Manatee Players salutes history of musical theater with ‘Something Rotten’
The Manatee Players always gets a jump on the season by opening its first production in the middle of August, and producing artistic director Rick Kerby said he and his cast are laughing their way through rehearsals of the musical “Something Rotten.”
“I love the cast. They’re all upbeat, gung-ho and we have some tried and true people who have done a million shows with us along with people who are on our stage for the very first time,” Kerby said. “We’re all theater geeks, and this is a show about geeking out about theater.”
He describes “Something Rotten” as a “little valentine to theater from Shakespeare all the way to modern musical theater.”
Florida Studio Theatre opened its 2022-23 season with the musical, and Kerby said he hopes that production may have raised more awareness for the show that opened on Broadway in 2015 and ran for nearly two years, earning 10 Tony Award nominations.
The show, by brothers Wayne and Karey Kirpatrick and John O’Farrell, is about Nigel and Nick Bottom, two playwriting brothers who are trying to compete for attention and commissions amid the growing popularity of William Shakespeare, who is adored by the public and treated like a rock star.
Nick arranges a meeting with Nostradamus, hoping for some guidance of what the brothers should produce next, but rather than offer a plot for a royal drama or a tragedy, Nostradamus suggests what he sees as the future of theater – a musical comedy. He demonstrates what he sees in the major dance number “A Musical,” which features references to all sorts of classic musicals, from “South Pacific” to “Annie” and “A Chorus Line.” (Musicals didn’t actually evolve for a few hundred years after Shakespeare.)
“The writers were really smart in putting those references in layers. Some hit you in the face like a cream pie but there are moments that everybody’s going to get,” Kerby said. “If you’re savvy with musical theater, you’ll catch the references.”
And rather than trying something like “Hamlet,” the Bottoms start developing a musical called “Omelette,” with comical results.
Likewise, Kerby said, “You don’t have to know anything about Shakespeare other than he was the Bard and his history and how he started our modern theater movement.”
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Kerby is working with a cast that includes Alex Zickafoose as Nick Bottom and Dylan Savaadra as his brother, Nigel. In his first show with the Manatee Players, Dylan Lack plays the preening Shakespeare, who is not above stealing an idea anywhere he can find one. The cast also includes Ashley Figlow as Portia, the daughter of a Puritan minister who takes a shine to the poetic Nigel, and Katie Voorhees, another Manatee Players newcomer, as Bea, Nick’s wife, who is eager to help him achieve his career goals. Rodd Dyer, another theater veteran, returns to play Nostradamus.
William Coleman serves as musical director. The production kicks off Kerby’s 20th season as artistic director.
‘Something Rotten’
By Wayne Fitzpatrick, Karey Kirpatrick and John O’Farrell. Directed and choreographed by Rick Kerby. Runs Aug. 10-20. Manatee Performing Arts Center, 502 Third Ave., West, Bradenton. $38-$40. 941-748-5875; manateeperformingartscenter.com
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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Manatee Players launches new season with musical ‘Something Rotten’
