There was a time when musical theater lovers could be guaranteed a big-stage Mame every few years or so, but with Civic Light Operas having bitten the dust, regional biggies either opting for the latest Broadway hit or programming yet another Guys and Dolls, Oklahoma!, and Man Of La Mancha (but little or no Jerry Herman), it’s up to Musical Theatre Guild to take on shows like the upcoming season’s rarely-revived Zorba, never-revived Minnie’s Boys, and too-expensive-to-revive Sunday In The Park With George, rehearse them in 25 hours, and give audiences book-in-hand but otherwise almost fully-staged “readings.”īroadway buffs will recall Auntie Mame Dennis, a woman who can “coax the blues right out of the horn” and “charm the husk right off of the corn,” first introduced as the title character of Patrick Dennis’s 1955 novel, adapted for the stage the following year with screen star Rosalind Russell in the role she went on to reprise three years later on the silver screen before Angela Lansbury gave Mame musical life in 1966 thanks to show-tune master Herman, still riding high from the ’64 mega-smash Hello, Dolly!īook writers Jerome Lawrence and Robert E.
audiences to a one-night-only concert staged reading of Jerry Hermans’s Mame that proved not only a terrifically directed-and-performed look back at the 1500-performance 1966 Broadway smash but illustrates to perfection precisely why MTG is a SoCal treasure.
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