Summer Lyric Theatre

at Tulane University

Presents the 43rd Season


Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane University is thrilled to announce
the 43rd season: Mame, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, and The Music Man.

AUDITIONS FOR 2010 SEASON

Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane University will hold auditions on Saturday, February 27th for its 43rd season of productions.

Auditions for Performers Age 15 and Up:

Auditions for performers age 15 and up will be held Saturday, February 27, 2010. Group dance auditions will begin at 9:30 a.m. in Dixon Hall.

Vocal auditions will be held in five-minute blocks in the Dixon Annex Recital Hall beginning at 12:30 pm. Dancers and singers are asked to bring a current headshot or photograph and a resume. Singers also need to bring sheet music for a 32-bar audition piece or a two to three minute song. An accompanist will be provided for the vocal auditions.

Actors/Singers should call 865-5271 to schedule an audition time.

Mame begins rehearsals on May 26 and runs June 17 - 20. Rehearsals for A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum begin June 21 and will run July 8 - 11. The season closes with The Music Man. These rehearsals begin July 12, and the show will run July 29 - August 1.

Mature, seasoned character actors along with trained actor/singers and young performers age 15 and up are needed and encouraged to audition. Mature, non-singing actors should be prepared to audition with a 1 minute monologue.

Specific Needs:

For A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, the director is looking for showgirls who can sing and dance and men who can sing and dance and do physical comedy - character types with strong voices.

For Mame, the director is looking for versatile dancers who can sing.

For The Music Man, the director is looking for young energetic dancers ages 15 and up. Anyone auditioning for Zaneeta and Tommy need to attend the dance audition.

Possible callbacks will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2010 at 11:00 a.m.

MAME

The 43rd season opens June 17-20 with the Jerry Herman spectacular MAME. With a wit as sharp as a vodka stinger and a heart as free as her spirit, Mame’s wild, adventurous personality bubbles in everyone who lives for the moment and believes that “life is a banquet!”

MAME follows the whirlwind adventures of an unconventional aunt and her orphan nephew, Patrick, along with a collection of memorable characters - including her best friend, Vera Charles, a cobra-tongued, multi-martini grande dame of the legitimate theatre, timid secretary Agnes Gooch, and southern gentleman Beauregard Jackson Pickett Burnside - plus encounters with proper society. Jerry Herman’s marvelous musical numbers include “Mame,” “It's Today,” “Open a New Window,” “If He Walked into My Life,” “We Need a Little Christmas,” “Bosom Buddies,” and “That's How Young I Feel.”

Mame is Eve, St. Joan, Lady Godiva, Susan B. Anthony, Clara Bow, and Florence Nightingale. She is a woman of spirit, innate kindness and undefeatable courage who dances, too, and defies all generation gaps! We have seen hundreds of Auntie Mames and Mames: in each one there seemed to be a flash of something a bit different, a new discovery in the way this remarkable lady thinks, feels, moves. Starring the fabulous Elizabeth Argus as Mame, this Tony award-winning musical will leave you wishing it was your Auntie Mame saying, “Oh, my little love, your Auntie Mame is going to unlock doors for you. What adventures we’re going to have together!”

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Stephen Sondheim’s irreverently hilarious musical, A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, opens as the season’s second production from July 8 -11. "Tragedy tomorrow, comedy tonight!" Broadway's greatest farce is light, fast-paced, witty, and one of the funniest musicals ever written - the perfect escape from life's troubles.

The Tony award-winning A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum takes comedy back to its roots, combining situations from time-tested, 2000 year old comedies of Roman playwright Plautus with the infectious energy of classic vaudeville. The result is a non-stop laugh-fest in which a crafty slave (Pseudolus) struggles to win the hand of a beautiful but slow-witted courtesan (Philia) for his young master (Hero), in exchange for freedom. The Herald Tribune wrote "It's funny, true nonsense! A merry good time!" The sensational score is full of Stephen Sondheim’s irresistible songs including “Comedy Tonight,” "Love, I Hear,” “Lovely,” "Pretty Little Picture," "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid," "That Dirty Old Man," and many more. Starring local favorite Ricky Graham as Pseudolus, Forum promises to be comedy gold!

The Music Man

Closing Summer Lyric’s 43rd season July 29- August 1 is Meredith Willson’s American musical theatre classic, The Music Man. An affectionate homage to Smalltown, U.S.A. of a bygone era, The Music Man follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill as he cons the people of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys’ band he vows to organize – this despite the fact he doesn’t know a trombone from a treble clef. His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian the librarian, who transforms him into a respectable citizen by curtain’s fall.

Daily News called The Music Man, "An extraordinary warm-hearted, funny and captivating show," and the New York Times said it is “as American as apple pie and a Fourth of July oration ... a marvelous show, rooted in wholesome and comic tradition." This Tony award-winning, critically acclaimed Broadway classic is an all-American institution, thanks to its quirky characters, charmingly dramatic situations, and one-of-a-kind, nostalgic score of rousing marches, barbershop quartets and sentimental ballads which have become popular standards including “Goodnight, My Someone,” “The Wells Fargo Wagon,” “Till There Was You,” “Seventy- six Trombones,” and a host of others. This cymbal-smacking Broadway smash family favorite will have you singing the songs from The Music Man all the way home.