THE WILD PARTY Plays Town Hall Theater

It's the Roaring 1920's - the Jazz Age - and it looks like the good times will never end.

Speakeasies traffic in bootleg liquor, dance crazes sweep the nation, and the stock market soars to dizzy heights. Andrew Lippa's hit musical, The Wild Party, captures this devil-may-care decade in one of the hottest, jazziest scores ever to hit the New York stage.

Douglas Anderson directs the production, which will be presented at Middlebury's Town Hall Theater from January 22-26--part of the annual collaboration between THT and the Middlebury College Department of Music.

Carol Christensen is music director, Schuyler Beeman ‘10 is the choreographer, and the swing band is directed by local jazz favorite, Dick Forman.

"This is a great team," says Anderson, "Dick Forman lives and breathes this kind of music, and we're working with the college's very best singers. This promises to be a very hot production."

Adapted from the notorious book-length poem by Joseph Moncure March - a book that was banned in Boston - The Wild Party tells the story of the reckless relationship between two vaudeville performers who decide to throw the party to end all parties. The bash is a wild, jazzy, hedonistic romp, but even the Roaring 20's can't last forever, and when the sun comes up some hard realities set in.

The Wild Party will be presented on January 22, 23, 25 and 26, at 8 pm. Tickets are on sale at www.middlebury.edu/arts/tickets or 443-6433. Mature audiences only.