Indiana Repertory Theatre will present the hailed London musical, Enter the Guardsman, in its 2000-2001 season in Indianapolis, along with classics and recent Off-Broadway titles.
The season will close with a resident staging of librettist-director Scott Wentworth's musical comedy, Enter the Guardsman, which has lyrics by Marion Adler and music by Craig Bohmler.
The tuner won a 1998 Olivier Award for Best New Musical in London and retells Ferenc Molnar's late 19th-century comedy, The Guardsman. The backstage romp concerns a married acting couple who fear that the romance has run cold. The husband impersonates a swashbuckling guardsman, writes love letters to his wife and must eventually meet her in a tryst, in which he hopes she will profess undying love for her husband, instead of the heroic guardsman.
Enter the Guardsman runs April 25-May 19, 2001, on the IRT Mainstage.
Wentworth, a respected actor and director, is an IRT artistic associate. The season on the Mainstage and the more intimate Upperstage also includes:
• William Gibson's The Miracle Worker, the story of Helen Keller, on the Upperstage Sept. 20-Oct. 21.
• The Pulitzer Prize-winning presidential comedy, State of the Union, by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, on the Mainstage Oct. 3 28.
• Crumbs From the Table of Joy, Lynn Nottage's portrait of African-Americans leaving the south to live in Brooklyn, on the Upperstage, Nov. 1-Dec. 16.
• Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, with Chuck Goad as Scrooge, on the Mainstage, Nov. 15-Dec. 24.
• Rights pending, Dinner With Friends, Donald Margulies' account of splintered marriages and the friends left behind, on the Mainstage, Jan. 10-Feb. 3, 2001.
• Oscar Wilde's 1895 comic masterpiece, The Importance of Being Earnest, on the Mainstage, Feb. 13-March 10, 2001.
• Henrik Ibsen's dark tale of familial lapses, Ghosts, on the Mainstage, March 20-April 14, 2001.
• Shakespeare's battle of the sexes, The Taming of the Shrew, on the Upperstage, April 4-May 13, 2001.
For information about the season, call (317) 635-5252 or try the web site at www.indianarep.com.
-- By Kenneth Jones
