BoHo Theatre Presents SPITFIRE GRILL, Now thru 10/14

By: BWW News Desk Sep. 14, 2012

BoHo Theatre begins its 2012/2013 season by "returning to its roots with an intimate production of the acclaimed musical The Spitfire Grill by James Valcq and Fred Alley." The production runs tonight, September 14th through October 14th, 2012, at the Heartland Studio in Rogers Park, and is directed by BoHo company member Anna Hammonds. Hammonds most recently acted as assistant director on BoHo's acclaimed Floyd Collins at Theater Wit. The Spitfire Grillrepresents the Bohemian Pillar of Freedom in BoHo Theatre's 2012/2013 Season.

The show follows recently paroled convict Percy Talbott, who is looking for a place to start over, and rural Gilead, Wisconsin, seems just the place. She takes a job at the Spitfire Grill, a crumbling diner where the townsfolk congregate and gossip, run by an ornery widow named Hannah. Hannah has been trying to sell the diner to escape from the painful memories it holds, but the property has been on the market for a decade with no takers. Soon, Percy hatches a plan to hold a raffle for ownership of the Spitfire Grill—for one hundred dollars and an essay about why they might want the Grill, anyone can enter the contest. As the seasons change and rumors about her past build, the contest entries begin to roll in, and Percy starts to realize that she's not the only person in Gilead with a history.

Building on the critical success of its recent hits Big River and Floyd Collins, which also featured folk and bluegrass-inspired musical sensibilities, BoHo looks to bring new life to this popular musical about rural America. When the show debuted in 2001, Billboard Magazine said “The Spitfire Grill is like a breath of fresh country air,” and Jonathan Frank wrote in Sound Advice, “The Spitfire Grill has a simplicity and emotional resonance that has become all too rare in musical theater.” By returning to the company’s home at the Heartland Studio in Rogers Park (following two years of successful shows at Theater Wit), director Hammonds plans to use the closeness and immediacy of this 30-seat venue to uncover the real emotional weight of the inhabitants of Gilead. The production’s music direction is headed by Tom Vendafreddo, who promises a reimagining of the show’s music to fit BoHo’s honest and authentic approach, with a stripped down orchestration and thoughtful layering of instruments with an ear toward telling the story of rebirth through music.

With a reconceived musical sensibility and the company's trademark honesty, BoHo's fall production of the The Spitfire Grill will have you believing in the simple power of redemption.

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