Past Main Stage Productions

Imagine an ambivalent Cinderella, a bloodthirsty Little Red Riding Hood, a Prince Charming with a roving eye, and a witch who raps – they’re all here in Stephen Sondheim’s “fractured fairy tale” about the quest of a baker and his wife who’ve been cursed with childlessness by The Witch next door. To secure some special items required to break the spell, they swindle, lie and steal from the fantasy characters we’ve loved from childhood. Everyone’s wish is granted in Act I, but the consequences of their actions return to haunt them in Act II, forging a moving lesson about community responsibility underlined by Sondheim’s magical songs, including Giants In the Sky, A Very Nice Prince, Ever After, Your Fault, No One Is Alone, and Children Will Listen. This timeless yet relevant musical is a modern Broadway classic!

Chicago

This widely acclaimed musical, depicting the shady side of life in the Windy City during the 1920s, has become an icon of the American Musical scene. Since its debut over 30 years ago, it has been revived time and time again. Told through a series of vaudeville routines, the story sets the tone with the electric All That Jazz, and continues with Roxie Hart’s shooting of her lover and the ensuing jury trial which takes multiple twists and turns, including Roxie’s feigned claim of impending motherhood as her shyster attorney manipulates the media and wins her acquittal. And after two “not guilty” verdicts, Roxie and cohort Velma join forces to form a “sensationally memorable” vaudeville act. Conceived and initially directed/choreographed by the legendary Bob Fosse, the inventive musical/dance score features the songs Razzle Dazzle, Nowadays, and the celebrated Mister Cellophane. Fresh from its highly successful ongoing national tour, and specially released to Riverside Center, this show will alternately amuse, shock, and charm you into its ever-widening circle of ardent admirers!

Hairspray

The musical-comedy phenomenon that inspired a major motion picture and won eight 2003 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. It’s Baltimore in 1962, and lovable plus-size heroine Tracy Turnblad’s passion for dancing pays off as she wins a spot on the popular TV dance program “The Corny Collins Show.” Overnight she is transformed from social outcast to teen celebrity, but this larger-than-life adolescent must then vanquish the program’s reigning princess, win the affection of heartthrob Link Larkin, and integrate the TV network (which has a “Negro Day” once a month but is otherwise segregated) – all without mussing her hairdo. Rock to the hit songs Mama, I’m A Big Girl Now, I Can Hear the Bells, Welcome to the 60s, You’re Timeless to Me, Without Love, Big, Blonde and Beautiful, I Know Where I’ve Been, You Can’t Stop the Beat, and, of course – It’s Hairspray. Irresistible to audiences of any age!

The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas

A country-music extravaganza, based on the last days of Miss Mona’s “Chicken Ranch,” a legendary Texas brothel (which derived its name from a Depression-era policy that allowed customers to pay with poultry) in operation from the 1840s to 1973. Crusading television broadcaster Melvin P. Thorpe seeks to shut down Miss Mona’s business by publicly embarrassing its patrons. Although many of the state’s leading politicians have been customers of the Ranch, they are persuaded to preserve their political careers and join Thorpe in denouncing the establishment and its inhabitants. When Senator Wingwoah covertly promises the victors of a big college football match an evening with Miss Mona and the girls, chaos wins the day as Melvin and a cavalcade of cameramen break into the brothel and begin snapping pictures. Slightly risqué, but loaded with great country songs and hilarious humor. Don’t miss this one!

Hello Dolly

In this exclusive Virginia dinner theater engagement, Emmy award-winning actress Sally Struthers (All in the Family, Gilmore Girls) comes to the Riverside Center stage to reprise one of her favorite Broadway stage roles, the irresistible and unforgettable Dolly Levi. Dolly, a widow and self-made matchmaker extraordinaire, sets her sights on marrying well-known millionaire Horace Vandergelder and liberally circulating his money like her late husband taught her. Along the way she succeeds in matching up three attractive but rather unconventional couples. The Harmonia Gardens restaurant scene where Dolly is greeted by waiters, cooks and wine stewards singing Hello, Dolly! is a classic in the annals of American musical comedy. Included in this joyous score are the songs Put on Your Sunday Clothes, Ribbons Down My Back, Before the Parade Passes By, It Only Takes a Moment, and So Long, Dearie. Family fun and timeless enchantment!

All Shook Up

The ever-popular songs of Elvis Presley are showcased as a 1950s Midwestern young girl's dream of adventure and an unexpected visit by a leather-jacketed, motorcycle-riding, guitar-playing drifter help a "straight-laced" small town discover the magic of romance and the power of rock „n roll. The story line has several "Shakespearean-play" twists and turns of mistaken identity, and revolves around 24 featured Elvis hits, among these the classics Heartbreak Hotel, Love Me Tender, Hound Dog, It's Now or Never, Don't Be Cruel, Jailhouse Rock, Fools Fall in Love, Blue Suede Shoes, The Power of My Love, and, of course the title song – All Shook Up! Join us for a return to the glory days of rock 'n roll, bobby soxers, and "crusin"."

Dreamgirls

A young female singing trio from Chicago called "The Dreams" become mainstream music recording superstars and experience the shady side and pitfalls of show business. Drawing from the aspirations, successes and conflicts of rhythm & blues acts such as The Supremes, The Shirelles, James Brown, and Motown groups, this musical won six Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and was later adapted into an Academy-Award-winning 2006 motion picture. Showstopping songs such as I Want You Baby, Drivin’ Down the Strip, I Am Changing, I Meant You No Harm, One Night Only, Hard to Say Goodbye, My Love, Ain’t No Party, and the signature Dreamgirls, will take your own dreams to new horizons!

White Christmas

This award-winning Broadway rendition of the familiar film story follows two WWII Army buddies, Bob Wallace and Phil Davis, who team up to form a successful night club act and move to the Broadway stage as producers. While in Florida, they receive a request to audition two sisters, Betty and Judy, who persuade them to travel to Vermont for the holidays and discover that the Columbia Inn in Pine Tree, Vermont, run by their former commanding officer, is about to go bankrupt because of lack of snow. Bob and Phil use their wits to draw large crowds and arrange a reunion of their old division comrades at Pine Tree on Christmas Eve, when snow miraculously begins to fall and everyone raises a glass toasting "May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white." Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye starred in the 1954 film, making famous the Irving Berlin standards Count Your Blessings Instead of Sheep, Blue Skies, How Deep Is the Ocean, I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm, and the memorable title song itself.

Fiddler on the Roof

Superbly crafted with historical and ethnic significance, Fiddler has touched audiences all over the world with its humor, warmth and honesty. Its universal theme of tradition transcends barriers of race, class, nationality and religion, evoking tears of both joy and sadness. The featured role of Tevye is one of the most memorable in Broadway musical theatre, as this poor peasant dairyman tries to maintain in his family the longstanding traditions of his Jewish heritage in the face of changing social mores and the growing anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. With a musical score including If I Were A Rich Man, Matchmaker, To Life!, and Sunrise, Sunset, Fiddler was acclaimed by Newsweek Magazine as “one of the greatest musical comedies of our era.” Make sure to reserve early for this one!!

Cabaret

The Emcee of the Kit Kat Club cabaret welcomes you to 1929 Berlin and a cross-section of its night life from the affluent middle classes to the flotsam and jetsam of a doomed city. Cliff Bradshaw, a young impoverished American writer searching Europe for inspiration meets several unsavory characters, including smuggler Ernst Ludwig, Fraulein Schneider, and the young English nightclub singer Sally Bowles, with whom he falls in love. The Nazi party begins its ascent into power, and Cliff asks Sally to accompany him to America, but she refuses; she loves Berlin and her life there. As he departs on a train, the Cabaret personalities surround the compartment – singing, dancing and embarking on the whirlwind that would soon lead to the Third Reich. Musical numbers include The Money Song, Tomorrow Belongs to Me, So What?, Don’t Tell Mama, Two Ladies, Sitting Pretty, and the famous title song.

Anything Goes

Featuring a smash musical score by Cole Porter, the world’s favorite “shipboard” musical sails on, as fresh and captivating as when it was first launched on Broadway, and continues to enjoy multiple revivals including a current Tony-Award-winning run. Billy Croker, an ambitious but bumbling broker, boards the S.S. American just before a midnight journey to plead with his former boss, Elisha J. Whitney, to rehire him. He runs into an old acquaintance, Reno Sweeney, nightclub owner turned evangelist, who is sailing with her quartet of beautiful girls dubbed “the Angels.” Billy’s most recent love interest, Hope, is also on board, but engaged to a British nobleman. The plot blossoms with delightful social satire, gangsters on the lam, and multiple disguises, together with Porter’s scintillating songs made famous by Broadway icons from Ethel Merman to Patti LuPone: Blow Gabriel Blow, I Get a Kick Out of You, It’s De-Lovely, and, of course, Anything Goes. National-tour diva Kathy Halenda returns to Riverside to star in this frenzied, alluring classic filled with hilarious twists and turns!

PHANTOM

Based on Gaston Leroux’s novel The Phantom of the Opera, this version is hailed by critics as eminently equal to its more famous Andrew Lloyd Webber counterpart, and continues to be performed at major venues throughout the world. Erik (the Phantom), raised from infancy in the catacombs under the Paris Opera House, needs beautiful music to maintain sanity, and upon hearing the voice of a street singer named Christine, accepts her as his pupil, but forbids her to look upon his horribly disfigured face. When Gérard Camière, his protector, is dismissed as Opera House manager by new owner Carlotta, whose screeching voice drives him to near madness, the Phantom finds solace only in Christine’s music and falls in love with her. After articulating his torment through acts of desperation, he is surrounded by the police and, fearing capture and treatment as a circus freak, arranges his own demise. A gorgeous, lilting, and often haunting musical score by Maury Yeston, featuring the soaring Phantom/Christine duet Home and ingeniously crafted songs including Dressing for the Night, Melodie de Paris, Where in the World, Without Your Music, You Are My Own, and You Are Music, will both heighten and lavishly indulge your visual and emotional senses. With Broadway’s Patrick A’Hearn in the title role, this is a musical masterpiece not to be missed.

The Sound of Music

Perhaps the world’s most beloved musical, this final collaboration of Rodgers and Hammerstein and treasure of American musical theater and film needs no further introduction than the mention of any one of its many glorious songs: Do-Re-Mi, My Favorite Things, Sixteen Going on Seventeen, Edelweiss, or Climb Every Mountain. Winner of 6 Tony Awards on the Broadway Stage and 5 motion picture Academy Awards, its story and music appeal to the goodness in us all, as we follow the journey of the spirited Maria Rainer – from misfit postulant to lovable governess of the seven von Trapp children to supportive wife of Captain von Trapp himself. The intricate wedding processional is a scenic delight, and the benediction of the Mother Abbess as the Von Trapps prepare for an escape over the Austrian mountains to Switzerland on the eve of World War II provides one of the most thrilling and inspirational finales ever composed for a theatrical production. Reserve early! We may even schedule one or two “sing-along” performances!

Ain't Misbehavin

Highlighting the prodigious comic and musical soul of 1930s Harlem, this sassy, finger-snapping revue features the sometimes rowdy but always delightful songs of the inimitable “Fats” Waller. Evoking a time when Manhattan nightclubs such as The Cotton Club and The Savoy Ballroom were the rage of high society, a versatile cast struts, swings, and energizes the music Waller made famous from downtown Tin Pan Alley to Hollywood to American and international concert stages. Hailed by critics as perhaps the most popular and well crafted Broadway revue of all time, it weaves a “traveling party” theme with songs infused with the joys, heartaches and humor of man/woman relationships, among these, Lookin’ Good But Feelin’ Bad, Honeysuckle Rose, I’ve Got a Feeling I’m Falling, Cash for Your Trash, Squeeze Me, Jitterbug Waltz, I’m Gonnna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter, I Can’t Give You Anything But Love, and It’s a Sin to Tell a Lie. The title song reminds us that although we may deny “misbehavin’” – “one never knows, does one?”

The Full Monty

Theaters on both sides of the Atlantic have enjoyed resounding audience receptions to this “Americanized,” multiple award-winning musical stage version of the 1997 British film. Six unemployed Buffalo steelworkers, seeing how much their wives enjoy male strippers during “Girls Night Out,” devise a novel way to accumulate some cash – they’ll become strippers themselves, but go all the way – “the full Monty.” During the process, they are confronted with anxieties of self-esteem, physical appearance, bigotry, marriage relationships and child custody, but discover a strength in each other to face and overcome their inner demons – without even having to appear absent their underwear! Clever and tuneful melodies abound: Scrap, It’s a Woman’s World, Man, You Walk with Me, Big Black Man, You Rule My World, and a rousing finale, Let It Go! augment a story line that is frisky but heartwarming. Adult themes, but not unduly risqué. You’ll want to bring your mother-in-law!

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