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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, April 20, 2003

'Ragtime' will lead off DHT season of musicals

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

 •  DHT season

Performances at 8 p.m.

Thursdays-Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays

Diamond Head Theatre

Season tickets: $49, $99, $146, $196

Single tickets: Available in August

Reservations: 733-0274

The Hawai'i premiere of "Ragtime," a Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, will give Diamond Head Theatre's 2003-'04 season a fresh launch in September.

DHT has secured rights — now available to community theaters — to "Ragtime," one of five musicals in its six-show season. "Ragtime," based on E.L. Doctorow's novel, intertwines three stories that paint contradictions — wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair, love and hate, truth and lies — in turn-of-the-century America. Among its 1998 Tony awards: Best Book of a Musical (Terrance McNally), Best Score of a Musical (Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Flaherty), Best Featured Actress in a Musical (Audra McDonald) and Best Orchestration (William David Brohn).

"Our new season reflects our commitment to bring the best in community theater to Hawai'i audiences," said John Rampage, DHT artistic director. "Our productions combine home-grown professionals with Broadway stars, supporting our local community and yet giving the rich experience of a Broadway show."

The season at a glance:

  • "Ragtime," Sept. 26 through Oct. 12 — The Tony-winning musical (which lost Best Musical laurels to "The Lion King") is a defining panorama of American life at the turn of the 20th century, a time of transitions and great change; it weaves tales about three families, one upper-middle class, white Anglo-Saxon Protestant; the second, socialist immigrant Jewish; and the third, Harlem black. The show tracks their journeys of self-discovery, combining fictional characters with real-life ones (Henry Ford, Harry Houdini, J.P. Morgan, Booker Washington).
  • "Peter Pan," Dec. 5 through 21 — Neverland comes to life in a musical with the ageless Peter Pan, Wendy, Captain Hook and Tinkerbell. But will it fly?
  • "Amadeus," Feb. 6 through 22 — A Tony-Award-winning drama, by Peter Shaffer, blending drama with comedy, pitting human ambition against heavenly genius. In the opulence of 18th-century Vienna, Antonio Salieri is the most famous composer in a city of musicians — until the arrival of young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The veteran feels that God has abandoned him, and takes action.
  • "Swing! The Musical," March 26 through April 11 — The big band era of the 1930s and '40s will be revived, along with swing-dancing and a full on-stage orchestra, in a nostalgic romp through such tunes as "It Don't Mean a Thing (If It Ain't Got That Swing)," "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and "Stomping at the Savoy." A concept by Paul Kelly. A nominee for six 2000 Tony Awards.
  • "Hello, Dolly!," May 21 through June 6 — Dolly Levi, matchmaker supreme, has been hired to arrange a marriage for widowed half-millionaire Horace Vandergelder, but she has her own agenda. This show has a rich score, with tunes such as "Before the Parade Passes By," "It Only Takes a Moment" and, of course, the Carol Channing signature title song, sung in the movie version by Barbra Streisand.
  • "Jesus Christ Superstar," July 16 through Aug. 1 — Andrew Lloyd Webber's and Tim Rice's groundbreaking rock opera, which changed the face of musical theater when it bowed on Broadway in 1971 (with Hawai'i's Yvonne Elliman as Mary Magdalene), is revived with the score intact, dramatizing the last seven days in the life of Jesus, his entry into Jerusalem, and the unrest triggered by his preaching and popularity. The hits include the title song, "I Don't Know How to Love Him," "Everything's Alright" and "What's the Buzz?"