For Immediate Release: February 24, 2012
Rubicon Theatre Company’s
Season of Magic, Mystery & Music continues with the
World Premiere Musical HELLO! MY BABY,
Opening March 21
(Ventura, CA) – February 24, 2012: Rubicon Theatre Company continues its 2011-2012 Season with the World Premiere of HELLO! MY BABY, from the pen of CHERI STEINKELLNER, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning writer of "Cheers" and Sister Act: The Musical.
The World Premiere musical’s score features songs from the Great American Songbook, by such legends as Irving Berlin, George Gershwin, Jerome Kern and many more. “It’s everything I ever loved about musicals all put into one musical,” explains Steinkellner. “It’s the optimism, it’s the fun, it’s the happiness, it’s the coming out singing- it’s the thing that makes you feel better when you leave than you did when you came in - no matter how good you felt when you came in.”
The curtain rises March 21 on the family friendly, toe-tapping crowd-pleaser, helmed by Rubicon veteran BRIAN McDONALD, to run through April 15. “One thing I love about this musical,” notes Steinkellner, “I know the music is right. You can’t say the songs aren’t good. The songs have lasted in our hearts for a hundred years, so if something’s not working, I can’t blame Irving Berlin or George Gershwin!”
Set on the sidewalks of New York in the early nineteen-teens, this charming musical weaves an updated Tin Pan Alley score into the story of teenage song-sellers, sweatshop-workers, debutantes, gangsters, and Whiffenpoofs as they sing and dance through young love, gender-bending and many ukuleles. “What we’ve done with this piece, quite simply, is take a look at our American cultural history - our musical theater history - through brand-new eyes,” Steinkellner notes of an age that continues to capture our imagination. “It’s the time in our culture when so many iconic moments converged - it’s Titanic, it’s Gangs Of New York, it’s Ragtime, it’s The Music Man, even Hello, Dolly, all converging in a moment in American history when it felt like anything was possible.”
In that manner the show is offered as a “new-fashioned musical,” bringing to life the popular songbook that informed what we know as today’s music industry - even as that music at last verges on the brink of obscurity. “These are songs that I knew because my grandma sang them,” the scribe explains. “These were her songs. We learned from that age that music could bridge every gap - look at Irving Berlin, whose music and creativity leaped beyond his background, his youth, and his poverty.” In that leap, the music bridges every gap - socio-economics, ethnicity, gender, age, and then finally even time. “As the music gets into our hearts,” she concludes, “just as it did a hundred years ago, we become another part of the bridge, as it’s carried into the future.”
Production Credits:
Book by Cheri Steinkellner
Directed by Brian McDonald
Musical Direction by Lloyd Cooper
Costume Design by Marcy Froelich
Choreography by Lee Martino
Lighting Design by Jeremy Pivnick
Arrangements/Orchestrations Craig Safan
Props & Set Dressing by T. Theresa Scarano
Dates, Prices and Special Performances
HELLO! MY BABY previews at Rubicon Theatre Company on Wednesday, March 21, and opens Saturday March 24 at 7:00 p.m. Performances run through April 15, Wednesdays at 2pm and 7pm, Thursdays and Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 8pm, and Sundays at 2pm. The production will take a second bow after the run for two nights - May 5 & 6 - in Santa Barbara’s Lobero Theatre (www.lobero.com)
Tickets for HELLO! MY BABY range from $35 to $64, and may be purchased in person through the RUBICON THEATRE COMPANY BOX OFFICE, located at 1006 E. Main Street (Laurel entrance), or visit Rubicon online at HYPERLINK "http://www.rubicontheatre.org" www.rubicontheatre.org. Twenty-four-hour-a-day ticketing is newly available online, thanks to a grant from the IRVINE FOUNDATION’s Regional Arts Initiative. To charge by phone, call (805) 667-2900.
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