Tickets on sale for next Community Theatre show

Wednesday, March 12, 2003
Members of the Key of Gee Barbershop Quartet cast as four pig farmers in the musical "State Fair" include (from left) Merlin Borwn, Carl Philo, Charles Coleman and Russ Ankersen.

Tickets go on sale today for the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical State Fair, presented by the Southwest Nebraska Community Theatre Association.

Tickets are available at Howard Kool Motors, 201 East B, and Hershberger Music Co., 202 W. First.

Prices for the March 27-March 30 performances are $10 for adults and $7 for children age 12 and younger.

The production is co-directed by Greg Hepp and John Havens with a full compliment of local actors, singers, dancers and an orchestra.

State Fair is the updated stage version of a story written in 1932 and turned into movie adaptations in 1933 (with Will Rogers), 1945 (with Charles Winninger, Fay Bainter, Jeanne Crain, Dick Haymes, Dana Andrews and Vivian Blaine) and the 1962 version (with Pat Boone, Bobby Darin, Ann Margaret, Pamela Tiffin, Alice Faye and Tom Ewell).

The show centers around the Abel and Melissa Frake Family of Iowa and their annual outing to the State Fair with their two children, now nearly grown. The trip takes on a new meaning when it becomes apparent that Frake children Wayne and Margy are less interested in winning ribbons for exhibiting pickles and raising pigs than they are in raising romance. The ultimate challenge to Abel and Melissa's down-home sentimentality comes when a cynical neighbor bets Abel $5 that his prize board "Blue Boy" won't win the grand prize at the fair.  

Music featured in the production includes "It Might As Well Be Spring," "Our State Fair (Is A Great State Fair)" "Isn't It Kind of Fun?", "You Never Had It So Good," "When I Go Out Walking With My Baby," "It's A Grand Night for Singing," and "All I Owe (I Owe Ioway)." In addition, several songs feature barbershop singing.

This was the only Rodgers & Hammerstein's musical written for the screen, and after three incarnations on screen, the show began its National Tour, in Des Moines during the opening of the '95 Iowa State Fair. The updated version was so well received it took less than six months to make it to Broadway.

Co-Director John Havens admitted he was never too impressed with the film versions of the musical, but when he saw the musical in 1995, he was so impressed with the updated stage adaptations that he knew it would be a show that would be well received by Southwest Nebraska area audiences.

The cast of nearly 40 began rehearsal in early January.

Performances begin Thursday, March 27. With evening performances beginning at 7:30 p.m. through March 29 and a Sunday matinee starting at 2 p.m.

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