Roderick staged Goodspeed's My One And Only, Singin' in the Rain and 42nd Street, and was behind the touring revue I Love a Piano. Vince Pesce, associate choreographer of Broadway's Anything Goes, The Pajama Game, Wonderful Town and Little Shop of Horrors, will choreograph.
With a score by Jerry Herman, Mame — based on the episodic Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee play Auntie Mame, about the hedonistic eccentric aunt of a young orphan — will run April 20 – July 1. Louise Pitre (Mamma Mia!) stars in the title role.
Herman wrote the show's life-embracing songs, including "Open a New Window," "It's Today" and "If He Walked Into My Life." The source material for the play and musical is the Patrick Dennis novel "Auntie Mame." (Lawrence and Lee wrote the libretto.)
Carousel, the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic about the rocky romance between a carnival barker and a mill worker, will be choreographed by Parker Esse, the associate choreographer of Broadway's Finian's Rainbow and A Tale of Two Cities and choreographer of Arena Stage's popular Oklahoma!
Director Ruggiero directed Broadway's High and Looped and Goodspeed's Show Boat, Camelot and 1776, plus the national tour of Ella. Carousel will run July 13-Sept. 23.
Something's Afoot, the musical comedy spoof of Agatha Christie-style musicals — with book, music and lyrics by James McDonald, David Vos and Robert Gerlach with additional music by Ed Linderman — will run Oct. 5-Dec. 9. Director Hushion was associate director of Broadway's Elf, In the Heights and The Drowsy Chaperone. A choreographer will be announced soon.
Something's Afoot has a central old-lady detective character named Miss Tweed. It ran briefly on Broadway in 1976, but has found a wide life as a stock and amateur property. Goodspeed Opera House (as Goodspeed Musicals was known back then) was the original producer of the show in the 1970s.
Goodspeed, devoted to producing new musicals and revivals of vintage or modern classics, is the recipient of two Tony Awards for Regional Theatre.
Visit goodspeed.org.
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"Dedicated to the preservation and advancement of musical theatre," Goodspeed Musicals produces three musicals each season at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, CT, and additional productions at The Norma Terris Theatre in Chester, CT, "which was opened in 1984 for the development of new musicals."
Goodspeed is the first regional theatre to receive two Tony Awards for outstanding achievement. The company maintains The Scherer Library of Musical Theatre and The Max Showalter Center for Education in Musical Theatre.
