Lyceum Theatre announces 50th anniversary season lineup

Arrow Rock Lyceum Theatre officials recently unveiled the lineup of shows for the 2010 season, the theatre's 50th anniversary, according to an Oct. 14 news release from the theater.

"Our goal in assembling the Lyceum's 50th season was to create a fun and celebratory combination of musicals and plays befitting this major milestone," said Artistic Director Quin Gresham. "We think we have just such a line-up."

The 50th anniversary season opens on June 2 with the Lyceum Premiere of Mel Brooks' "The Producers," winner of a record-breaking 12 Tony Awards in 2001 including Best Musical.

Based on the film starring Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel, this outrageously funny musical tells the story of a down-on-his-luck Broadway producer and his mild-mannered accountant who come up with a scheme to produce the most notorious flop in history thereby bilking their backers out of millions of dollars.

Only one thing goes awry: the show is a smash hit and the investors want their returns.

"The Producers" will run from June 2 to June 12.

The Lyceum follows premiere with a standard of musical theatre, "Anything Goes," opening June 19.

The 1920s musical comedy is a farce set below decks on a ocean liner bound for London from New York. The story is an age-old tale of Boy-Meets-Girl, and the complications that ensue are told through the music and lyrics of Cole Porter.

"Anything Goes" includes some of Broadway's most memorable songs such as "Friendship," "I Get a Kick Out Of You," "It's Delovely" and "Blow Gabriel Blow."

"Anything Goes will run from June 19 to June 27.

The Lyceum continues the fun on July 3 with the comedy "Red, White and Tuna," the third installment in the popular Greater Tuna series.

A Lyceum premiere, "Red, White and Tuna" takes place in Tuna, Texas, the "third-smallest" town in the state, "where the Lion's Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies."

Two actors will play all 24 characters.

This newest installment centers on the town's Fourth of July Homecoming Reunion and fireworks display, the homecoming queen contest, and a wedding, a honeymoon and the Smut Snatchers' drive to censor the Methodist hymnal.

"Red, White and Tuna" will run from July 3 to July 11.

Rounding out the first half of the 2010 anniversary season, the Lyceum returns to musical theatre with Lerner and Lowe's 1957 Tony Award-winning musical "My Fair Lady," opening July 21.

When two noted British linguists, Prof. Henry Higgins and Col. Hugh Pickering overhear a cockney flower girl named Eliza Doolittle caterwaul in the street, they wager a bet that Higgins can transform the young girl into a refined Victorian lady. My Fair Lady introduced such classic musical numbers as "The Rain In Spain," "I've Grown Accustomed To Her Face" and "I Could Have Danced All Night."

"My Fair Lady" will run July 21 to July 31.

The fifth show of the 2010 season will be "The Man Who Came To Dinner," opening Aug. 7.

This three-act comedy is written by George S. Kaufman and Moss Mart, the same writers who penned this season's hit, "You Can't Take It With You."

"The Man Who Came To Dinner" centers around Sheridan Whiteside, a distinguished theatre critic, lecturer and radio personality who, arriving to dine at the home of the prominent Stanley family in a small Ohio town, slips on their icy doorstep and injures his hip.

A tumultuous six weeks of confinement follow, during which Whiteside monopolizes the living room and takes over the Stanley household.

Before it's over, the outrageous has become commonplace. This stylish and funny production will feature one of the largest casts ever assembled for a play at the Lyceum.

"The Man Who Came To Dinner will run Aug. 7 to Aug. 14.

Mystery and intrigue will come next with Agatha Christie's classic, "And Then There Were None," opening Aug. 21.

"And Then There Were None," also published under the title "Ten Little Indians," is Agatha Christie's best-selling novel, with 100 million sales to date, making it the world's best selling mystery.

In this whodunit, statuettes of little soldier boys on the mantel of a house on an island off the coast of Devon fall to the floor and break one by one as those in the house succumb to a diabolical avenger.

Eight guests who have never met each other or their apparently absent host and hostess are lured to the island and, along with the two house servants, marooned.

A nursery rhyme tells how each of the ten "soldiers" met his death -- until there were none.

"And Then There Were None" will run Aug. 21 to Aug. 28.

The Lyceum's seventh show of the season will be "Pump Boys and Dinettes," opening Sept. 4.

This musical, written by a performance group of the same name, opened on Broadway in February 1982.

The musical tells the story of four men who work at a gas station, and two waitresses at the "Double Cupp Diner," located somewhere between Frog Level and Smyrna, N.C.

"Pump Boys and Dinettes" is a musical tribute to life by the roadside.

"Pump Boys and Dinettes" will run Sept. 9 to Sept. 12.

By popular demand, the Little Sisters of Hoboken are back on the Lyceum stage to close out the 50th anniversary season in "Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Musical," opening Nov. 13.

The nuns have turned their convent basement into a TV studio and are producing their first Christmas special.

It stars the nuns from this season's "Nunsense," plus Father Virgil and some of Mt. Saint Helen's most talented students.

With a mixture of their prepared program and a healthy dose of shenanigans, these singing, dancing sisters are sure to delight audiences because as everyone knows "Nunsense is habit-forming."

"Nuncrackers: The Nunsense Christmas Musical" will run Nov. 13 to Nov. 21.

The Lyceum 2010 season will continue to offer special pricing for groups of 10 or more, also gift certificates for the 2010 season are available by calling the theatre at 660-837-3311.