guild and was cited by the ASCAP as the first female composer to have two new musicals running concurrently on Broadway. She is the founding artistic director of Encores! Off-Center at New York City Center, and is a lecturer in music at Yale University. Most of all, she is the proud parent of Siena Rafter, a senior at LaGuardia High School for the Arts.
About the Lyricist and Co Book Writer:
Dick Scanlan co-wrote and co-directed Whorl Inside a Loop Off-Broadway at Second Stage, inspired by his experiences volunteering at a men's prison. He co-authored Everyday Rapture, a critically acclaimed musical written with and for Sherie Rene Scott, produced on Broadway at the American Airlines Theatre by The Roundabout Theatre Company, and Off-Broadway at Second Stage. Mr. Scanlan received 2010 Tony, Drama Desk and Lortel nominations for his work on Rapture. He also wrote the book and lyrics for 2002's Tony and Drama Desk Award Winning Best Musical, Thoroughly Modern Millie, music by Jeanine Tesori. Along with Ms. Tesori, Mr. Scanlan was commissioned by Sony to compose the song The Girl in 14G for Kristin Chenoweth's debut album, Let Yourself Go. He also served as Script Consultant to the legendary Berry Gordy in connection with Motown The Musical. His wholly rewritten version of The Unsinkable Molly Brown its world premiere at the Denver Center Theatre Company. He directed Jake Gyllenhaal, Taran Killam and Ellen Greene in Little Shop of Horrors at Encores! Off-Center. Mr. Scanlan began his writing career as a fiction writer. His novel, Does Freddy Dance, was published in 1995 to glowing reviews and was reissued in paperback in 1997, both by Alyson Publications. His short fiction has been seen in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines, and is included in the inaugural edition of Best American Gay Fiction (Little, Brown) along side such luminaries as Edmund White and Michael Cunningham. He has published numerous articles and essays in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, The Village Voice, Playboy and many other publications, and served as editor-in-chief of POZ, a national magazine for people living with HIV/AIDS. In 2011, he co-founded artsINSIDEOUT, an ASTEP program that sends teams of American theatre artists to Johannesburg to partner with South African artists to work with children infected with or affected by HIV/AIDS. Also a performer, Mr. Scanlan originated the role of Miss Great Plains in the hit Off-Broadway musical, Pageant.
About the Co Book Writer:
Richard Morris was nominated for the 2002 Tony Award (Best Book) and the 2002 Drama Desk Award (Best Book) for his work on THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE the Tony and Drama Desk award winning Best Musical of 2002. THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE played on Broadway for over two years followed by a U.S. national tour which ran for almost three years. MILLIE played in London's West End at the historic Shaftsebury Theatre and was nominated in England for the 2004 Laurence Olivier Theatre Award for Best New Musical of 2003. The show then toured extensively in the United Kingdom. THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE has brought heartfelt joy to audiences in Australia, South Africa and Japan and it currently is being performed in regional, community, college and high school theaters across the globe. THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE is the stage adaptation of the original Universal film solely created and written by Richard Morris. Mr. Morris won the prestigious Writers Guild of America Award for the motion picture as Best American Musical and the film received seven Academy Award nominations and five Golden Globe nominations. Earlier Broadway acclaim came to Richard Morris with his original book - THE UNSINKABLE Molly Brown - music by MerEdith Wilson. THE UNSINKABLE Molly Brown had a stellar Broadway run and the high spirited musical has played across world stages for many years and continues to do so. Presently a new book for The Unsinkable Molly Brown - based on the original by Richard Morris - but utilizing historical details of the real Mollly Brown's life, rather than the myth of Molly, with a score by Meredith Willson, is being developed by Dick Scanlan, Richard's co-author of the theatrical version of THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE. As a motion picture film writer, Richard Morris had a number of films to his credit beyond THOROUGHLY MODERN MILLIE including IF A MAN ANSWERS and CHANGE OF HABIT. Beyond his theatrical and feature film writing career, Richard Morris made vast contributions to the television world, creating almost a hundred teleplays, directing and producing many of his own scripts. His writing for television garnered him an Emmy nomination. He further received the Christopher Award in honor of his television directing. Richard Morris was an avid art and history buff and a world traveler. A native of Burlingame, California, Mr. Morris attended the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. He enlisted in the Army and wrote shows while in the Special Services Division. Thereafter he moved to New York and studied acting at The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre. His work at The Playhouse also included writing, which as Fate would have it, landed him a screen writing position at Universal Studios, returning him to Los Angeles. And as the saying goes, the rest is history. Richard Henry Morris enjoyed an enormously successful career in three different entertainment arenas - the theater, motion pictures, and television. Though he has passed on, his life was full and his talents have left a legacy for audiences to be charmed by and to forever appreciate.
About the Director:
Jeffrey Cass a Joseph Jefferson Nominee most recently directed Disney's Beauty and the Beast, Spamalot, The Sound of Music, It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play Cabaret, RENT, Company, BrightSide Theatre's inaugural production - Run For Your Wifeand also for BrightSide Theatre's Youth Project inaugural production Disney's Alice in Wonderland, Disney's The Little Mermaid, Disney's Aladdin and Legally Blonde Jr. and this season's Guys and Dolls. He holds a B.F.A. in Musical Theater Performance from Roosevelt University where he also studied lighting design and stage management. He previously served as the Producing Director for Circle Theatre where he directed The Who's Tommy (6 Joseph Jefferson Nominations including Best Musical and Best Director) Bash and The Distance From Here (Midwest Premier) by Neil LaBute, Burning Blue (Midwest Premier), Crazy for You, Beauty and the Beast, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Urinetown, Peter Pan and New Plays Festival 2 and 3.
BrightSide Theatre Youth Project is guided by the belief that involvement in arts programs increases the development in children on both an academic and social scale while building self-esteem. The BrightSide Theatre Youth Project is designed to provide a professional and educational learning experience for grade school to high school students aged 8-18 interested in exploring musical theater. In this program, children work directly with professional directors, musical directors, choreographers, designers, and artists to develop their own theatrical skills. Our staff has/currently works with professional theatres including, Paramount Arts Center, First Folio, Chicago Shakespeare, Broadway in Chicago, Drury Lane Oak Brook.
BrightSide Theatre (Jeffrey Cass, Artistic Director and Julie Ann Kornak, Executive Director) now in its 6th season is Naperville's only professional theatre performing in the historic downtown district. BrightSide Theatre is committed to Enlighten, Educate, and Entertain through comedies and inspirational stories from across the globe. A unique blend of award-winners, premieres, modern works and timeless classics meant to reflect upon and inform our community inhabit BrightSide's stage.
BrightSide Theatre Youth Project is partially supported and funded by a generous SECA grant and the Dolly McCarthy Show.
For more information on BrightSide Theatre and the BrightSide Theatre Youth Project, please visit www.brightsidetheatre.com.
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