Indiana’s Dunes Summer Theatre has new leader, summer schedule
When Dunes Summer Theatre in Michigan City, Indiana, reopened in 2021 after a pandemic pause, performances were moved to an outside stage to accommodate eager audiences. For 2022, a new artistic director and a full schedule of mainstage shows is welcoming audiences back inside the historic seasonal stage space. The theater, which dates back decades, is on a narrow, tree-lined drive not far off Route 12 — also known as Dunes Highway and favored by droves of vacationing Chicagoans in the summer.
“Last year was the 70th anniversary of our founding in 1951 as the Dunes
Arts Foundation, but we got our 501(c)3 status in 1952, so we classify 2022 as our 71st season,” said Elise Kermani, managing director of the Dunes Arts Foundation.
Last fall, the foundation board of directors named
Steve Scott as the new artistic director for Dunes Summer Theatre. An artistic associate at Goodman Theatre in Chicago, Scott lives in Michigan City and has directed four previous Dunes Summer Theatre productions, including the 2021 outdoor performances of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Cabaret at the Gardens.”
“I directed ‘Spitfire Grill’ on the Dunes stage in 2018, and then returned again in 2019 to direct a run of ‘Working,’ the musical adaptation of Studs Terkel’s bestselling book,” said Scott, a producer at Goodman Theatre for 30 years before retiring in 2017. “I’ve fallen in love with Dunes Summer Theatre’s rich history and its potential for the future.”
THE DUNES SUMMER THEATRE 2022 SEASON BEGINS IN MAY “Next to Normal” (May 27-June 12):
A contemporary rock musical with score by Tom Kitt tackling themes of family loss, acceptance and society’s discomfort discussing issues related to mental illness and depression. The story, conceived by Brian Yorkey, focuses on a mother who lives with a bipolar depression disorder with triggers associated with the loss of her son.
“God of Carnage” (June 17-July 3):
The overlapped lives of two couples, residents of a Brooklyn neighborhood, who face off to discuss a playground incident involving their elementary school children. Yasmina Reza’s play, which won a Tony Award in 2009, unfolds “in real time” over the course of one evening as the parents, and later spouses at odds with one another, engage and enrage in heated discourse, fueled by cocktails, about who’s right and who is wrong and why.
“Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Grand Night of Singing” (July 15-31):
Celebrate more than 30 hit songs from all the musical favorites such as “Oklahoma!,” “South Pacific,” “The Sound of Music,” “Carousel,” “The King and I,” “Cinderella” and others in a musical revue.
“Dunes Broadway Cabaret” (Aug. 12-14):
The latest installment of the popular dunesARTS annual cabaret series; Scott will be master of ceremonies with music direction by Andrew Flasch. The program showcases songs from familiar Broadway productions performed by the artists and cast members from Dunes Summer Theatre’s productions, as well as guest artists.
The 240-seat Dunes Summer Theatre is at the center of a wooded, 19-acre Dunes Arts Foundation campus which also includes eight cabins, all originally constructed in the 1930s from Sears and Roebuck catalog kits, which have been remodeled for modern comfort for actors and crew, many of whom opt to live on the property during a show run.
“While I love our rich 71-year history, my focus and priority is to look ahead,” Scott said. “It’s not the past, but the future of the Dunes Summer Theatre that excites me.”
Dunes Summer Theatre, 288 Shady Oak Drive, Michigan City, Indiana; more at 219-879-7509 and dunesartsfoundation.org