Actors’ Playhouse features 'Miss Saigon' in the new season

Actors’ Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre 2009-2010 season will feature four musicals and one world- premiere play and one summer production.

“We carefully planned our new season to have appeal to our diverse theater patrons in South Florida. We realize that people have important choices to make in this economy, and we at Actors’ Playhouse want to entertain and culturally enrich our audiences by presenting the highest caliber of theater at affordable prices,” said Executive Producing Director Barbara S. Stein

“I’m proud of the artistic work we do at Actors’ Playhouse,” said Artistic Director David Arisco. “We think the 2009-2010 season has something for everyone, with new work direct from New York, a world premiere play by a local playwright to new and refreshing musicals and one internationally acclaimed Broadway musical.”

Opening the new season in the fall 2009 will be the new pop hit musical comedy The Marvelous Wonderettes, in its first regional production direct from New York. Written by Roger Bean, this current Off-Broadway sensation is a non-stop pop musical blast from the past. Featuring favorite songs from the '50s and '60s, The Marvelous Wonderettes takes you to the 1958 Springfield High School prom where we meet the Wonderettes -- Betty Jean, Cindy Lou, Missy and Suzy, four girls with hopes and dreams as big as their crinoline skirts and voices to match. As we learn about their lives and loves over 10 years, the girls perform such classic 50’s and 60’s songs as “Lollipop,” “Dream Lover,” “Stupid Cupid,” “Lipstick on Your Collar,” “Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me,” “It’s My Party,” “It’s In His Kiss (The Shoop Shoop Song),” “Rescue Me,” “Respect” and many more.

To celebrate the holiday season in December 2009, Actors’ Playhouse will present a delightful and heartwarming new musical comedy Another Night Before Christmas written by Sean Grennan and Leah Okimoto, the creators of this season’s Married ALIVE! Another Night Before Christmas gives us cause to examine our own conscience when it comes to allowing ourselves the indulgence in merriment that the holiday season brings. Karol Elliot, a dispirited social worker, is destined to celebrate another lonely Christmas in her New York apartment. On her way home on Christmas Eve she encounters a homeless man with whom she shares some groceries. Later that night, an intruder, the homeless man she’d met earlier, breaks in claiming to be Santa Claus himself. A "take" on the poem from which it derives its name, this contemporary and timeless look at the dilemmas and joys of the holiday season parallels the emotions of the memorable film Miracle On 34th Street.

The Great American Trailer Park Musical will make its South Florida premiere in January and February 2010. With music and lyrics by David Nehls and book by Betsy Kelso, The Great American Trailer Park Musical is a song-and-dance extravaganza described as South Park meets Desperate Housewives. This campy, sexy, bawdy R-rated musical fable is seasoned with murderous ex-boyfriends, Costco, the Ice Capades and a stripper on the run who comes between a Dr. Phil-loving agoraphobic housewife and her tollbooth collector husband. With a chorus of trailer-park divas in Armadillo Acres, an exclusive Florida mobile home community, this escapist fun musical ranges across the American Radio dial from country to blues to rock to disco to bump and grind to R&B. You won’t want to miss this fun-filled high-powered musical.

Highlighting the season in March and April 2010 will be the internationally acclaimed Broadway sensation Miss Saigon from the creators of Les Misérables. A classic love story is brought up-to-date in one of the most stunning theatrical spectacles of all time. In Miss Saigon, Alain Boublil and Claude-Michael Schönberg, along with Richard Maltby, Jr., bring Puccini's Madame Butterfly to the modern world in a moving testament to the human spirit and a scathing indictment of the tragedies of war. An international sensation, Miss Saigon is an epic, daring pop opera that is universal in its emotional power even as it deals with controversial, contemporary issues. In the turmoil of the Vietnam War, an American soldier and a Vietnamese girl fall in love, only to be separated during the fall of Saigon. Their struggles to find each other over the ensuing years ends in tragedy for her and a fighting chance for the child he never knew he had.

The World Premiere of Unreasonable Doubt, a new play by South Florida playwright Michael McKeever, will be presented in May and June 2010. The play is a penetrating look at American justice system and how it sometimes fails the society it’s meant to protect. Revenge and redemption intersect in this thought-provoking drama written by South Florida’s prolific award-winning playwright. Unable to touch the man who savagely raped and murdered his daughter, Ty Bosworth does the next best thing: He kidnaps and tortures the defense lawyer who put the killer back on the street. A tiny cabin in the woods becomes a courtroom, as the American justice system itself is put on trial. Unreasonable Doubt uses one family’s tragedy to explore the impact of a legal system grown ineffectual on the American Society.

The season will close with another light-hearted summer production in July and August 2010 titled Are We There Yet? (July 7 – Aug. 15, 2010), written by James Hindman, Ray Roderick and Cheryl Stern with music by John Glaudin. Fresh, funny and entertaining, this light-hearted but genuine musical comedy tackles the question we so often ask ourselves on life's roller coaster journey, "Are We There Yet?" The typical bumps, u-turns and road blocks that we are all too-familiar with are played out on stage in a riotous fashion through the eyes of the modern American family that may seem strangely similar to your own. This refreshing and reflective comedy, which has been called the parents' edition of I Love you, You're Perfect, Now Change!, may finally prove that the answer to life's question is simply a sense of humor.

Tickets prices are as follows: Preview performances, $35; Opening Night Gala, $100; Wednesday, Thursday evening & Sunday matinee, $40 and Friday & Saturday evening, $48.

Actors Playhouse at the Miracle Theatre is located at 280 Miracle Mile, Coral Gables. For more information, call 305-444-9293 or visit www.actorsplayhouse.org.