Sunday, May 7, 2000

Music theater's season reflects growing profile

By LAURA STEWART
NEWS-JOURNAL FINE ARTS WRITER

DAYTONA BEACH — When the "Forever Plaid" quartet stepped up to four mikes on the SMT Downtown stage and crooned their first notes this past Friday, May 5, Seaside Music Theater launched its 24th Summer Season.

At the same time, Seaside took the first steps into a new, expanded presence. This summer, the Daytona Beach company will perform on two stages at the Theater Center on Daytona Beach Community College's campus and at the company's new SMT Downtown on North Beach Street, which was renovated this past winter.

Instead of its usual six summer shows, Seaside will open seven five full productions at DBCC, a children's show at SMT Downtown and "Forever Plaid," the revue that was so popular in a 1998 winter run that Seaside brought it back. And, instead of its usual 70 or so performances, Seaside is raising the curtain on 135 58 just for "Forever Plaid."

The leap is a stretch for Seaside, but it's an exciting stretch. " 'This is a big shoe, a really big shoe,' as Ed Sullivan used to say," said Julia Davidson Truilo, Seaside's associate producer. "It's also a big stretch because we haven't increased the permanent staff at all."

Some of Seaside's growth is easy to see and entertaining to visit. The shows in the main season at the Theater Center continue Seaside's tradition of presenting theatrical variety one play, "Arsenic and Old Lace," and four musicals "Street Scene," "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum," Cyrano" and "Damn Yankees." The children's show, "Free To Be ... You and Me," is both fun and educational, while the additional production, "Forever Plaid," is sheer doo- wop fun snap-and-clap movement, smooth four-part harmony, '50s nostalgia.

The heady mix is a large part of Seaside's visible growth, said general manager Lester Malizia. "What we're trying to do is expand the types of theater we can do. We have a wonderful team, wonderful actors, and we're exploring the different kinds of musical theater in all its forms.

"This summer, we're looking at a whole range of musical theater opera, experimental, sung-through. "Street Scene," for example, is from the early '40s. It was one of the first to use jazz and swing in an operatic setting," said Malizia. "Its music is by Kurt Weill, and Langston Hughes the Harlem Renaissance poet did its lyrics; "Street Scene" is a multiracial, multiethnic opera.

"It's just huge," he said. "We have opera people from New York for it, we have Niffer Clarke we have amazing, big-gun voices. Street Scene' is enormous."

Other aspects of Seaside's 24th summer are just as huge. Humor is big, not only in "Forum," the "knockout farce musical," Malizia said, but also in "Arsenic," which is "one of the classic America comedies and which stars Wendy (Lehr) and Julia (Davidson), who are really funny. Even "Street Scene" has its share of laughs, he added. "It deals with class struggles and domestic violence and yet is very funny, though it's ultimately a tragedy."

Having "Street Scene" in its summer season is far from a tragedy for Seaside, however, Malizia said. This year marks the anniversary of the composer's birth in 1900, and "we're part of the Kurt Weill International Centennial Celebration."

As for Seaside's "Cyrano," it will be a lavish revival of the '70s Broadway show. It is deeply romantic, but ... well, there is that gigantic nose and the humor it provokes. Cyrano, in love with Roxane, is afraid that his oversized facial feature will repel her, and ends up ghostwriting letters that win her heart. The humor is as obvious as the changes this summer at Seaside, with its two stages in two different locations, a record number of shows and expanded casts, costumes, sets, crews, programs and budgets.

Just about everything about summer 2000 is bigger, as Seaside grows and its profile rises, Malizia said. "We're moving toward becoming a regional theater, Florida's musical theater. Basically what is happening is that there are some rather well-known composers who are talking about premiering shows here having first performances or building shows here, as we did recently with "Children of Eden" or digging for material that was lost, and reviving it, as we did with "The New Yorkers.'"

"It may not be as visible, but our reputation is growing too, so strongly and so positively that it's ongoing with our regular programs," said Malizia. "We've been working on the long-term stuff as well as the short-term, on this season. We've been developing work that won't appear for several seasons we're already looking at 2004, 2005.

"It almost killed us, but we're set to go now," he said, his broad smile showing how delighted he was with the "big shoes" of Summer 2000. I've thought that maybe I should see about cloning myself."

Playbill

What: Seaside Music Theaters summer 2000 season.

Where: On two stages. Theater Center, Daytona Beach Community College, 1200 International Speedway Blvd., Daytona Beach: Arsenic and Old Lace, June 1 to 11; Street Scene, June 15 to 25; A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, June 29 to July 16; Cyrano, July 20 to 30; Damn Yankees, Aug. 3 to 20. SMT Downtown, 176 N. Beach St., Daytona Beach: Forever Plaid, through Aug. 13; Free To Be ... You and Me, May 27 to Aug. 18.

Tickets: For shows at the Theater Center, $23 to $35 for adult single tickets, $110 for a season subscription. For Free To Be ... You and Me, $5. For Forever Plaid, $20 to $22. For tickets and information, call (904) 252-6200 or 1-800-854-5592; www.seasidemusictheater.org