MUHLENBERG SUMMER MUSIC THEATRE
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BROADWAY AT HOME IN THE LEHIGH VALLEY
"Without our traditions, our lives would be as shaky as a fiddler on the roof!"
The Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre will produce three mainstage musicals in 2007: Nunsense, the eternally popular comedy with book, lyrics and music by Dan Groggin; Fiddler on the Roof, the venerable Broadway classic based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem with music by Jerry Bock and lyrics by Sheldon Harnick; and Pump Boys and Dinettes, the wildly entertaining musical review celebrating life in a small, southern town created by Mark Hardwick, Jim Wann and friends. The musicals are staged on the Muhlenberg College campus with professional directors, choreographers, designers and orchestra personnel each summer. Artistic Directors are Charles Richter, Curtis Dretsch and Jeremy Slavin.
Join Our E-List to receive early subscriber notices, colorful web e-cards, newsletters and special ticket offers throughout the summer season!
Season Subscriptions to all three musicals will be available beginning in February, and mail-in forms will be available online. Tickets to individual shows will be available online beginning April 16th. Peformances through the 2007 season are Tuesday through Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday at 2 p.m.
The SMT Box Office for summer theatre tickets will open in the Trexler Pavilion on May 29, 2007; tickets to all shows, including our stage musical for children, will be available by phone and online at that time. Box office hours will be Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 12 noon to 4 p.m. For tickets and/or information, call 484.664.3333 during those hours.
Gift Certificates: Give the gift of live musical theatre!
Gift Certificates for tickets to the Muhlenberg Summer Music Theatre may be purchased for any one of the three shows of the season – currently scheduled as Nunsense, Fiddler on the Roof and Pump Boys and Dinettes – or for any number of subscriptions that will include tickets to all three shows.
These Certificates may be redeemed at a later date by calling the Theatre Box Office or emailing Jessica Bien to reserve seats for one of the available performance dates of the show or shows indicated. Certificates may be packaged as "four tickets to Nunsense" or "two 3-play season subscriptions," as an example. Each individual theatre ticket is $32 (Senior ticket, $28), and each 3-Play Subscription is $75 (Senior subscription, $67).
Gift certificates may be purchased for holidays, anniversaries and birthdays throughout the year. To order, call 484-664-3087 or email Jessica Bien. Gift certificates can be picked up at the Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance.
 2007
 NUNSENSE
Book, music and lyrics by Dan Goggin
June 13 - July 1 in the Baker Theatre
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"My experience with nuns has always been fantastic," explains creator Dan Goggin, who was raised in Elma, Mich., where he said he was taught by Marywood Dominican Sisters. "There was a pinball machine in the basement of the convent and Sister Mary Rita played the machine with us. Another of the Sisters used to go ice skating with us. Sister Anna Cleta was an artist. Every character is based on a nun that I knew.”
Nunsense begins when the Little Sisters of Hoboken discover that their cook, Sister Julia, has accidentally poisoned 52 of the sisters, and they are now in dire need of funds for the burials. The five remaining Sisters, who miraculously escaped the same fate because of an invitation on that fateful evening to play bingo at another parish, decide to keep the departed nuns in the convent's deep freeze while they busy themselves with putting on a variety show in the school auditorium. These spontaneous and entertaining nuns – a former circus performer, a street-wise Brooklyn native, a novice who yearns to be a ballerina, and a delightfully wacky nun who has lost her memory – deliver outrageous talent, frequent audience interactions, and many comic surprises. With more than 5000 productions worldwide, the show has been translated into 21 languages and has become an international phenomenon.
"Nunsense" is good old-fashioned comedy at its best: it is quick paced, generally raucous, occasionally touching and totally wonderful. Bravo!”
-Review of Cherry Lane Theatre, 1996 by Martin Schaeffer,Backstage
FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
Book by Joseph Stein; Lyrics by Sheldon Harnick;
Music by Jerry Bock. Original stage direction and choreography by Jerome Robbins.
Based on Sholom Aleichem's stories
by special permission of Arnold Perl
July 11 - 29 in the Empie Theatre
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Storyteller, folklorist, icon of Yiddish literature, Sholom Aleichem (a traditional Hebrew and Yiddish greeting meaning was born Solomon Rabinovitz in Russia in 1859. He is generally regarded as the finest Jewish writer Russia ever produced, but he is remembered most in America for the tales of Tevye and his daughters that were adapted into the perennially popular musical Fiddler on the Roof. The original Broadway production opened Sept. 22, 1964 and won eight 1965 Tony Awards, including Best Musical. The show played 3,242 regular performances (more than seven years) and has been revived on Broadway four times - in 1976, 1981 and 1990.
The story of Tevye raising five daughters in the village of Anatevka takes place on the eve of the Russian revolution in the early twentieth century. A poor dairyman,Tevye tries to instill in his five daughters the traditions of his Jewish community in the face of the growing anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia. Tevye and his wife Golde do find themselves bending as their three older daughters fall in love with a tailor, a revolutionary teacher and an outsider. Rich in historical and ethnic detail as well as great humor and hopefulness, Fiddler On The Roof has touched audiences around the world.Cutting across barriers of race, class, nationality and religion, this show leaves all audiences crying tears of laughter, joy and sadness. Favorite songs include "If I Were a Rich Man," "Matchmaker, Matchmaker," "Sunrise, Sunset" and "To Life."
"Filled with laughter and tenderness. It catches the essence of a moment in history with sentiment and radiance. An exceptional accomplishment." - The New York Times
PUMP BOYS AND DINETTES
Created by John Foley, Mark Hardwick, Debra Monk,
Cass Morgan, John Schimmel and Jim Wann
July 25 - August 12 in the Baker Theatre
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The 'Pump Boys' are actors, singers, dancers and musicians as well as sometimes gas station attendants – and this is their musical tribute to life by the roadside! Set on opposite sides of a North Carolina highway in a country diner and a gas station, its characters are four relentlessly cheerful guys who pump gas, and the two Cupp sisters, waitress/proprietors of the diner. An energetic musical review fusing rock 'n roll, country and blues, the show feeds off the energy and pleasure of its audience as it celebrates life and love in a small, southern town.
The first performance of Pump Boys and Dinettes was given in the summer of 1981 in New York at The Chelsea West Side Arts Theatre; a few months later the show moved to the Colonnades Theatre in Greenwich Village; and in February 1982, the wildly entertaining Pump Boys and Dinettes moved to the Princess Theatre for its Broadway premiere and was subsequently nominated for a Tony Award for Best Musical.
"Both musically and theatrically ... a triumph of ensemble playing. It doesn't merely celebrate the value of friendship and life's simple pleasures, it embodies them."
- The New York Times.
THE EMPEROR'S NEW CLOTHES
Book and Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens, Music by Stephen Flaherty,
based on the story by Hans Christian Andersen
STUDIO THEATRE, TREXLER PAVILION. JUNE 27 - AUGUST 4.
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. - Saturday 10 a.m.
One of the hottest musical teams in American theatre adds song and dance and a castle full of characters to Hans Christian Andersen's delightful tale. Emperor Marcus the Third wonders how he can possibly run an empire when he's only 14 years old. In an attempt to appear more mature to his people, he accepts the credo that "clothes make the man," but soon finds himself the center of a hoax. Who can blame him for getting into a royal mess--only to find that "no matter how grand or small you appear/he person who counts is the person in here!" And "here," as everyone knows, is your heart.
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484.664.3333 (Box Office)