'GREASE'

The fall season for Arkansas theater was dominated by crowd pleasers:
lots of big cast musicals with recognizable titles. There was a sense
that theaters needed to put the shiny names out front while hanging on
as aftershocks of the economic recession rippled through the state. The
spring and summer of 2010 isn’t as predictable — oh sure, there will be a
few known commodities on the schedule–and that makes for a more
interesting time all the way around for theater fiends.

Let’s start with “Glorious” (March 12-28), the new comedy by English
playwright Peter Quilter that comes to the Arkansas Repertory Theatre a
mere five years after its London debut. The play is a true-life story of
American soprano Florence Foster Jenkins, who gained dubious notoriety
as one of the worst singers in history. Anybody who has watched the
early rounds of “American Idol” knows that bad vocalists can equal comic
gold.

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Speaking of strivers, Walton Arts Center brings “Runt of the Litter”
(April 23-May 2) to Fayetteville. This one-man show stands out in the
theater crowd because it’s about football, a subject that’s rarely, um,
tackled on the American stage. Former Houston Oiler defensive back Bo
Eason relates a semi-autobiographical tale of sibling rivalry and the
struggle for an undersized player to make it in the NFL. The show
snagged solid reviews in its New York City debut.

Douglas Carter Beane is a much-admired New York playwright with work
that’s been done at the Rep (“As Bees in Honey Drown”). “The Little Dog
Laughed” (March 19-28), which arrives in Little Rock thanks to the
Weekend Theater, is Beane’s 2007 Tony-nominated comedy about an actor
who won’t stay in the closet. A few months later the Weekend Theater
goes blue when the desperate real estate hucksters of David Mamet’s
“Glengarry Glen Ross” (May 14-29) drop F-bombs galore to score that
prize set of steak knives.

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Theatresquared in Fayetteville has an intriguing offering in Theresa
Rebek’s “Mauritius” (March 26-April 11), which deals with the seamy
underside of, wait for it, stamp collecting. A case could be made for
Rebek being one of America’s most popular playwrights and “Mauritius”
promises suspense and laughs. The lineup of Theatresquared’s Arkansas
New Play Festival (May 20-23) has yet to be announced but discovery and
surprise is what’s fun about a three-day binge of readings of brand new
work.

Some of the wind might have slackened in the sails of the Rep’s
production of “Frost/Nixon” (April 23-May 9) due to Ron Howard’s movie
of Peter Morgan’s stage drama. But political junkies will have a feast
on Morgan’s tight (on stage at least) recreation of David Frost’s
post-Watergate interview with Richard Nixon. Morgan’s success pivots on
his ability to communicate the high stakes involved for both the
disgraced former president and the jocular, popular TV host.

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The 1939 movie “The Wizard of Oz” (June 21-23) is considered a treasure
and Celebrity Attractions is counting on that when a stage version —
decked out with some fancy special effects — of the indestructible tale
sets up at Robinson Center Music Hall. Taylor Hicks won “American Idol”
but didn’t move much product so he’s spending time as the Teen Angel in
the touring production of “Grease” (May 4-9) at the Walton Arts Center.
The Rep’s “Smokey Joe’s Cafe” (June 4-27) is a return of the wildly
popular jukebox musical that’s stocked with the tunes of pop/rock
songwriters Jerry Lieber and Mike Stoller.

You can’t get more popular than William Shakespeare and the Arkansas
Shakespeare Festival (June 16-July 3), performing for the fourth season
at Conway’s Reynolds Performance Hall. The rotating repertory pairs “A
Comedy of Errors” with the history play “Henry V,” which attempts to
approximate the “vasty fields of France.” The non-Shakespeare part of
the Festival has scares in “Dracula” and something for younger audiences
in “Alice in Wonderland.”

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