Coming up
‘Rosie’ again
at HPU
This time, enjoy the
By John Berger
singing and dancing
with dinner
Special to the Star-BulletinNorman Burroughs decided he'd try writing a musical."Rosie's Place" was the result. Joyce Maltby, director of theater at Hawaii Pacific University, helped her husband take the project through to completion. She then directed the show in its world premiere at HPU in 1993.
Burroughs' musical slice-of-life at a fictional bar in Texas was more musical revue than musical theater, but the minimalist plot served its purpose in connecting the song-and-dance numbers.
The songs provided an assortment of showcase character numbers for an enthusiastic cast, and the show acquired the same type of cult status enjoyed by Lisa Matsumoto's pidgin fairy tale plays.
"Rosie's Place" was presented as a special summer production at Diamond Head Theatre in 1994.
The response was so good overall that Burroughs and Maltby wrote a sequel, "A Night At Rosie's," and used much of the same cast members when it was premiered at HPU last November.
The plot was shaved paper-thin -- a big-city reporter who hates country music comes to Rosie's to do an expose, or something. The show was another series of showcase numbers for many of same enthusiastic performers.
"A Night at Rosie's" opens for another engagement at HPU tomorrow, this time with dinner service. Here are Maltby's responses to three questions about the production:
QUESTION: This may be self-evident given that Diamond Head Theatre is reviving one of the Lisa Matsumoto plays this weekend, but why do "A Night at Rosie's" twice in eight months?
ANSWER: We've been wanting to try dinner theater for the public with every show we've done. We've had dinner shows for special groups out on the lanai and everybody just loved it. This summer seemed like a good time to try it, and "A Night At Rosie's" is a kind of show that lends itself well to it. Also, when we did it last fall, even though it may have been a little slow getting started, we were getting people coming back two (or) three times, and by the time we closed we were getting bombarded with calls asking for an extension. And, someone who came last fall said she might be able to get somebody interested in (staging it in) Waikiki so that encouraged Norman and me to think about it -- nothing ventured, nothing gained!
Q: Do you think this show would play in Waikiki?
A: One of our guests for closing night was the associate producer for "Miss Saigon" and all those things, and that was his opinion. He said this is a show that should be in a dinner theater cabaret some place.
Q: Aside from dinner, and the possibility that we're be seeing a pre-Waikiki production, what's new at Rosie's?
A: We have a wonderful new music director in Rod Fukino. He's already adding stuff to the music, and a new band. We have basically the same cast as last time, but it's almost impossible to get all the same people twice so there are a couple of new faces and a few surprises.
Song and dance theater
What: "A Night at Rosie's"
