While it is unfortunate that San Diego's Globe Theatres had to cancel their planned fall production of Regina Taylor's jazz musical, A Night in Tunisia, the theatre company managed to snag another new musical, albeit in a quite different musical vein. Lone Star Love or The Merry Wives of Windsor, Texas, told through the bluegrass stylings of the Red Clay Ramblers, replaces the Taylor piece, running on the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre Sept. 8-Oct. 13.
Lone Star Love, conceived and adapted by John L. Haber with music and lyrics by Tony winner and Rambler Jack Herrick (Fool Moon, Kudzu), resets William Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor in post-Civil War Texas. There, ex-Confederate colonel John Falstaff and his merry men charm their way into the lives of two wealthy rancher's wives. In a romantic subplot, one of the rancher's daughters is being pursued by several suitors including a yodeling cowboy named Tex Fenton.
Lone Star Love has long held the interest of Broadway producing arm Dodgers Theatricals and may very well be hoping for a Full Monty-esque transfer from the Globe to Broadway.
Other changes in the season include the addition of Karen Carpenter as director of Eileen Atkins' Vita & Virginia, the moving of The Boswell Sisters indoors to the Old Globe Theatre and a new Cassius Carter stage play, the West Coast premiere of The Pavilion.
The Boswell Sisters, the latest from Forever Plaid creator Stuart Ross tells the story of a real life, popular, all-women group from the 1940's, will run in the Old Globe July 28-Spet. 1. Replacing it on the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre is Twelfth Night to be directed by Jack O'Brien (The Invention of Love, The Full Monty). Twelfth Night runs July 7-Aug. 11 and will be set in the mid-18th century. Pavilion, written by Craig Wright, deals with two high school sweethearts who meet again at their twentieth year reunion and decide to work through their checkered pasts. Globe Theatres executive director Caig Noel directs the piece, running Sept. 15-Oct. 20 in replacment for The Country Club.
Globe Theatres' season tickets are available by calling (619) 239-2255. The Globe Theatres are located in Balboa Park next to the Museum of Man. For reservations, call (619) 239 2255. The Globe Theatres are on the web at http://www.theglobetheatres.org.A>.
— By Christine Ehren
