‘Angels in America’
SHORT NORTH STAGE, GARDEN THEATER’S MAIN STAGE, 1187 N. HIGH ST.
614-725-4042, www.shortnorthstage.org
The two-part fantasia is being revived, starting with the first half, subtitled “Millennium Approaches.”
8 tonight (preview) through Saturday night and 3 p.m. Sunday, with shows through July 2
$32 to $37; $30 for the preview
The casting is key to “I Do! I Do!” To close its 2016-17 season, CATCO has chosen a husband-and-wife team of veteran actors to co-star in the musical about a 50-year marriage.
“It’s a microcosm of what marriage is,” said Joe Bishara, who will star along with his wife, Liz Wheeler. “The poignant musical comedy homes in on how when you’re married, it’s important to make concessions. To err is human; to forgive is divine.”
The vintage Broadway hit will open Friday in the Riffe Center.
Director Steven Anderson cast Bishara, CATCO's associate producing director, and Wheeler; the couple will celebrate their third anniversary in November.
“The two roles fit so well for them,” Anderson said.
“Joe and Liz have a chemistry that’s really palpable. This was an opportunity to cast the right couple to play this archetypal dream of what married life could be.”
Mary Martin and Robert Preston co-starred in the show that opened in 1966 on Broadway.
Composer Harvey Schmidt and author-lyricist Tom Jones — the team best known for “The Fantasticks” — adapted “I Do! I Do!” from Jan de Hartog’s 1951 Broadway play “The Fourposter.”
“Schmidt and Jones did a wonderful job of showing the good and bad in marriage,” Bishara said. “They capture the essence of humanity, how there are bumps along the road, but life is beautiful with many things to cherish.”
The two-actor musical covers a married couple from their 20s to their 70s.
“This musical does a good job, in a lighthearted way, exposing that marriage isn’t easy, that there will be times when you struggle and when one or both of you fail,” Wheeler said. “But love is about accepting someone through their failures and struggles.”
Wheeler plays Agnes, a