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The Springfield Theatre Alliance met at Juanita K. Hammons Hall for the Performing Arts on Tuesday to announce the 2011 / 2012 performance calendar for member theatres. KSMU’s Brandon Goodwin reports.
[Sound: Person at podium]
Members of the Springfield Theatre Alliance, or STA, take turns at the podium, unveiling their upcoming shows.
STA President, Mark Templeton says he’s happy with the variety of new productions.
“There’s something for everyone. I do really enjoy the fact that in any one weekend you could possibly go see three or four different types of theatre,” he said.
Some classics are on the lineup: Our Town, Annie, Evita and Oklahoma!, to name a few. There are also several modern performances: The Blue Man Group, Rent, Hairspray and SHREK, The Musical.
The list is not without a few obscure titles such as A Class Act Productions’ parody of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season Two. The Skinny Improv’s Jeff Jenkins is producing an adaptation entitled “Hamlet vs. Zombies.”
“It starts almost the same from the text. And then instead of the king coming out as the ghost, he’s a zombie—and kind of towards the end it turns into an action film,” he said.
The 13 theatres and production companies that make up the STA have seen over fifty-thousand seats filled so far in 2011. Templeton says he expects that number to near a quarter-million by the end of the year.
“So we’re excited about that because when one person goes to see a piece of theatre, they tend to say, ‘well, I want to go check something else out,’ and that’s what this Springfield Theatre Alliance is all about,” he said.
Links to the fifty-plus recently announced shows are available at KSMU.org.
For KSMU News, I’m Brandon Goodwin.