Tony Nominated Actress Jonelle Allen ("Two Gentlemen of Verona"), Jason Graae ( and Marissa Perry ("Hairspray") star in a staged reading of Ahrens and Flaherty's musical comedy "Lucky Stiff" at The Laguna Playhouse for one night only, Monday, June 7 at 7:00 pm to benefit Musical Theatre University.
Musical Theatre University, founded and directed by
David Green, is a comprehensive training ground for musical theatre performers from across the nation with aspirations for careers on Broadway.
Mr. Green's alumni include Tony nominees
Susan Egan ("Beauty and The Beast) and
Matthew Morrison ("Light In The Piazza" and "Glee"),
Stephanie J. Block ("9 to 5" and "Pirate Queen"),
Krysta Rodriguez ("The Addams Family"),
Lindsay Mendez ("Marvelous Wonderettes" and "Everyday Rapture"), Anneleise VanDerPol ("Beauty and the Beast" and "Vanities") and more.
"Lucky Stiff" has been called "a delicious, zany throwback--pure frosting, but whipped to perfect consistency" by the New York Post. The show, based on the novel "The Man Who Broke The Bank At
Monte Carlo" by
Michael Butterworth, is a classic musical farce, complete with slamming doors, mistaken identities, six million bucks in diamonds, and a corpse in a wheelchair. The story revolves around an unassuming English shoe salesman who is forced to take the embalmed body of his recently-murdered Atlantic City uncle on a vacation to
Monte Carlo. Should he succeed in passing Uncle off as alive, Harry Witherspoon stands to inherit $6,000,000. If not, the money goes to the Universal Dog Home of Brooklyn, or else to the gun-toting wife of the casino owner! First produced at
Playwrights Horizons off-Broadway (
Richard Rodgers Award) the show later went on to win Washington's
Helen Hayes Award for Best Musical.
All proceeds from the benefit production will support Musical Theatre Universities' International Youth Summer Stock program which runs from July 12 through August 15 in Southern California. Sixty performers, selected by audition from all parts of the U.S., Canada and Australia/New Zealand, spend five weeks in master classes and rehearsals culminating in the production of four musicals --- this season, Into The Woods, The Light In The Piazza, Children of Eden and an ASCAP Songwriter's Concert. Master Teachers will include
Stephanie J. Block,
Eric Kunze,
Jason Robert Brown and more.
For information regarding Lucky Stiff or The International Youth Summer Stock visit the MTU website at
www.musicaltheatreuniversity.com. For tickets call 949-ARTS or
www.LagunaPlayhouse.com.
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