Manoa theater offers diverse season

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Editor

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What you need to know Location: All performances are at the Manoa Valley Theatre, 2833 E. Manoa Road. Season tickets: $125 for either the six- or five-play options; the latter enables the buyer to use vouchers in any combination: five admissions for one play, two for another, etc.; on sale now through the fall season. Individual tickets: $25 for plays, $30 for musicals Curtain time: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays Buffet dinner: Served by Donato's 90 minutes before curtain Wednesdays through Saturdays; pre- and post-show specials also are available. Information: 988-6131

MVT, respected and hailed as Hawai'i's off-Broadway house, is presenting three musicals, a drama, a docu-drama and a comedy. Five of the six plays are Hawai'i premieres.

The fare ranges from a musical based on the life and songs of country singer Patsy Cline to a powerful docu-drama based on the hate killing of a homosexual student in Wyoming. In between is a spoof of '60s girl groups with bouffant hairdos.

All of which prompts Dwight Martin, MVT producing director, to comment on the prospects of the season: "can't miss ... provocative, entertaining and filled with the kind of material that turns people into theater-lovers."

Specifics of the 2002-2003 season:

• "A Closer Walk With Patsy Cline," a musical revue by Dean Regan, Sept. 4-22. The country singer's tragically short career is covered in a production that traces her honky-tonk days in clubs and on radio, and tracks her fame at the Grand Ole Opry and her triumphs in Las Vegas and Carnegie Hall. The score includes her signature songs: "Crazy," "Walkin' After Midnight," "I Fall to Pieces," "She's Got You" and "Sweet Dreams."
• "Honk!," a musical comedy by George Stiles, with book and lyrics by Anthony Drewe, Oct. 30-Nov. 17. The British team of Stiles and Drewe have turned Hans Christian Andersen's inspirational fairy tale of the Ugly Duckling into a musical of unexpected emotion about the adventures of the duckling's mum, Ida, and a melange of ducks, geese, turkeys, bullfrogs and a cat.
• "Visiting Mr. Green," a comedy-drama by Jeff Baron, Jan. 8-26. This is a tale of Ross Gardiner, a young corporate executive, who nearly collides with a tottering elderly man named Mr. Green while speeding through Manhattan. His recklessness draws a sentence of spending one night a week in community service helping Green, an 86-year-old Jewish widower, who wants none of it. A rich, warm look at friendship and hope in the strangest of places.
• "Beehive," a musical revue by Larry Gallagher, March 5-23. The look and the sound of the 1960s return in this uninhibited musical featuring five wailing women, a six-piece band, 50 outrageous costumes and wigs, and five cans of hair spray a week to keep the beehives buzzing. Nearly 40 rock faves from the past are entwined in the tale, tapping acts such as the Chiffons, the Supremes, Tina Turner, Aretha Franklin and more, doing "My Boyfriend's Back," "Where the Boys Are," "Downtown," "Proud Mary," "A Natural Woman" and "Respect."
• "Proof," a drama by David Auburn, May 14-June 1. Winner of the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for drama and the Tony Award for best play, this story focuses on a troubled young woman who has spent years caring for her brilliant but unstable father, a noted mathematician. After his death, she must deal with her own volatile emotions, the arrival of her estranged sister and the attention of a former student of her father. A romance evolves and a notebook surfaces, posing the most difficult question of all: how much of her father's madness — or genius — will she inherit?
• "The Laramie Project," a docu-drama by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project, July 16-Aug. 3. The compelling real-life story of Matthew Shepard, a Laramie, Wyo., student who was tied to a fence and beaten to death because he was gay, is told through a series of interviews from various perspectives. Ultimately, "America's home town," as Laramie is called, is hurled into the national spotlight because of the hate crime, offering a riveting portrait of a community at its worst and best, from the punks involved in the beating to other members of society who demonstrate a rare compassion.