One Night Only: Wedding Singer Tour Begins Aug. 31

By Andrew Gans
August 31, 2007

The national tour of the short-lived Broadway musical The Wedding Singer kicks off with a one-night-only engagement at the Phillips Center in Gainesville, FL Aug. 31. The non-Equity touring prduction will officially open Sept. 4 at the Birmingham Jefferson Convention Complex in Birmingham, AL.

Paul Stancato directs the tour based on the original Broadway direction by John Rando. The show's Broadway run ended in December 2006 at the Al Hirschfeld Theatre. For the new tour, Chris Bailey provides choreography, which is based on Rob Ashford's Broadway work.

The cast features Merritt David Janes as Robbie Hart with Erin Elizabeth Coors as Julia Sullivan, the roles created on Broadway by, respectively, Stephen Lynch and Laura Benanti. Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore played those roles in the film of the same name.

Janes and Coors will be joined onstage by Justin Jutras (Sammy), Penny Larsen (Rosie), John Jacob Lee (George), Sarah Peak (Holly), Mark Raumaker (Glen Guglia) and Nikka Wahl (Linda). The ensemble will comprise Joel Abels, Andrea Andert, Carrie Cimma, Kevin Faraci, Zach Frank, Susan Leilani Gearou, Kimberly Marable, Ciaran McCarthy, Rebecca Lynn Miller, Lindsay Moore, Matthew Ragas, Rebecca Riker, Jason Samuel, Marco Antonio Santiago and Neil Totton.

The creative team also includes John Mezzio (musical supervisor/coordinator/conductor), Scott Pask (scenic designer), Brian MacDevitt (lighting designer), Gregory Gale (costume designer) and Lucas J. Corrubia, Jr. (sound designer).

The Wedding Singer, which played an out-of-town tryout at Seattle's 5th Avenue Theatre, opened on Broadway April 27, 2006; previews began March 30. The show played 30 previews and 284 performances before closing Dec. 31, 2006. Composer Matthew Sklar and lyricist Chad Beguelin penned the score; the book was written by Beguelin and Tim Herlihy.

In The Wedding Singer "it's 1985 and rock-star wannabe Robbie Hart is New Jersey's favorite wedding singer," according to Broadway production notes. "He's the life of the party-until his own fiancée leaves him at the altar. Shot through the heart, Robbie makes every wedding he plays as disastrous as his own. Enter Julia, a winsome waitress who wins his affection. Only trouble is Julia is about to be married to a Wall Street shark, and unless Robbie can pull off the performance of the decade, the girl of his dreams will be gone forever. With a brand new score that pays loving homage to the pop songs of the 1980s, The Wedding Singer takes us back to a time when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up, and a wedding singer just might be the coolest guy in the room."

Song titles include "It's Your Wedding Day," "Someday," "A Note From Linda," "Pop," "Somebody Kill Me," "A Note from Grandma," "Casualty of Love," "Come Out of the Dumpster," "Today You Are a Man," "George's Prayer," "Not That Kind of Thing," "Saturday Night in the City," "All About the Green," "Right in Front of Your Eyes," "Single," "If I Told You," "Let Me Come Home," "Move That Thang" and "Grow Old With You."

Masterworks Broadway released the show's original Broadway cast recording.

The current tour itinerary follows.

Aug. 31 at the Phillips Center in Gainesville, FL
Sept. 4-9 at BJCC in Birmingham, AL
Sept. 11-23 at the Hippodrome in Baltimore, MD
Sept. 25-30 at the Orpheum in Minneapolis, MN
Oct. 3-14 at the Broward Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL
Oct. 16-21 at the Fox in Atlanta, GA
Oct. 23-28 at the Bob Carr PAC in Orlando, FL
Oct. 30-Nov. 4 at the Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, FL
Nov. 6-11 at Times-Union in Jacksonville, FL
Nov. 13-18 at the Kentucky Center in Louisville, KY
Nov. 27-Dec. 2 at the INB Performing Arts Center in Spokane, WA
Jan. 8-13, 2008 at the Palace in Columbus, OH
Jan. 15-20 at Fox Cities PAC in Appleton, WI
Jan. 22-27 at Clowes Hall in Indianapolis, IN
Jan. 29-Feb. 3 at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, VA
Feb. 5-10 at NJPAC in Newark, NJ
Feb. 12-17 at the Orpheum in Memphis, TN
Feb. 19-24 at PPAC in Providence, RI
Feb. 26-March 2 at the Music Hall in Kansas City, MO
March 4-9 at the Belk Theatre in Charlotte, NC
March 11-23 at the Fox in St. Louis, MO
March 25-30 at the Progress Energy Center in Raleigh, NC
April 1-6 at the Barbara Mann PAH in Ft. Myers, FL
April 8-13 at the Benedum in Pittsburgh, PA
Aril 15-27 at the Music Hall in Dallas, TX
April 29-May 4 at the Majestic in San Antonio, TX
May 6-18 at the Hobby Center in Houston, TX
May 20-25 at the Gammage in Tempe, AZ
May 27-28 at the San Luis Obispo PAC in San Luis Obispo, CA
May 31-June 1 at the California Center in Escondido, CA
June 13-15 at the Wolftrap in Vienna, VA
June 17-22 at the Bushnell in Hartford, CT
June 24-29 at the Colonial Theatre in Boston, MA