40 Years at the Park

by Katie Evans

Hopefully all of you WCT members had a wonderful, happy holiday season and are starting off 2014 happy, healthy, and warming up those pipes and dancing shoes for another summer at the park! In case you didn't know, we are going to be celebrating our 40th year of bringing the community entertainment from Washington Park's Main Pavilion.  Can you imagine, 40 years! And we are blessed to have some of our original members (and founders!) up there on the stage with us (or directing our chorus) each year.  

Forty years ago, Washington Community Theatre put on a production called "The Music Man." You might've heard of it. The story line involves the main characters, Harold Hill and Marian Paroo, and the action begins when Harold Hill arrives in River City, Iowa by train in the year 1912.  Harold is basically a glorified con man by trade, traveling from town to town, and convincing the residents of each town to start a boy band. However, when the townspeople begin to open their wallets and raise money for this boy band idea, Harold Hill is suddenly no where to be found and the money has disappeared as well. Of course every good con man will meet his match one day, and Harold does just that in River City when he meets one Miss Marian Paroo.  Much song and dance is centered around this story line, as you can imagine, so we need LOTS of singers and dancers to fill the major roles and play the townspeople who are just about to be swindled by a con man!

This Summer, WCT has planned to repeat history and bring "The Music Man" to the very same stage that it was performed upon 40 years ago. "The Music Man" performance dates will be June 24 - 29, 2014.  Further information regarding audition information will be announced soon, so stay posted, because this will be one show you won't want to miss out on!  Check your mail in the next month or two for the WCT Spring Newsletter.

Thanks to Amy Meyers, Kim Pijanowski and Megan Pierson for planning such a wonderful Holiday Party for the group. It was held this past Saturday (Jan. 10) at the South Franklin Community Center and we had music (with DJ's David S. Ford and Jeff Way), a piñata for the kids (John Herrman bravely held it aloft for the kids to whack away - a great personal risk by John), and some delicious food catered by Julian's.   Everyone had a great time, and it just makes everyone even more excited for our next reunion when we begin rehearsals for the summer show! Great job, ladies! Hopefully we can make the Holiday Party a yearly event!  

Another thanks goes to the cast and everyone who made the Fall show "Happy Holidaze" a complete success! We had a wonderful director in Barry Wood, and an excellent group of voices to fill Julian's with a wonderful array of music from each month of the year.  Who can forget the crew from lighting (Wayne Berg) and the guys from "Sound of Satisfaction" making us be heard by each and every ear in the hall. A big thanks to them as well, and to Dennis Taylor and Amy Hickman and Elaine Frost who were all essential to the show's success. We also had a lot of help decorating the tables, taking tickets, handling chinese auction baskets, etc. Thanks to all the folks who helped with that too! Each night we had a great audience who really enjoyed the music and often we could hear them singing right along.  "Happy Holidaze" is yet another show that WCT can proudly call our own.

Please stay posted for more information on auditions for "The Music Man" and we hope to see you all very soon!