Manatee Players offering an escape with classic theater in new season

The success of such golden age Broadway musicals as “Oklahoma!” and “Kiss Me Kate” at the Manatee Players this past season is as clear a sign as Producing Artistic Director Rick Kerby needed to know what audiences want.

“That tells me people want to escape and have a good time and remember the good days of musical theater,” Kerby said.

That lesson will play out next season in both venues in the Manatee Performing Arts Center – the Stone Hall mainstage and the Bradenton Kiwanis Studio theater – where familiar titles will hopefully attract a growing number of patrons.

Manatee Players, like many arts groups across the country, is still recovering from the shutdowns of the COVID pandemic. Attendance levels have not yet reached where the theater was before the pandemic.

“I was looking for some easily recognizable titles that were relatable to our audience, but we’re peppering in a couple of new things that might excite our actors as well,” Kerby said.

The mainstage season will include such stalwarts as “Anything Goes,” the Cole Porter musical set aboard a trans-Atlantic cruise ship with such hits as “You’re the Top,” “Blow, Gabriel, Blow,” “It’s De-Lovely” and “Friendship”; “The Wizard of Oz,” Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “The Sound of Music” and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Evita” on the mainstage. On the smaller Kiwanis stage, will be such well-known titles as “The Fantasticks,” Ernest Thompson’s “On Golden Pond,” Robert Harling’s “Steel Magnolias” and Arthur Miller’s “Death of a Salesman.”

The theater will use its new LED wall “to make the whole fantasy size of Oz both colorful and fantastical come out and to make it quick and easier to get from one place or another,” Kerby said.

Most of these shows are done frequently by community theaters in the area, but Arthur Miller’s “Salesman,” is a challenging drama that is more of a rarity among amateur playhouses.

“People would debate it is one of the most important works of our time,” Kerby said.

Several titles are new to Manatee Players audiences.

“Merrily We Roll Along” continues the company’s tradition of producing Stephen Sondheim musicals. “I would love to be able to direct if not all, then the majority of every Sondheim show. That has been on my to-do list,” Kerby said.

Based on a Kaufman and Hart play, it is a musical that tells its story backward in time, following the career paths and friendships of three people from great success and harsh breakups back in time to when they first met and collaborated.

The show was a flop when it opened in 1981, running for just two weeks. But it became a hit this past year with a revival that earned seven Tony nominations.

Kerby said “Merrily” is “the thing that’s not like the other things in our season.” He said he was surprised he was able to get the rights to produce it with the New York production still running. The revival is scheduled to close in July.

He also is working with actress and singer Ann Morrison, who was part of the original Broadway cast, to present her cabaret show “Merrily From Center Stage,” about her experiences with the short-lived musical. Morrison directed a 1998 production of the show at the Sarasota Players.

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Likely more familiar, by title at least, is the musical “Tootsie” based on the 1982 movie that starred Dustin Hoffman as a struggling actor who can’t get a job until he dresses as a woman and finds great success in a soap opera.

The show earned 11 2019 Tony Award nominations, including for best musical, and its score by David Yazbek (“The Full Monty,” “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels”) and book by Robert Horn.

Also new to the company is “The 39 Steps,” an imaginative retelling of the Alfred Hitchcock classic mystery story with three actors playing all the roles.

“That one’s a real challenge because they go so many places and the actors play so many characters, but I think it will be fun for the audience,” Kerby said.

Manatee Players 2024-25 season

502 Third St., West, Bradenton

941-748-5875; manateeperformingartscenter.com

Stone Hall Mainstage

“Anything Goes,” Aug. 8-18

“Merrily We Roll Along,” Oct. 24-Nov. 3

“The Wizard of Oz,” Dec. 5-15

“Tootsie,” Jan. 16-26

“The Sound of Music,” March 6-16

“Evita,” April 24-May 4

Bradenton Kiwanis Theater

“The Fantasticks,” Sept. 19-29

“On Golden Pond,” Nov. 7-17

“Steel Magnolias,” Jan. 23-Feb. 2

“Death of a Salesman,” Feb. 27-March 9

“The 39 Steps,” April 10-20

Follow Jay Handelman on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Contact him at jay.handelman@heraldtribune.com. And please support local journalism by subscribing to the Herald-Tribune.

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Old favorites and newer surprises make up Manatee Players’ new season