History
In 1998, fresh off a run of Bean's first musical, Don't Touch That Dial! at the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre, Bean was asked to write a new musical for their intimate black box space, the Stackner Cabaret.Bean suggested a musical about high school song leaders from the '50s and '60s, best friends, singing at prom for their best friends and boyfriends. He would use pop songs from the '50s and '60s to tell story of the characters. In this way, The Marvelous Wonderettes was born in 1999.
With limited backstage space, Bean needed to write a script in which the actors could remain onstage though most if not all of the show. Thus the original one-act version of The Marvelous Wonderettes came to be. Through the years it has grown from its much simpler one-act format to its current, fully realized, two-act version. In 2001 the show headed back to Milwaukee Rep for an extended run and played at several other theaters around the country.
In 2006, Bean met producing partner David Elzer, who along with Peter Schneider helped to create a fantastic Los Angeles production of the show, which ran at the El Portal theater for two years and received Ovation nominations and awards. The Marvelous Wonderettes opened at the Westside Theater in New York City on September 14, 2008 where it ran until January 3, 2010..
Read more about this topic: The Marvelous Wonderettes
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Every member of the family of the future will be a producer of some kind and in some degree. The only one who will have the right of exemption will be the mother ...”
—Ruth C. D. Havens, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 13, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“To history therefore I must refer for answer, in which it would be an unhappy passage indeed, which should shew by what fatal indulgence of subordinate views and passions, a contest for an atom had defeated well founded prospects of giving liberty to half the globe.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“History is the present. That’s why every generation writes it anew. But what most people think of as history is its end product, myth.”
—E.L. (Edgar Lawrence)