Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Jersey Boys opens Walton play season
Three-eighths of the 201819 Procter & Gamble Broadway Series at Fayetteville’s Walton Arts Center will be shows familiar to Northwest Arkansas audiences; the others will be shows coming to the center’s Baum Walker Hall for the first time.
“We really have a great mix between shows that are Arkansas premieres and ones that are fan favorites; I think there’s a really good balance there,” says Scott Galbraith, Walton Arts Center’s vice president of programming and executive producer.
The premieres include the Lincoln Center Theater Broadway production of
Falsettos, William Finn and James Lapine’s musical (nominated for five 2017 Tony Awards) that will launch its national tour in Fayetteville. The show centers on an intelligent, neurotic gay man, his wife, lover and about-tobe-bar-mitzvahed son, their psychiatrist and the lesbians next door. It runs Feb. 8-9.
“This will be the first tour stop anywhere in the country,” Galbraith says. “They’ll stay in our hotels for two weeks while they rehearse and tech the show. Their first performances will be here and then they will go on the road.”
The season opens with a reprise visit of Jersey Boys, the story of Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, Oct. 5-7.
The rest of the lineup:
Oct. 23-28: School of Rock, featuring all the songs from the film on which it’s based,
with additional music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Glenn Slater, with a book by Julian Fellowes.
■ Dec. 4-9: On Your Feet!, music, lyrics and orchestration by Emilio and Gloria Estefan, book by Alexander Dinelaris, covering the Estefans’ humble beginnings in Cuba, their crossing to America and their becoming a pop music sensation.
■ Feb. 26-March 3: A Bronx Tale, (music by Alan Menken, lyrics by Glenn Slater, book by Chazz Palminteri, based on the film of the same name), the tale, set in the 1960s, of a young man caught between the father he loves and the mob boss he’d love to be.
■ April 9-14, 2019: Waitress (music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles, book by Jessie Nelson, inspired by Adrienne Shelly’s film), the story of a waitress who sees pie-making as a way out of her small town and loveless marriage. ■ May 28-June 2, 2019: Cats, music by Andrew Lloyd Webber, lyrics by T.S. Eliot from his Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats.
■ June 18-23, 2019: Les Miserables, Cameron Mackintosh’s new production of the Alain Boublil/Claude-Michel Schonberg show with scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo.
“One of the things I am particularly eager for people to discover is the number of shows that feature young performers,” Galbraith says, “and how that provides families with the opportunity to expose their children to the arts and for children to identify with” the people onstage.
“School of Rock, On Your Feet!, Falsettos, Waitress, A Bronx Tale and Les Miserables all have child actors. Cats does not, but it’s an accessible, family-friendly show. Of the eight titles, seven of them are very appealing for young audiences. And I love that.” (Jersey Boys, if it were a movie, would have an R rating for language and adult themes.)
In fact, the Waitress touring company will hold local auditions for the part of a girl, age 6-7. It’s unusual but not unprecedented, Galbraith notes; tours of The Wizard of Oz and Camelot have put out casting calls for kids.
Les Mis will be in for the fourth time in Fayetteville but the first time for the newly revised version. Cats, part of the center’s inaugural season in 1992, will be back for its fifth appearance, though it has been more than a decade, and Galbraith notes that Hamilton and Bandstand choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler has given the show “freshness and newness.”
Season tickets are available in six-, seven- or eightshow packages, $285-$593. Call (479) 443-5600 or visit the website, waltonarts center.org.