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Stage West Community Playhouse to end regular season with Broadway revue

 
Published June 7, 2012

SPRING HILL — Anyone familiar with community theater knows that Broadway musicals are a valuable staple. Directors know they can sell a lot of tickets, even if the show has played the venue several times.

At Stage West Community Playhouse, it's no different. Over the years, the theater has played host to dozens of musicals, from timeless classics such as Showboat and Annie Get Your Gun to more modern offerings such as You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and Little Shop of Horrors.

So it goes to reason that anyone who's a Broadway fan will want to check out Yesterday, Broadway … Today, Stage West, a 90-minute revue this month that will bring together 35 of the theater's more notable voices and some of Broadway's most well-known tunes. Performances are scheduled from June 22 to 24.

Leanne Germann, who has directed and starred in a number of musical productions at the theater, said that staging a musical revue as a finale to Stage West's 2011-2012 season was an intriguing proposition.

"Everyone who is in it is very excited to be part of it," Germann said. "As anyone who has been in musical theater will tell you, once you perform songs in a show they stick with you. You find yourself humming them all the time."

The revue will tap into musicals that Stage West has presented over the past decade and will include performers such as Jessica Virginia (Rocky Horror Show, Chicago), Victoria Primosch (Chicago, Anything Goes), Paul Wade (Li'l Abner), Linda Campo (Funny Girl), Jeffery Germann (The Music Man), Marsha Reiniers (Mame), and many others.

Germann, who is directing the show with Patty Villegas, said the three dozen or so songs that will be featured are from some of Stage West's most popular productions. In addition, the revue will offer something of a sneak peek of the upcoming season, with songs from future productions of Les Miserables, Little Shop of Horrors, Sweeney Todd and Gypsy.

"It was hard to leave out songs, but we had to. Otherwise we might have been there all night," Germann said.

Although the revue is technically the last production of Stage West's regular season, Germann said that preproduction is under way for the theater's annual summer youth show, Annie, Jr., which will run July 13 to 15 and July 20 to 22.

Logan Neill can be reached at (352) 848-1435 or lneill@tampabay.com.