CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Lyric Theatre’s performance this week of “Crazy for You” is a joyful combination of tap dancing and Gershwin tunes.
Behind the scenes, though, it’s a complicated mix of two dozen cast members who must dance in sync and make quick costume changes.
“There are so many moving parts. It’s a really big endeavor,” said the show’s director, Sarah Wigley, the musical theater coordinator for the Lyric Theatre program.
Bobby Child (played by Owen Connor Stout) appears with the Follies Girls during a rehearsal of “Crazy for You” at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
The Lyric Theatre will perform “Crazy for You” at Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on April 25-28. The program stages a musical theater piece every year, along with opera and operetta. “Crazy for You” is Lyric Theatre’s first dance show since it performed “Kiss Me Kate” in 2016.
Wigley said “Crazy for You” was selected because of factors that included the large cast and the tuneful Gershwin melodies that singers love to perform. The show features some of the best-loved songs by George and Ira Gershwin, including “Embraceable You,” “Shall We Dance,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me” and “I Got Rhythm!”
“Ira Gershwin’s lyrics resonate with everyone. They are so clever. The wordplay is sparkling,” said music director Michael Tilley, the musical administrator for Lyric Theatre. “The tap dance combines with their musicality and is so rhythmic in its expression.”
The show tells the story of Bobby Child, sent from New York to Deadrock, Nevada, to foreclose on the small town’s only theater. Instead, he falls in love with Polly Baker, the daughter of the theater’s owner. Bobby urges the townspeople to put on a show, complete with the Follies Girls from New York, to pay off the theater’s mortgage.
The cast of “Crazy for You” takes a bow during a rehearsal.
The cast includes 25 students majoring in lyric theatre, acting, dance, voice and some nonperformance fields. Only a few of them had ever taken a tap dancing class. When the show was announced, many enrolled in tap the next semester or took private lessons to prepare.
Charlie Maybee, a tap dancer and graduate student in dance at Illinois, choreographed the show.
“Charlie did not water down anything. ‘I Got Rhythm!’ is six minutes of tapping. It’s obvious by the sound if the dancers are not together. There are three big tap numbers that are long and have a lot of people on stage,” Wigley said. “The students have risen to the occasion.”
A romance blossoms between Irene Roth (played by Logan Piker) and Lank Hawkins (played by Cameron Young) in “Crazy for You.”
Maybee used some of the original choreography from the Broadway show, which won a 1992 Tony Award for Best Choreography, as well as Best Musical and Best Costume Design. But much of his choreography for the Lyric Theatre production is new.
“Charlie thinks about group formations and how to change the line, almost like a marching band. When you have 25 people on stage, you have to change the stage picture to see everybody and not lose people in the back row. He thinks about how to vary the sounds and the percussive elements,” Wigley said.
The large cast with students from different disciplines and the recent addition of an undergraduate major in lyric theatre allowed the Lyric Theatre program to stage a show with “multitalented performers who can sing and act and dance, and who we can rely on to do things that haven’t been possible until now,” Tilley said.
Polly Baker (played by Colleen Bruton) and Bobby Child (played by Owen Connor Stout) fall in love while trying to save the Gaiety Theatre in Deadrock, Nevada, in “Crazy for You.”
The cast uses more than 100 detailed costumes that include period gloves, hats, jewelry and purses. Characters must make complete costume changes quickly, including from tap shoes to street shoes. In one scene, the eight Follies Girls must completely change clothes and wigs in 30 seconds. In another, Polly must climb a ladder and move behind a platform to change into a ball gown, then descend a spiral staircase in time to begin a song and dance to “Shall We Dance.” The character Bobby disguises himself as a New York theater owner, and he makes multiple costume changes that include sometimes wearing a beard.
Rehearsals have been hard, physical work for the students, particularly learning all the tap numbers, Tilley said, but “there’s so much joy in the dance.”
In Wigley’s program notes for the show, she wrote: “When the Zangler Follies arrive in Deadrock and the Gaiety Theatre is once again filled with song, dance and laughter, we witness a once slow-moving, down-on-its-luck community revitalized through the performing arts and the joy that live theatre can bring.
“Art creates community.”
Editor’s notes: To contact Sarah Wigley, email swjohn@illinois.edu. To contact Michael Tilley, email tilley@illinois.edu.
