Rogers Little Theater

Auditions Jun 9 & 10 at 7 pm
Performances Jul 25-27, Jul 31 - Aug 3 & Aug 7-10
Member reservations line opens Jul 7

Directed by Ed McClure
Musical Director/Conductor is Lisa Welty-Auten
Choreographers are Martina Peacock and Dru Wiser

The season will conclude with the beautiful "My Fair Lady" with book and lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner, music by Frederick Loewe, and adapted from George Bernard Shaw's play and Gabriel Pascal's motion picture, "Pygmalion". "My Fair Lady" sets the standard by which all other Broadway musicals are measured. Featuring such songs as "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?","With a Little Bit of Luck", "The Rain in Spain", "I Could Have Danced All Night", "On the Street Where You Live", "Get Me to the Church on Time" and "I've Grown Accustomed to Her Face," it's no wonder everyone-including not just Professor Henry Higgins-falls in love with Eliza Doolittle, everyone's favorite Cockney flower girl. (Cast List)

Auditions July 30-31 at 7 pm
Performances Sep 14-15, 20-22, and 27-30.
Member reservations line opens August 27th
Directed by Rick Pierson

The new season begins with the classic drama "To Kill a Mockingbird", based on the Pulitzer prize-winning novel by Harper Lee and dramatized by Christopher Sergel. Scout, a young girl in a quiet southern town. is about to experience events that will affect the rest of her life. Sheand her younger brother, Jem, are being raised by their widowed father, Atticus - a highly-principled attorney who has agreed to defend a young African American ontrial for bogus criminal charges. Wide-eyed Scout is fascinated by the reactions of people in her small town, and from the first scene there's an ominous rumble of thunder just under the calm surface of life there. This compelling book was made into an acclaimed movie staring Gregory Peck, and is a classic of the American stage. (Cast List — Production Photos)

Auditions: Sep 17 & 18 at 7 pm
Performances Nov. 2,3, 8-10, 15-18
Member reservations line opens October 15

"Moon Over Buffalo" by Ken Ludwig is a hilarious story of an acting couple - not exactly the Lunts - who are on tour in Buffalo, NY in 1953 with a repertory consisting of "Cyrano de Begerac" (revised one-nostril version) and Noel Coward's "Private Lives. This backstage farce, by the author of "Lend Me a Tenor" and last season's "Leading Ladies", brought Carol Burnett back to Broadway and also starred Phillip Bosco as her megalomanic, often drunk husband and leading man. Fate has given these thespians one more shot at starring roles in "The Scarlet Pimpernel" epic and director Frank Capra himself is en route to Buffalo to catch their matinee performance. Hilarious misunderstandings pile on madcap misadventures, all of which are magnified by Charlotte's deaf mother who manages the theatre. (Cast List — Production Photos)

Auditions January 2 & 3 at 7 pm
Performances Feb 15-17, 21-24 Feb 28 - Mar 2
Member reservations line opens January 28

Directed by Ed McClure
Musical Director/Conductor is Lisa Welty-Auten
Choreographers are Martina Peacock and Dru Wiser

"Bye Bye Birdie" with book by Michael Stewart, music by Charles Strouse, and lyrics by Lee Adams is one of the most captivating musical shows of our time. It tells the story of a rock and roll singer who is about to be inducted into the army. Full of nostalgic charm, wit and humor, hit numbers include "A Lot of Livin' to Do" and "Put on a Happy Face". "Bye Bye Birdie", a satire done with the fondest affection, gives an insight into the everyday life that is very much part of us all. It is the tops in imagination and frivolity; and a show that will be enjoyed by the cast as much as the audience. (Cast List)

Auditions: Feb 18 & 19 at 7 pm
Performances Apr 11-12, 17-19, 24-27
Member reservations line opens Mar 24

Directed by Kaye Cotton

Part one of Neil Simon's autobiographical trilogy, this comedy/drama is a portrait of the writer as a Brooklyn teenager in 1937 living with his family in crowded, lower middle class circumstances. Eugene is the narrator and central character. His mind is full of fiercely fantasized dreams of baseball and dimly fantasized images of girls. The play captures a few days in the life of a struggling Jewish household that includes Eugene's hard working father, his sharp tongued mother, his older and vastly more experienced brother Stanley, his widowed aunt and her two young daughters. Two have heart disease, one has asthma, and two at least temporarily lose jobs needed to keep the family afloat. Family miseries are used to raise such enduring issues as sibling resentments, guilt ridden parent child relationships and the hunger for dignity in a poverty stricken world. It is a deeply appealing play that deftly mixes drama with comedy. (Cast List)

Auditions Apr 14 & 15 at 7 pm
Performances Jun 6-7, 12-14, 19-22
Member reservations line opens May 19

Directed by Jan Hanson

At a fishing lodge in rural Georgia, "Froggy" LeSeuer, a British demolition expert, is running training sessions at a nearby army base. And he has brought along a friend, a pathologically shy young man who is overcome with fear at the thought of making conversation with strangers. "Froggy," before departing, tells all assembled that his friend is from an exotic foreign country and speaks no English. Once alone the fun really begins, as Charlie overhears many damaging revelations made with the thought that Charlie doesn't understand a word being said. That he does fuels the nonstop hilarity of the play and sets up the wildly funny climax in which things go uproariously awry for the "bad guys," and the "good guys" emerge triumphant. (Cast List)

2008 - 2009 MainStage Season

Biloxi Blues by Neil Simon
Directed by Rick Pierson
Auditions July 28-29, 2008 at 7 p.m.
Performances September 19-20, 26-28, October 2-5, 2008.

Winner of the Best Play 1985 Tony Award, this is Chapter Two in the continuing saga of Eugene Morris Jerome, alter ego of the youthful Neil Simon. When we last met Eugene, he was coping with adolescence in the 1930's in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn (Brighton Beach Memoirs). Here, he is young army recruit during the Second World War, going through his basic training, learning more about life, and generally developing his writer's sensibility at boot camp in Biloxi, Mississippi in 1943. Still jotting down his memoirs, Eugene and five other assorted enlisted men suffer under a hard nosed D.I., confront the daily "mess" served up in the mess hall, join together in a visit to a local prostitute and, generally, become adults. For the first time, Eugene confronts the degradation of anti Semitism; and, for the first time, he falls in love.

You Can't Take It With You by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman
Directed by Jim Olmstead
Auditions on September 22-23, 2008 at 7 p.m.
Performances November 7-8, 14-16, 20-23, 2008.

At first the Sycamores seem mad, but it is not long before we realize that if they are mad, the rest of the world is madder. In contrast to these delightful people are the unhappy Kirbys. The plot shows how Tony, attractive young son of the Kirbys, falls in love with Alice Sycamore and brings his parents to dine at the Sycamore home on the wrong evening. The shock sustained by the Kirbys, who are invited to eat cheap food, shows Alice that marriage with Tony is out of the question. The Sycamores, however, though sympathetic to Alice, find it hard to realize her point of view. Meantime, Tony, who knows the Sycamores are right and his own people wrong, will not give her up, and in the end Mr. Kirby is converted to the happy madness of the Sycamores, particularly since he happens in during a visit by an ex-Grand Duchess, earning her living as a waitress. No mention has as yet been made of the strange activities of certain members of the household engaged in the manufacture of fireworks; nor of the printing press set up in the parlor; nor of Rheba the maid and her friend Donald; nor of Grandpa's interview with the tax collector when he tells him he doesn't believe in the income tax.

Kiss Me Kate music and lyrics by Cole Porter, book by Bella and Samuel Spewack
Directed by Ed McClure
Musical direction by Lisa Welty Auten
Choreography by Martina Peacock and Dru Wiser
Technical direction by Mike ManningAuditions January 5-6, 2009 at 7 p.m.
Performances February 13, 15, 19-22, 26-March 1, 2009
Valentine's Spectacular February 14, 2009.

Combine Shakespeare's Taming of the Shrew with Porter's music and lyrics to get Kiss Me, Kate an instant success with every cast and audience. This is a play within-a-play where each cast member's on-stage life is complicated by what is happening offstage. Kiss Me, Kate is fun, melodious and sophisticated.

Rumors by Neil Simon
Directed by Charlie Riedmueller
Auditions February 16-17, 2009 at 7 p.m.
Performances April 17-18, 24-26, April 30-May 3, 2009.

America's premier comic playwright delighted audiences with this out and out funny offering. Four couples are at the townhouse of a deputy New York City mayor and his wife to celebrate their tenth wedding anniversary. The party never begins because the host has shot himself in the head (it's only a flesh wound) and his wife is missing. His lawyer's cover up, gets progressively more difficult to sustain as the other guests arrive and nobody can remember who has been told what about whom. Doors slam and hilarity abounds as the couples get more and more crazed.

Greater Tuna by Jaston Williams, Joe Sears and Ed Howard
Directed by Jan Hanson
Performances June 5-6, 12-14, 18-21, 2009.

What do Arles Struvie, Thurston Wheelis, Aunt Pearl, Petey Fisk, Phineas Blye and Rev. Spikes have in common? In this hilarious send-up of small town morals and mores, they are all among the upstanding citizens of Tuna, Texas' third smallest town. The long-running Off Broadway hit features Mike Maloney and Ed McClure (RLT's original cast of Greater Tuna and Tuna Christmas) creating the entire population of Tuna in a tour de farce of quick change artistry, changing costumes and characterizations faster than a jack rabbit runs from a coyote. Two actors, twenty characters and a barrel of laughs, ya'll.

The Music Man book, music and lyrics by Meredith Wilson based upon a story by Franklin Lacey
Directed by Ed McClure
Musical direction by Lisa Welty Auten
Choreography by Martina Peacock and Dru Wiser
Technical direction by Mike Manning

Auditions June 8-9, 2009 at 7 p.m.
Performances July 24, 26, 30-August 2, 6-9, 2009 and the annual Blue Jean Ball on July 25, 2009.

An affectionate paean to Smalltown, U.S.A. of a bygone era, Meredith Willson's The Music Man follows fast-talking traveling salesman Harold Hill as he cons the people of River City, Iowa into buying instruments and uniforms for a boys' band he vows to organize - this despite the fact he doesn't know a trombone from a treble clef. His plans to skip town with the cash are foiled when he falls for Marian the librarian, who transforms him into a respectable citizen by curtain's fall. This award-winning, critically acclaimed Broadway classic is an all-American institution, thanks to is quirky characters, charmingly predictable dramatic situations, and one-of-a-kind, nostalgic score of rousing marches, barbershop quartets and sentimental ballads which have become popular standards.

Gala Time!

January 26, 2008 at the Embassy Suites in Rogers

Get out of the cold and come inside where it's Too Darn Hot! Please join us on January 26, 2008 at the Embassy Suites in Rogers as we celebrate another year with RLT. Enjoy a delicous dinner and theatrical entertainment that will warm your soul and heat up the evening with song and dance. Tickets go on sale in January 2008 with proceeds benefitting the Victory Theater renovation obligation. For more information, please contact the RLT box office at 479-631-8988!

Creativity On Display
The Zephyr Blevins Gallery this year will feature exhibits provided by Poor Richard's Art.

Exhibit Schedule:
3/27 - 5/06 Tania Knudsen (paintings) and Chris Dahl (baskets)
5/08 - 6/03 Wanda Roe (paintings) and Gary Carter (glass)
6/05 - 7/15 Helen Thomas (paintings) and Betsy Cornelius (jewelry)
7/17 - 8/12 Beth Schindler (paintings) and Sara Lyon (jewelry)

Viewing is open to the public during box office business hours.

An artist's reception is held on the third Friday Twilight Walk from 4-8pm. The current artist will be at the theater to talk about their work. Stop by for refreshments are served and a drawing for 2 balcony seats for the next show!