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April 10-12 at 7:30pm April 13 at 2:00pm |
Albert
Taylor Theatre Shilling Hall Milikin University, Decatur, IL |
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In
Ruthless!, 8-year-old Tina longs to play Pippi Longstocking
in her school play and will do anything to win the part—including
murdering the leading lady. She could even get some help from
her split-personality mother and conniving grandmother. Ruthless!
is a hilarious comedy about the lengths to which people will go
to get what they want in life. |
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"So
many lessons that I should've taught her, like, for example, to
not kill her friends."--Judy Denmark Ruthless! The Musical is the story of Tina Denmark, a little girl who would literally kill for a part in her school play, her split-personality mother, Judy Denmark, and the conniving grandmother, Lita Encore, the theatre critic. All of these people are brought together when Sylvia St. Croix appears to become Tina’s agent. It tells the story of inherited theatrical talent and unchained ambition in a lighthearted manner. The creative process of this musical has been very interesting. It is based on a novel written in 1954 by William March entitled The Bad Seed. This National Book Award for Fiction nominee was March’s last major work. In fact, he died one month after its publication. He never realized the title for his novel would become the label which society assigns to asocial, violent children. Within a year, the novel was adapted into a play, by Maxwell Anderson, which had a very successful run on Broadway. It was adapted numerous times into film and television. The 1956 Academy Award-nominated film, The Bad Seed, directed by Mervyn Leroy, starred many of the cast members from the Broadway play including the little girl and her mother. This film has a distinct theatrical feeling due to the desire of the director to recreate the play for the big screen. It even ends with a theatrical style “curtain call” along with the production credits. From this movie, Ruthless! The Musical begins to take shape. Joel Paley (book and lyrics) was invited to a birthday party for a close friend who was also a huge fan of the 1956 movie. Having no money, he wrote a two page sketch based on a fictional musical version of The Bad Seed playing on Broadway. In this Saturday Night Live-like sketch, the fictional musical was called Seedy and Joel performed the role of a television critic reviewing the fictional musical at the birthday gathering. A year later Joel met Marvin Laird (composer) while they were both working on a Shirley MacLaine production. During one of many backstage conversations, they discussed turning the sketch into an actual musical. Six years later they met again with Joel Paley having completed much of the book and some lyrics. They began to continue work on the parody and in March, 1992, Ruthless! The Musical opened off Broadway (starring Laura Bell Bundy as Tina, also replacing L. B. Bundy as Tina was child actress, Britney Spears) to critical success (1993 Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding off Broadway Musical). This farcical musical has plot and dramatic elements from a mix of several movies including The Bad Seed, All About Eve, Gypsy, The Women and Valley of the Dolls. I have garnered much enjoyment out of introducing the cast to many of these classic movies. Many people have worked countless hours with dedication and pride. I hope that you will all enjoy their efforts as much as I have enjoyed working with them.-----Kevin Long |
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