Musicals highlight theater's upcoming season

By Wayne Harada
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

•	Ticket information Subscription tickets will go on sale May 1, with the season running from September through July 2004. When: Curtain times will remain the same: 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 4 p.m. Sundays. Information: 988-6131

The 2003-04 shows include both laughter and drama.

The off-Broadway Obie winner is "Bat Boy: The Musical," a tabloid vehicle with batty fun, which kicks off the season in September. Specific playdates will be announced later.

The Manilow musical, "Copacabana," about a showgirl named Lola in the 1940s, arrives midway through the season.

"We've got a great lineup of theatrical entertainment featuring the work of multiple 'brand name' artists," said Dwight Martin, MVT's producing director. Two actors are among the creative forces in as many plays. Martin said MVT lives up to its reputation of being Honolulu's off-broadway playhouse.

The complete roster of Honolulu premieres:

"Bat Boy: The Musical": September opening. Featuring story and book by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming; music and lyrics by Laurence O'Keefe. Winner of the 2001 Outer Critics Circle award and the Lucille Lortel Award (Best Off-Broadway Musical). Plot: A musical comedy-horror show about a half-boy, half-bat discovered in a cave near Hope Falls, W. Va.; he is taken home by the town veterinarian, where he is taught to live a "normal" life. But soon his secret gets out — with consequences.

"Apartment 3A": November. A comedy-drama by actor Jeff Daniels. Plot: A public television development director is reeling from the loss of what she thought was the love of her life; a next-door neighbor in her apartment complex teaches her the meaning of love.

"Scotland Road": January. A mystery by Jeffrey Hatcher, winner of the Lois and Richard Rosenthal New Play Prize. Plot: A psychodrama about a young woman, in 19th-century garb, found floating on an iceberg in the middle of the North Atlantic in the last decade of the 20th century; when rescued, she utters only one word: Titanic. She is interrogated by an expert on the sinking of the cruise ship, who finds she's a formidable opponent. At the end, one character is dead, the identities of others questioned.

"Copacabana": March. A musical by Barry Manilow, inspired by his hit song, with lyrics by Bruce Sussman and Jack Feldman and book by Manilow, Feldman and Sussman. Plot: Aspiring songwriter Stephen is intent on creating a hit; he is drawn to the era when "music and passion were always the fashion" at the world-famous Copacabana in New York, where, in his dream, showgirl wannabe Lola Lamar encounters bartender Tony Starr and a villainous Rico who whisks her to the Tropicana nightclub in Havana.

"Gunfighter:" May. A drama by Mark Medoff, Tony Award winner for "Children of a Lesser God" and a four-time MVT artistic associate. Plot: Based on the true-life story of Lt. Col. Ralph Hayles, a soldier whose career and life are changed by a tragic friendly fire incident during the Persian Gulf war of 1991, the play is a meditation on the confluence of modern war and contemporary media — a tangled tale of ambition and duty, about technology and personal ambition.

"The Underpants": July. A farce by Carl Sternheim, adapted by Steve Martin, the actor. Plot: A puritanical bureaucrat berates his wife for allowing her underpants to fall to the ground at a parade. Men show up at their front door, in hopes of renting a room; fearing financial ruin and inevitable scandal, the characters reflect on fame, gender roles and sexual issues.