This season of shows has been revived and is ready to take the stage!
With COVID-19 cutting this season of shows short, the directing teams and casts are thrilled to be able to bring these shows to life.
Starlight Theatre will be performing The Little Mermaid, Disaster, Dream Girls, and Hello Dolly. Their junior, Starlittle show is How I Became A Pirate. Each show has a unique directing team who are working hard towards opening night.
For extra information on this season, we reached out to RVC’s Creative Director Chris Brady.
RVC Valley Forge: “What challenges has COVID brought navigating theatre this season?”
Mr. Brady: “Well, COVID is RESPONSIBLE for this theatre season. We’re billing it as The Season Worth Waiting For because it’s been two years in the making! This was our cancelled season in 2020 due to COVID, but we tried to turn it into a positive at the time. Basically, we’ve decided to invest in the people who had their summers taken away from them by the pandemic, so we’ve committed to the cast and crew members who still wanted to join us on these journeys.
So, the challenge has been that; navigating a new way to do these shows. We’ve added new talent to the casts to fill them out and have accepted extraordinary conflicts in order to stick with our prior cast members as well. I think, though, like all theatre’s, the navigation is difficult through COVID because of the uncertainty. While we can feel a sort of security going into the summer with our season, our uncertainty now seems to rest with the original casts and their availabilities. A lot has changed in the past two years, and people, actors especially, are still picking up the pieces of their lives and trying to move forward. Sometimes, the way forward doesn’t include us. And that’s fantastic for those who know what they want, but because we’ve committed to keeping the casts as intact as possible, we’re holding on to hope a lot more than usual!”
RVC Valley Forge: “Do you have one show out of your whole season you are most excited about?”
Mr. Brady: “If I’m being honest, no. I’m more of an enjoy the journey-type person. I’m also a completionist, but for the most part, the unknown path and the exploration thereof are what excited me (and scare me) the most about theatre. All of the shows are exciting, but in different ways!
This is the first time I’ve stepped away from TWO summer shows as director, so I’m really excited to SEE Dream Girls and Hello Dolly! They will both be wonderful experiences directed by two different and talented friends of mine, Mychall and Wendy, so that’s exciting. Dream Girls will be something to witness for sure, being a cast comprised solely of extraordinarily talented BiPOC performers and a production team of the same ilk – Mychall making Starlight history as the first director of color. Knowing who the cast, crew, and team are for the show, and the fact the show is so energetic and theatrical, but hauntingly truthful, makes me very, very excited see it; it’s going to be top-notch! Hello Dolly is my favorite of the classical musicals. The show can’t help but bring you back to a time none of us were around to witness. And while it feels innocent and charming, the show doesn’t baulk at mining the human experience in a very truthful fashion either! Again, with Wendy and choreographer Pauline at the helm and a cast to drool at, It’ll be thrilling!
Now, I get to direct both The Little Mermaid and Disaster with people I adore right there with me making it happen. Little Mermaid is keeping us on our toes with both the staging and the design; it’s a massively creative piece – difficult to conceive, but (hopefully) super fulfilling to see done! and Disaster is going to be one of the funniest shows we’ve ever produced at Starlight Theatre! It’s a show that takes its plot from the 70s Disaster Flicks such as The Poseidon Adventure and literally flips it on it’s head, incorporating sweet 70s music and references that just make the show fantastic and fast-paced!”
RVC Valley Forge: “Were you able to keep most of your original cast?”
Mr. Brady: “We were able to keep most of our leads and about 50% of the ensembles, but we’ve also had to work around a lot more conflicts than normal as well, so it’s been quite the feat!”
RVC Valley Forge: “Was it exciting to finally bring these shows to the stage?”
Mr. Brady: “Honestly, yes and no. It doesn’t feel fresh, but it certainly is an adventure! We loved seeing everyone come back together after 2 years, but we also realized that the honeymoon phase needed to move over for the work phase pretty quickly! It’s still difficult to get these all on their feet in the time allotted!”
RVC Valley Forge: “When can we buy tickets?”
Mr. Brady: “Tickets are available right now for both season and single tickets at RVCstarlight.com“
With all of the delays and struggles the theatre world faced throughout COVID, it is extremely important to support the local community arts and especially RVC’s first POC director, Mychall Cornejo!
Whether you’re swooning over prince Eric with Ariel or just a Hello Dolly Barbra Streisand lover, go support Starlight’s Season Worth Waiting For!
