Jacksonville 2000! A Celebration of Jacksonville's 175th Birthday
2000 · Sophie Leschin Auditorium, Jacksonville Developmental Center
Jacksonville 2000! was Ken Bradbury and Dr. Robert Crowe's gleefully irreverent valentine to their hometown, mounted by the Jacksonville Theatre Guild to mark the 175th anniversary of Jacksonville, Illinois. Rather than a solemn pageant of dates and founders, the writers reached for the form Bradbury loved best — vaudeville — and turned the city's history into "cannon fire," a wham-bang revue of comics, song-and-dance teams, and full-throated audience participation. As Bradbury put it to his cast, the goal was for the audience to look at their watches at the end and say, "Whoa! Where'd the time go?"
The story frames its history through a trunk in a Jacksonville attic. Two curious children, Hannah and Richard, defy their Uncle Mortimer's warning and conjure Mauvaisterri — "Maury," the Jacksonville Genie — from an old trunk that once belonged to the Strawn Opera House, the town's vaudeville palace on the square. Maury and Mortimer, would-be song-and-dance partners, sweep the children (and the audience) into a high-speed montage of the town's colorful past, from its 1825 founding through its many discarded names, the rivalry between the colleges, the coming of the railroad, William Jennings Bryan's repeated runs for president, the Big Eli Ferris wheel, and the rock-and-roll years — all delivered with a wink and a pratfall.
The Theatre Guild assembled a cast of 64 performers drawn from across the region for the show, billed as "a slightly irreverent telling of Jacksonville's history." Bradbury and Crowe developed it over the winter and spring of 2000 in a back-and-forth of late-night emails, with Bradbury wrestling the script from an earnest historical play into "a full-blown Vaudeville show" — at one point holding "a small funeral for the bodies littering my delete file" as he cut the framing characters, only to find his way back to the attic and the genie.
Musical Numbers
The show opened with the song "That's Entertainment" and wove original and period material throughout, including:
- "My Jacksonville Home" / "My Prairie-Town Home" — an original Bradbury ballad to the town
- A run of 1950s and 1960s standards used in the rock-and-roll montage, among them "All Shook Up," "Wake Up Little Susie," "Teen Angel," "Runaway," "Blue Moon," "Big Girls Don't Cry," "Peppermint Twist," "Soldier Boy," "My Boyfriend's Back," "I Will Follow Him," "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Chapel of Love," "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction," "Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter," "I Got You Babe," "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'," "Wild Thing," "Joy to the World," and "American Pie"
- Irish songs and other "town songs" developed with Dr. Crowe
Production Notes
Written by Ken Bradbury and Dr. Robert Crowe of Jacksonville, with Bradbury serving (in his own words to the cast) as "director, choreographer, vocal coach, pianist so far." Meredith served as stage manager and Chuck handled set construction and "everything." The production was presented by the Jacksonville Theatre Guild at the Sophie Leschin Auditorium on the grounds of the Jacksonville Developmental Center, July 27–30 and August 1–6, 2000, with evening performances at 8 p.m. and 2 p.m. matinees on July 30 and August 6.
The show featured a large children's chorus that appeared near the finale, and built much of its energy on nightly audience participation, so that "every night the show will be slightly different." Bradbury kept a running journal of the writing and rehearsal process and produced a steady stream of comic cast newsletters ("J-2 Cable") to keep the sprawling company laughing through a punishing summer rehearsal schedule.
From the director's program note:
"Our marvelous town's 175th birthday is occasion for laughter and joy. This most wonderful of casts intend to bring that to you tonight."