What happens when genius takes a holiday? When the geniuses are Cole Porter and Moss Hart and the holiday is a four month luxury cruise, the answer is Jubilee -- the tune-filled 1935 musical spoof of royalty, revolution and ribald rivalries brought to life by San Francisco's only professional musical theatre company, 42nd Street Moon (www.42ndstmoon.org). Replete with such standards as Begin the Beguine, Just One of Those Things, Why Shouldn't I?, A Picture of Me Without You, and The Kling-Kling Bird on the Divi-Divi Tree, Jubilee is a perfect pre-holiday "toast." Featured are "Moonie" favorites Michael Patrick Gaffney and Megan Cavanagh, co-star of TV & film's A League of Their Own and the current LOGO series Exes and Ohs. Also featured in the cast are CJ Blankenship, Peter Budinger, Derek Travis Collard, Alison Ewing, Juliet Heller, Dyan McBride, Benjamin Pither, Zack Thomas Wilde, Sarah Kathleen Farrell, Justin Torres, Celeste Russi and Andrew Willis-Woodward.
Jubilee plays November 25 – December 13* at the company's home venue in San Francisco's Financial District/Embarcadero, The Eureka Theatre (215 Jackson Street) and is directed by "Moon" Founding Artistic Director Greg MacKellan, with Dave Dobrusky as Musical Director and Tom Segal as Choreographer.
* Note: Opening / Press Night is Saturday, November 28, 6pm
"What a month October 1935 was on Broadway," said MacKellan noting that
George Gershwin's Porgy & Bess was on the boards alongside Jubilee. "This musical is like a society page in song, packed with references to celebrities, politicians and notables from 1935 but all set against that timeless score by
Cole Porter."
The plot is deliciously simple: The Royal Family of a "fictional European country" (aka England) uses the threat posed by an impending revolution as an excuse to abandon the throne and pursue their private dreams. Off they go on an adventure with parody versions of a host of recognizable 1930s celebrities including Noel Coward,
Elsa Maxwell, Johnny "Tarzan" Weissmuller, and
Ginger Rogers. The faux famous show the disguised monarch and his family the time of their royal lives.
"Porter's better known Anything Goes! may take place aboard an ocean liner, but Jubilee may be the only musical ever written aboard one," says MacKellan, noting that Jubilee was created by aboard the liner Franconia. Surrounded by their entourage of family and friends, Porter and Hart wrote Jubilee while at sea and included several songs arising from the sights they saw such as The Kling-Kling Bird on the Divi-Divi Tree after a trip through a botanical garden in Jamaica.
MacKellan – one of the country's foremost musical theatre historians -- began his career as a producer in 1981, following nearly 20 years as a professional actor. In 1986, he produced three productions of The Baker's Wife, working closely with composer
Stephen Schwartz, librettist
Joseph Stein, and Tony-nominated director
Susan H. Schulman. Other producing credits include Words (an original musical about lyricist
Larry Hart), Tintypes, Mack and Mabel, and a staged reading of
Cole Porter's Jubilee at the Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles. In 1989, he produced a series of six CDs on the Shadowland record label, spotlighting rarely performed songs from American musicals. He has worked with such noted performers as
Judy Kaye,
Andrea Marcovicci, Paige O'Hara, and Broadway veterans
Susan Watson,
Susan Johnson, and
Patricia Morison. In 1992, he moved to San Francisco, and in 1993, he co-founded
42nd Street Moon with Stephanie Rhoads. He now dedicates himself fulltime to the operation of
42nd Street Moon.
"We allow our audience to participate in the here and now," said
Greg MacKellan,
42nd Street Moon Artistic Director. "
42nd Street Moon is the very essence of LIVE theatre."
Over the last few years, San Francisco's
42nd Street Moon has earned a reputation and critical acclaim for the high quality of its musical values and approachable character of its work.
42nd Street Moon, based in San Francisco, is one of a handful of companies in the United States whose mission is to present rarely-seen musicals from the classic Broadway era of the 1910s - 1970s. Since 1993, the organization has mounted five productions every year, and serves a loyal constituency who participate with both regular audience attendance and a solid base of contributed income.
42nd Street Moon contributes to the preservation and evolution of American musical theatre by presenting these classic Broadway shows in intimate productions. The shows do not have elaborate sets but are fully costumed and staged.
42nd Street Moon does not present its work through digitally engineered sound systems. The material itself is the star. This format allows the audience to hear the work with remarkable clarity, and to use their imaginations.
Jubilee will play at
42nd Street Moon's popular downtown venue, the Eureka Theatre: 215 Jackson Street, between Battery & Front. Performances are Wednesdays at 7pm; Thursdays & Fridays at 8pm, Saturdays at 6pm (with a Family Matinee at 1pm on Saturday, December 5); Sundays at 3pm. Tickets are $34 to $44 and may be purchased online at
www.42ndstmoon.org or by calling (415) 255-8207.
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