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Ah, Vaudeville!

1996 · Triopia High School

The lights come up in the darkness to reveal the stage of "Burt and Helen's Traveling Vaudeville Show," a worn-out relic of the days when vaudeville tent shows criss-crossed the nation. But the time of vaudeville is nearly over, and this show has criss-crossed the country once too often. The actors — a dedicated band of has-beens and wanna-bes — enter through the audience and from the wings, finishing their costumes onstage, warming up their voices, and pulling unsuspecting playgoers into the carefully choreographed mass confusion of a troupe getting ready to perform. Some stop to ask the audience to zip them up; others propose marriage on the spot.

From somewhere near Peoria, through the Canadian Rockies, and along the road between St. Louis and Las Vegas, the troupe carries on. The story tangles around the slick, double-dealing Mugsy Carlyse, who takes "temporary ownership" of the failing show with a scheme to bankrupt it, run off with the money, and disappear to Argentina. The plot finally lands at Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, where a juggling act done entirely with colored spotlights, a comic forced at gunpoint to bomb, and a great deal of fast-talking melodrama bring the company to its last great booking.

Written and directed by Ken Bradbury for the Triopia High School stage, Ah, Vaudeville! was built to fill the room with song and dance — "We danced plenty in Vaudeville. Plenty," he wrote in his notes. The opening number set the tone: "You may be down and lonely when you walked in, but you won't walk out 'til Vaudeville touches your heart!"

Musical Numbers

Cast

Helen O'Reilly — Kara Dufelmeier Burt O'Reilly — Lexie Welsh Allen O'Reilly — Jacob Stock Grace Flaherty — Kelly Patterson Rusty O'Rourke — David Mason Mugsy Carlyse — Luke Crawford Moony Mancini — Ryan Miller Bernadette — Cara Meyer

The full production carried an enormous ensemble: the Vaudeville Singers and Dancers, the Mini Troupe, Mugsy's gang of hoods, Sgt. Prestone and the Royal Canadian Mounties, the Poor but Extremely Beautiful Orphaned Girls, and a long roster of vaudeville characters with names drawn from the great composers and stars.

Production Notes

Ah, Vaudeville! was staged at Triopia High School in the spring of 1996, with rehearsals running across roughly seven weeks. On performance nights the show began at 7:30 and ran until about 10:10, with a 15-minute intermission; Act II played faster than Act I. The cast was organized in "platoons," using the chorus as groups to sing rather than crowding every group scene.

In his director's notes, Bradbury singled out students who carried the work both on and off the stage — Andy Surratt, who took charge of cleanup every night, and Dylan Phelps, who always helped strike the set after rehearsal. Set strike on the final Sunday started at 8 a.m. with a handful of adults; the kids arrived at 1 p.m. and the stage was down by 3:30.

His final-night cues capture the show's spirit in shorthand: "Make him a nerd tonight," "More adlib noise in the Argentina dance," "Add easel to the magician scene," "Rusty and Bambi — make the end of the hunting scene big," and the practical reminder to bring batteries for the family videos on Sunday afternoon.