A new era for 22-year-old Cygnet Theatre begins this week when it debuts its new home space, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center in Arts District Liberty Station, with a production of the Stephen Sondheim\/James Goldman musical \u201cFollies.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a show I\u2019ve absolutely dreamed of doing forever,\u201d said Cygnet Artistic Director Sean Murray said, of the rarely staged 1971 musical in which former showgirls gather on the occasion of the pending demolition of the Broadway theater where they performed between the 1920s and early 1940s. \u201cIt\u2019s about nostalgia and confronting yourself midlife about the choices you\u2019ve made, and all of that is mixed in between this fabulous, surreal reunion in a theater full of vaudeville ghosts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cygnet\u2019s new theater, affectionately nicknamed The Joan, boasts a stage spacious enough to accommodate a cast of nearly 30 and the technical demands required of \u201cFollies,\u201d which hasn\u2019t been produced locally since Starlight Musical Theatre opened its 1990 season with a staging at the San Diego Civic Theatre.<\/p>\n
A New York Times article about a reunion of Ziegfeld Follies performers was the impetus for Sondheim and Goldman\u2019s musical, which in the telling interweaves ghosts of the Weismann Girls\u2019 younger selves in a poignant reflection on life decisions, relationships and aging. It features the Sondheim tunes \u201cBroadway Baby,\u201d \u201cI\u2019m Still Here\u201d and \u201cLosing My Mind\u201d to name three.<\/p>\n
With the \u201cFollies\u201d theme and story in mind, director Murray has cast 27 actors, including a number of veteran actors well-known to San Diego audiences including Sandy Campbell and the Long Beach-based Karole Foreman in the key roles of onetime showgirls Sally Durant Plummer and Phyllis Rogers Stone, respectively. Also among the cast are Anise Ritchie, Leigh Scarritt, Melinda Gilb and Dagmar Krause Fields.<\/p>\n
The oldest ex-Weismann girl, Hattie Walker, will be played by 80-year-old Patti Goodwin.<\/p>\n
\u201cPatti and I did stuff together when I was (a young actor) in high school,\u201d Murray recalled. \u201cShe was the queen of Starlight (Theatre) and Moonlight (Amphitheatre) in the 1970s and \u201880s. She came out of retirement to do this show.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Campbell and Foreman, \u201cFollies\u201d is their second Sondheim musical together at Cygnet, having both been in the cast of the theater\u2019s 2018 production of \u201cA Little Night Music\u201d in its former Old Town Theatre space.<\/p>\n
\u201cFollies\u201d for Foreman is \u201ca timeless piece. We\u2019re always at a point in our lives where we\u2019re looking back at where we came from with awe and wonder, sometimes anger, sometimes cringing. It\u2019s our past that made us who we are today.\u201d<\/p>\n
She said she loves her New York socialite character, Phyllis: \u201cSeeing her journey and her struggle to reclaim that part of herself and to find a way to be independent in her circumstances is really appealing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the same way, Campbell is delighted to portray Sally, whom she calls \u201ca bit off the rails at times. She\u2019s going to do what she\u2019s going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both actors appreciate a show that, Campbell says, is \u201ca little off the beaten path. The music is fantastic, but the story itself is a little hard sometimes. I consider it a masterpiece. It\u2019s so varied in what it is. There are pastiche numbers, there are all these in-the-book numbers and this follies thing at the end that is its own weird animal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreman, who teaches a musical theater class, said \u201cSondheim and his collaborator (Goldman) literally turned the musical inside out with this show. We don\u2019t have a clear hero. We don\u2019t have a clear villain. This is life. This is messy. Our lives and relationships and what we thought the world was, it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n
At Cygnet, Phyllis\u2019 husband Ben Stone is being played by David Humphrey, with Russell Garrett as Sally\u2019s spouse Buddy Plummer. Nio Russell (New Village Arts\u2019 \u201cThe Color Purple\u201d) is the specter of the young Phyllis and Audrey Deubig (\u201cRichard O\u2019Brien\u2019s The Rocky Horror Show\u201d at Cygnet) the young Sally.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the most wonderful things about this show,\u201d Campbell said, \u201cis the intergenerational element: It\u2019s the young ones looking forward and seeing what is possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Foreman expects that \u201cWith its intergenerational aspects, young people coming to the show will be inspired and entertained and moved. \u201c<\/p>\n
\u2018Follies\u2019<\/p>\n
When:<\/strong> Previews begin Wednesday. Opens Sept. 13 and runs through Oct. 12. 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays<\/p>\n