Theater celebrates great Broadway tunes

Gresham Little Theater to mine rich history for Feb. 5-13 shows

By Rob Cullivan

The Gresham Outlook, Jan 27, 2010

From top to bottom and left to right are Brittany McLaughlin, Kayla McLaughlin, Ira Kamerman, Ezra Kamerman, Brooklyn Weldon, Theresa Lehr and Arianne Melton, all of whom star in Gresham Little Theater’s musical revue, “Bits of Broadway.”

Contributed photo

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Actors who long for the spotlight have to be patient, notes Patrick McLaughlin, director of “Bits of Broadway” for the Gresham Little Theater.

“In a lot of shows you have to play a tree,” he says.

That’s not the case in the company’s upcoming production, which will run Feb. 5-13. “Bits of Broadway” is a musical revue featuring songs and acts from such musicals as “Wicked,” “The Sound Of Music,” “Annie,” “Rent,” “Hair,” “Oklahoma!” and “Grease.”

“Usually when I’m casting, I have to put a cast around a show – this time I put the show around the cast,” McLaughlin says. “Everyone who wanted to be in the show, I was able to fit in with stuff to do because I wrote the show around them. There really are not a whole lot of small parts in this. Everybody has to work.

“There’s a whole story that kind of ties all these songs together,” he adds. “A group of young actors have shown up for a Broadway acting workshop. As they’re working through these songs, they’re performing them for each other, but it’s really for the audience.”

Wide range

The 18-member cast of “Broadway” ranges in age from 12 to 50, and includes a number of students from Gresham, Barlow and Sandy high schools, McLaughlin says.

“A lot of my cast are really involved in their (schools’) drama programs,” he adds.

And a number of cast members are just learning what the fuss is all about when it comes to certain classic Broadway songs, he notes. Take Niki Sabatini, 24, of Troutdale, who will be singing “Age of Aquarius” from “Hair.”

“I was not familiar with that song,” Sabatini says. “I liked it right off the bat, which surprised me because it’s not my type of musical. I tend to like the more edgy and newer musicals like ‘Spring Awakening’ and ‘Rent.’ ”

So is Sabatini a hippie now that she knows the moon is in the seventh house?

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