feature article - march 2012

Two world premieres at Broadway Theatre Center

IT’S UNUSUAL IN Milwaukee to see one world premiere of a stage play or musical, let alone two.

This month theatre goers have the opportunity to see the world premiere of Wisconsin-based playwright Gwendolyn Rice’s A Thousand Words and Daddy Long Legs, a new musical written by Tony Award-winning director John Caird.

A Thousand Words is a Milwaukee Chamber Theatre production playing through March 11 in the Studio Theatre of the Broadway Theatre Center in the Historic Third Ward. Daddy Long Legs will be presented March 9-April 1 on the Cabot Stage of the Center by the Skylight Music Theatre.

Staged in collaboration with Forward Theater Company of Madison, A Thousand Words finds Sally Quinn, a quick-witted curator from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, traveling to the Midwest in search of antique quilts for a new exhibit. She stumbles upon something more intriguing: a young woman who might provide a special connection to some rare photographs and renowned photographer Walker Evans.

Jumping back and forth from the present to the 1930s, Rice explores the complexities of the art world and personal relationships. She conceived of the idea for the play after reading about the discovery of a cache of Evans’s photos.

Daddy Long Legs is winding its way toward Broadway. Based on a 1912 novel by Jean Webster, it is a coming of age Cinderella story about an orphan, who is given an opportunity to attend university by an anonymous benefactor.

The musical is being presented by Skylight in association with a consortium of regional theater companies. The initial production was at the Rubicon Theatre Company in Ventura, California.

Megan McGinnis, who has many Broadway credits, and Robert Adelman Hancock play the lead roles in the new musical, as they did in the initial production in Ventura. An inventive musical score ranges in style from classical musical theatre to folk and pop.

Period costumes and set are by David Farley, who received rave reviews for his inventive Broadway designs for Sunday in the Park with George and a revival of A Little Night Music.