For its 60th anniversary performance, Roanoke’s professional theatre company wants to take a deeper dive into what it takes to put on a show.
This weekend’s concert at Mill Mountain Theatre will feature songs and performers from past shows, students from its conservatory, and provide time for talent to talk about the process of putting a show together.
“Performers have a banter and a conversation with themselves on stage, but also with the audience,” said Producing Artistic Director Ginger Poole. “They’re either telling little tidbit facts about what they’re about to sing or just sang, and they involve the band behind them. You feel like you’re in somebody’s living room in a jam session.”
Most shows take two to four weeks of rehearsal, but Director of Education Francesca Reilly said the weekend performance comes together in less than a week. That meant pairing down the initial list of songs.
So what are those songs that spoke to us over the course of our 60 years, but also 60 years of the top hits (what’s heard on the radio), and what’s the community going to enjoy?,” she said.
Many of songs from past MMT performances, some of them shared in this video, are being kept under wraps until just before the three concerts this weekend, but Reilly confirmed she will be performing ‘The Other Side of the Tracks’ from the musical Little Me.
The company was founded in 1964 under the name Mill Mountain Playhouse, but a 1976 fire at the venue at that site forced the move to the Grandin Theatre, which had recently re-opened. Mill Mountain Theatre moved to its current home, Center in the Square, in 1983.
Poole said the concert will cover shows from throughout that time period, bringing back many whose performing careers got started through the company. The 60th anniversary event will be treated as a birthday party, so staff will be handing out birthday party hats and cupcakes.
Still ahead this season for Mill Mountain Theatre are Frog and Toad The Musical, and Cabaret later this summer.
