LUCKY STIFF

Area Premiere

May 3 – 25, 2002 – Bryant Lake Bowl Cabaret Theater

Music – Stephen Flaherty
Book and Lyrics – Lynn Ahrens

What do you get when you combine one dead body, a nerdy English shoe salesman, six million bucks in diamonds, and a lot of dogs?  The hysterically funny musical Lucky Stiff!  Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty are best known for their award winning musicals Ragtime, Seussical and Once On This Island, but their very first collaboration – Lucky Stiff – earned them both the Richard Rodgers Production Award and the Helen Hayes Award for best musical.  This madcap tale takes us on a whirlwind adventure through London, Atlantic City and Monte Carlo as the cast tries to figure out who did what to whom!

Director / Choreographer – Steven Meerdink
Musical Director – Kevin Hansen

photo credit: Roy Blakey

Cast
Harry Witherspoon – Jeffrey Cloninger
Annabel Glick – Tina Miller
Rita LaPorta – Greta Grosch
Vinnie DiRuzzio – Kevin Hansen
Luigi Gaudi – Marlin Rothe
Spinster / Southern Lady / Dominique DuMonaco – Windy Merrill
Lorry Driver / Solicitor / French Emcee / Old Texan / Nun – Gregg Peterson
Landlady / Miss Thorsby / Southern Lady / Maid – Laurie Etchen
Punk / Mr. Loomis / Waiter / Bellhop – Paul Reyburn
Tony Hendon – Arnie Roos

Musicians
Amy Hoelmer (Piano)
Tony Schiefert (Percussion)

“Director Steven J. Meerdink paces briskly and handles well the intricate stagecraft required on the tiny Bryant-Lake Bowl stage.  Tina Miller shines as the romantic interest, with an earnest and pretty face surrounding hopeful, sparkling eyes. With a sweet voice and winsome personality, she sings one of the few honest moments in the show — a clever little tune about those times when a girl sure could use a dog instead of a man. Kevin Hansen has a great Barney Fife look and attitude as the killer’s brother. Gregg Peterson and Paul Reyburn show versatility in a number of one-note, quick-switch roles. And Windy Merrill has the arrogance and confident stage presence required of her role as a sleazy casino chanteuse.” – Minneapolis Star Tribune

“The Minneapolis Musical Theatre plays the Stephen Flaherty-Lynn Ahrens musical just right, delivering an enthusiastically sung, nicely cheeky rendering of this piffle of a play that you can’t help but like.  Director Steven J. Meerdink, who has worked all manner of magic on the tiny Bryant Lake Bowl stage, does it again here.  I would have bet hard currency, for instance, that you couldn’t get 10 actors in oversized foam canine headdresses tap-dancing on that stage all at the same time.”  –  St. Paul Pioneer Press