Advertisement

Sweet, sentimental 'State Fair' opens March 5 at Richey Suncoast Theatre

 
The midway is alive with carnival barkers. It’s no different in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair, at the Richey Suncoast Theatre in New Port Richey.
The midway is alive with carnival barkers. It’s no different in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s State Fair, at the Richey Suncoast Theatre in New Port Richey.
Published Feb. 25, 2015

NEW PORT RICHEY — In the mood for a folksy, homespun story with some hummable Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II tunes?

Richey Suncoast Theatre will ladle it on with the musical State Fair, first seen as a movie in 1945 and a remake in 1962, then made into a stage show that wound its way through regional theaters and the Iowa State Fair, to finally land on Broadway in 1996. It plays March 5 and weekends through March 22.

State Fair had a relatively short run — it was competing for customers with Rent, The Lion King, The Phantom of the Opera and the revival of Chicago, among others — but it won a Tony Award for best musical score that year.

Opening on an Iowa hog farm, it's the story of the Frake family's five-day trip to the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines in 1946. Patriarch Abel (Bob Marcela, Charlie Awards for lead male in Spamalot, The Amorous Ambassador and others) has bet his neighbor Dave Miller (Roger Kleemichen) $5 that everything will go peachy for the Frakes. Miller bets that something will go wrong and somebody will end up unhappy. (Perhaps he's just jealous that he isn't going to the fair, too.)

Abel hopes to win first prize for his favorite hog; his wife, Melissa (Anne Lakey, Betty in The Foreigner, Dolly in Hello, Dolly!), has her heart set on winning the blue ribbon for her very special mincemeat.

Son Wayne (Justin Hawkins, Iago in Santa's North Pole) has just graduated from high school and is unhappy about having to leave his girlfriend behind to accompany his family to the fair, but his younger sister, Margy (Suzanne Meck, dancer in Thoroughly Modern Millie), is relieved to get away from her hometown beau, who is pushing her to marry him.

The Frakes scatter once they get to the fair. Abel goes off for some farm talk in the beer tent. Wayne quickly finds romance with the worldly singer Emily Arden (Megan Gillespie, Molly in The Unsinkable Molly Brown), who has rescued him from a classic carnival shill. Margy is wooed by the ambitious reporter Pat Gilbert (Justin Buyea, Waiter in Dolly), but is initially unimpressed.

The Frakes spend the next few days enjoying the fair, dancing and singing to Rodgers and Hammerstein tunes, including the award-winning hit tunes It Might as Well Be Spring and It's a Grand Night for Singing. Several other songs are from earlier R&H shows — So Far from Allegro, The Man I Used to Be from Pipe Dream, That's the Way It Happens from Me & Juliet — and a couple that had been cut from their blockbuster Oklahoma!

The story is sweet and sentimental, with no heavy drama and a happy ending. It's suitable for all ages. The directors are Jillian Buyea, who co-wrote the 2014 Christmas show, and Marie Skelton, who has won several Charlie Awards for directing and choreography. The music director is Steve Schildbach (Company at RST and several shows at Stage West Community Playhouse).