Beloit Civic Theatre is proud to announce the season of plays 2007 - 2008.

We hope you will be able to join us for three evenings of great entertainment provided by your local community theatre, now in its 75th season!

"Of Thee I Sing"

October 11-13 and 18-21, 2007
Directed by Amber Dalton and assisted by Rebecca Wallendal
Musical direction by Jean Nauer

Beloit Civic Theatre’s musical in the fall will be Of Thee I Sing, a political satire focusing on the election campaign and Presidency of John P. Wintergreen. Wintergreen has no viable platform; he runs simply on love. He even promises that if elected he will marry the girl chosen for him at an Atlantic City beauty pageant. However, trouble begins when he falls in love with his campaign secretary instead of the beauty pageant winner. Diana Devereaux, a Southern belle of French descent who won the contest and was promised the position of "First Lady," comes back with a vengeance when she proclaims that she will be taking legal action. The French ambassador is brought into the scene for a slight surprise on the behalf of Mr. Wintergreen: Diana is the "illegitimate daughter of the illegitimate son of the illegitimate nephew of Napoleon." It looks as if the President will be impeached for breach of promise (the French try to turn the incident into an international scandal) but Mary saves the day with a surprise of her own. Of Thee I Sing is set in the White House, with music and lyrics by George and Ira Gershwin, to a book by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind. In its time, it was the Gershwins' longest-running show. It won the Pulitzer Prize for the best American play of 1932 (the first musical comedy to win a Pulitzer) - one of the signs that the American musical was coming of age. Brooks Atkinson's review in the New York Times called it "a taut and lethal satire... funnier than the government, and not nearly so dangerous." Musically, it was the most sophisticated of the Gershwin shows up to then, and it used extensive recitative to further the plot. Its songs advanced the story line in a way not even tried by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II in Show Boat, and in a way that would not be seen again until the days of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

BCT selected this musical for a production this season because the musical was running on Broadway at the time of Beloit Civic Theatre’s founding in 1932, seventy-five years ago.

 

"Laura"

January 24-25-26-31 and February 1-2, 2008
Directed by Barry Nyquist

Detective Mark McPherson investigates the killing of the famous advertising executive Laura Hunt who is found dead on her apartment floor. McPherson builds a mental picture of the dead girl from the suspects whom he interviews. He is helped by the striking painting of the late lamented Laura hanging on her apartment wall. But who would have wanted to kill this girl? Every man she met seemed to fall in love with her. To make matters worse, while investigating Laura's past through her diary and personal letters, McPherson finds himself falling under her spell too. Then one night, halfway through his investigations, something seriously bizarre happens to make him rethink the whole case.

As BCT was doing some detective work of their own for our 75th anniversary year, we discovered that Laura was the very first show directed for Beloit Civic Theatre by our own Elizabeth Reinholz, way back in 1952.

 

"The Whole Town's Talking"

April 24-25-26 and May 1-2-3, 2008
Directed by Carl Balson

The Whole Town’s Talking was the very first play Beloit Civic Theatre ever produced. We managed to locate a copy of the out-of-print play, and found ourselves pleasantly surprised that the comedy was very funny. It made perfect sense to Beloit Civic Theatre’s Board of Directors to try a revival of this show 75 years after our founding.

In the play, a successful businessman finds himself giving advice to the lovelorn to his shy business partner, including the suggestion that he should invent a love interest in order to make himself more appealing to other women. After selecting a random photo to be his “girlfriend,” things start to fall apart. It turns out that the photo is of a famous movie star, and the whole town starts gossiping about the new love interest. To make matters worse, the movie star is scheduled to make a local celebrity appearance and everyone expects our hero to appear with his “intended.” The plot twists and turns, and as in all good comedies, everything is resolved at the end. In 1926, the play was made into a silent film. There also was a 1935 film based on the play, but it switched the plot around completely. Don’t miss our hilarious production of this classic comedy!