Theater

'60s classic Charity onstage in Argenta

Moriah Patterson plays Charity Hope Valentine with Michael Pere as Oscar Lindquist in Sweet Charity at the Argenta Community Theater.
Moriah Patterson plays Charity Hope Valentine with Michael Pere as Oscar Lindquist in Sweet Charity at the Argenta Community Theater.

Charity Hope Valentine is an eternal optimist. Despite a job -- she's a "dance-hall hostess" -- that ensures constant exploitation by men, and a string of horrid personal relationships, she constantly holds out hope that some day she'll meet and marry just the right guy.

That's the story at the core of Sweet Charity, the Cy Coleman-Dorothy Fields musical with a book by Neil Simon, opening Friday at North Little Rock's Argenta Community Theater.

Sweet Charity

8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, 7 p.m. Tuesday-July 27, 8 p.m. July 28-29, Argenta Community Theater, 405 Main St., North Little Rock. Music by Cy Coleman, lyrics by Dorothy Fields, book by Neil Simon, based on Federico Fellini’s film Nights of Cabiria. Preview performance at 7 p.m. today. Doors and the theater’s Bistro/Bar open one hour before curtain.

Tickets: Tonight’s preview, $15; all other performances, $30.

(501) 353-1443

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Moriah Patterson plays the title dance-hall hostess with a huge heart but a lousy choice in men; Michael Pere plays Oscar Lindquist, the apparently decent fellow she has always dreamed of landing.

Vincent Insalaco, the theater's producing artistic director, says director Brandon Box-Higdem, an ACT veteran (he played the emcee in Cabaret, the theater's inaugural show, and had a leading role there in La Cage Aux Folles) is staging the '60s musical as a period piece for his ACT directorial debut.

"He's so wonderful," says Insalaco, praising Box-Higdem's continuing support of the theater, on- and backstage. "He's living in Bentonville now [teaching at Bentonville High] and I asked him to come down and direct this." Christen Burks Pitts and Katherine Greer are staging the dance moves, "re-imagining" the original Bob Fosse choreography.

Supporting players include Jessica Mylonas and Patti Airoldi as Charity's dance-hall colleagues Helene and Nicki, David Weatherly as movie star Vittorio Vidal and Michael Goodbar in the double role as Herman, the dance-hall impresario, and Manfred, Vidal's valet.

The ensemble includes Greer, Caleb Allen, Anthony Bryant, Mattie Bogoslavsky, Amanda Cross, Stormy Donham, Brian Earles, Bailey Lamb, Christy Klutcher, Jordan Neal, Ginger Rhoads, Autumn Romines (also the understudy for Charity), Emily Shellabarger, Kristof Waltermire and Hailey Weiner.

The story of Charity fits into the swirling social changes that rocked the '60s, including the sexual revolution and the Vietnam War. In a way, Insalaco says, it's similar to the one featured in the film Pretty Woman, without the film's romantic ending.

"She doesn't consider herself a prostitute," he explains. "She's not nearly as cynical, not as hardened" as Julia Roberts' film character. "She really wants to help people."

Folks may not know that the musical's better-known songs, including "Big Spender" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now," came from this show, Insalaco says, and Coleman's tunes and Fields' clever lyrics for many of the other numbers don't get the credit they deserve. "'The Rhythm of Life' is one of the great numbers of all time," he adds.

Insalaco says he has focused on picking shows that haven't been done around here in a couple of decades: "I consider it my job to familiarize people, re-introducing the shows that when I was growing up everybody did." (Sometimes he hits -- the world-premiere stage adaptation, by local playwright Judy Goss, of the classic film Mrs. Miniver, for example; a production of the Lerner & Loewe musical Brigadoon, perhaps, not so much.)

But he sees it as important to fill people in on the background of classic theater to new generations that want only to see, and perform, Hamilton. "If there wasn't these shows, there wouldn't have been a Hamilton," he says.

Weekend on 07/20/2017

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