What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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8 WHAT'S UP! MARCH 13-19, 2022 COVER STORY Strong Women Lead WAC Broadway Series offers new shows, new perspectives MONICA HOOPER NWA Democrat-Gazette F emale leads, female directors, female songwriters. The 2022-23 Broadway season at the Walton Arts Center offers exciting shows with women telling most of the stories. "After about three shows were booked, this theme started developing. At the end of the game, when the very last show came in, we knew that we had a very strong woman-based theme for the season," says Jennifer Ross, director of programming for WAC. Five of the shows will be Arkansas premieres: "My Fair Lady," "Pretty Woman: The Musical," "Tootsie," "Moulin Rouge! The Musical" and "Hadestown." "There was a newfound, refreshed focus on female characters, female storytellers," adds Scott Galbraith, vice president of programming. He explains that in looking at what's on stage in New York, it was apparent that women were at the center of many of those shows. "We're now seeing the results of that. And the fact that it came together so beautifully in our season was really gratifying." 'My Fair Lady' Aug. 9-14 The season will open with "My Fair Lady," which was supposed to be part of the 2019-20 season that was cut short by covid. "It definitely is a revival, and it's actually one of the great things that Lincoln Center Theater has been doing for a number of years now, taking classic American musicals like 'The King and I' and 'South Pacific,' and staging them — without changing dialogue, without changing characters, without changing intentionality — but finding a way to bring out the more socially relevant themes that have always been there," Galbraith says. "The costuming for this particular show is also just absolutely revelatory," Ross adds. "As a woman, looking at those costumes and thinking about how women in that time period actually had to do their entire life in a corset and a long skirt!" Despite the breathtaking costumes, "[a] metaphor of confinement in the wardrobe is very apparent, I think," Galbraith concludes. 'Pretty Woman: The Musical' Sept. 20-25 Another Arkansas premiere will be "Pretty Woman: The Musical." "It's a fun show, based on a very, very popular movie," Ross enthuses. "For me, it was super fun to see the story on stage, strong character, strong female lead. And, you know, it's a Cinderella story told in a little different way." "We always try and have a variety of time periods, musical styles, physical locations, and shows that take place in different genres," Galbraith adds. "My Fair Lady" and "Pretty Woman" "have similar underlying themes to them, about not judging people by their appearances and by their habits and their place of birth and life and that sort of thing. And overcoming the trappings of people's perceptions. … We think the audiences will walk away from those being able to really look at how things change." 'Chicago' Nov. 8-13 "Chicago" returns to the Walton Arts Center stage on the musical's 25th anniversary tour, having gone from stage to screen and now back to stage. It's "the longest running American musical on Broadway," Galbraith says. So what is it about "Chicago" that keeps audiences coming back? Galbraith says: "For me, the reason we keep coming back is the music is so good. It is so good. And when you pair that with [Bob] Fosse choreography that is so iconic, the entertainment value of this show is so high, that it "My Fair Lady" opens the 2022-23 Broadway series at the Walton Arts Center. Pictured is Shereen Ahmed as Eliza Doolittle (center), with cast members Sam Simahk as Freddy Eynsford-Hill, Kevin Pariseau as Colonel Pickering and Leslie Alexander as Mrs. Higgins in the Lincoln Center Theater production. (Courtesy Photo/Joan Marcus)