Classic musicals, comedies in Gaslight Dinner Theatre's 2008 season

Release Date: 9/28/2007. Expired: 10/28/2007

An all-time classic musical, one of Broadway’s most popular shows in history and a double dose of Texas-sized humor make up the 2008 season for the Gaslight Dinner Theatre at The Renaissance Center in Dickson.

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre announces its 2008 lineup as well as an opportunity for Theatre Family Tree members to get the first shot at tickets for the shows.

“Our 2008 season is full of great music, dancing and hearty laughs as we present two classic musicals and two extremely popular comedies,” said Pacer Harp, managing director of the Gaslight Dinner Theatre. “We’re also reducing the price of our season passes and giving our Theatre Family Tree members an opportunity to buy tickets first.”

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre’s 2008 season is My Fair Lady, A Chorus Line, Greater Tuna and A Tuna Christmas.

A Gaslight Dinner Theatre 2008 Theatre Season Pass is $100. A pass guarantees you a seat for all four productions for less than the price of individual tickets. Season passes do not include senior matinees.

Members of The Renaissance Center’s Theatre Family Tree will have the first opportunity to purchase season passes and individual show tickets Nov. 1-15. During this two-week period, only Theatre Family Tree members can purchase tickets.

The Renaissance Center’s Theatre Family Tree is a program to benefit and support the Theatre Arts programs at the center. Patrons can join with a one-time gift that is recognized through an engraved leaf on the Theatre Family Tree sculpture in the center’s rotunda. Gold leaf membership is $75; silver leaf membership is $50; and bronze leaf membership is $25. Being a Theatre Family Tree member provides a first shot at season passes and show tickets, as well as other discounts and special offers.

Theatre Season Passes will be available for the general public Nov. 16-Jan. 18. Tickets for individual shows go on sale Jan. 7 for all shows in the 1008 season. Individual show tickets are $30, which means a season pass presents a saving of $20. Tickets for senior matinees are $20.

Based on Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw, My Fair Lady is a classic musical about a misogynistic phonics teacher who makes a bet that he can turn a common flower girl into a lady of high society. Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe’s musical became a standard by which others are measured with memorable songs like Wouldn’t It Be Loverly, I Could Have Danced All Night and On the Street Where You Live. Rex Harrison won a Tony and an Oscar for playing Henry Higgins, opposite Julie Andrews on stage and Audrey Hepburn on screen in the role of Eliza Doolittle. The 1956 Broadway show ran for six years and 2,717 shows, ranking it 17th in all-time performances. It earned 10 Tony Award nominations and won six, including Best Musical. With revivals in 1976, 1981 and 1993, My Fair Lady has been performed on Broadway more than 3,300 times. The 1964 movie earned 12 Academy Award nominations and won eight, including Best Picture.

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre will present My Fair Lady Feb. 14-March 15. Evening performances are Fridays and Saturdays beginning with a buffet dinner at 6:30 p.m. Senior Matinees are Thursdays and Fridays beginning with a buffet lunch at 12 p.m.

After a 15-year run on Broadway beginning in 1975, A Chorus Line ranks fourth on the list of most-performed shows of all time with 6,137 performances, behind only The Phantom of the Opera, Cats and Les Miserables. The show was revived in 2006 and is currently running in the Gerald Schoendfeld Theatre in New York with another 400 shows to its credit. A stunning musical-verite about a chorus audition for a Broadway musical, A Chorus Line tells of the achingly poignant ambitions of professional Broadway gypsies trying to land a job in a show. Conceived, directed and choreographed by Michael Bennett, its memorable songs include What I Did for Love, Dance: Ten; Looks: Three and the show-stopping One (Singular Sensation). It is a brilliantly complex fusion of dance, song and compellingly authentic drama. Richard Attenborough directed a 1985 movie version that included Michael Douglas and Audrey Landers, who left the hit show Dallas for the part.

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre presents A Chorus Line June 26-Aug. 2. Evening performances are Fridays and Saturdays beginning with a buffet dinner at 6:30 p.m. There are no evening performances July 3-4. Seniors Matinees will be Thursdays and Fridays beginning with a buffet lunch at 12 p.m. There will be no shows July 3, 4 and 10. Additional shows will be offered July 1 and 2. A Chorus Line does contain mature language and subject matter.

What began as a party skit about life in a small town in Texas has grown into a national sensation that has toured internationally and eventually made it to New York. Greater Tuna is an outlandish satire on life in rural America created by Joe Sears, Jaston Williams and Ed Howard. Two actors play more than 20 characters -- including men, women, children and animals -- who inhabit Tuna, “the third smallest town in Texas” where the Lions Club is too liberal and Patsy Cline never dies. After a few shows across the Lone Star State, the play began touring the country and played Off Broadway in 1982. Within three years it became the most produced play in the country. The story begins with the death of Judge Roscoe Buckner from an apparent stroke while wearing a 1950 turquoise Dale Evans one-piece swimsuit with “lots of cowgirl fringe” and ascends from there into outrageous characters and non-stop laughs.

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre will present Greater Tuna Sept. 4-Oct. 18. Evening shows will be Fridays and Saturdays beginning with a buffet dinner at 6:30 p.m. Senior matinees will be Thursdays and Fridays beginning with a buffet lunch at 12 p.m.

The fictional town of Tuna, Texas, hit the theatre world map when A Tuna Christmas, the sequel to Greater Tuna, opened on Broadway in 1994, earning a Best Actor Tony Award nomination for Joe Sears. The same trio of writers is behind the second visit to Tuna where it’s 24 hours before Christmas and all comic hell is about to break loose. The eccentric residents of Tuna attempt to cope with seasonal traumas such as a disaster-prone production of A Christmas Carol and a yard-decorating contest that is being sabotaged by a mysterious Christmas phantom. As in the original show, two actors portray more than 20 residents of Tuna in a non-stop laughfest.

The Gaslight Dinner Theatre will present A Tuna Christmas Nov. 4-Dec. 19. Evening performances will be Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays beginning with a buffet dinner at 6:30 p.m. Senior matinees will be Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays beginning with a buffet lunch at 12 p.m. There will be no shows the week of Nov. 24 due to the Thanksgiving holidays.

“With this combination of classics, music, dancing and laughs, we believe we have a truly diverse season in the Gaslight Dinner Theatre that will appeal to everyone,” said Harp. “And with the reduced price and savings available through season passes, everyone can make sure they won’t miss a single sensational minute for the entire year. And season passes make wonderful Christmas gifts.”

For more information on Gaslight Dinner Theatre 2008 Theatre Season Passes, the season’s shows or the Theatre Family Tree, call (615) 740-5600 or visit The Renaissance Center’s website at www.rcenter.org.

Gaslight Dinner Theatre 2008 Theatre Season Passes will be available for Theatre Family Tree members Nov. 1-15 and on sale to the general public Nov. 16-Jan. 18. Individual show tickets for the entire season go on sale Jan. 7. To purchase passes or tickets, call (615) 740-5601.

The Renaissance Center is a fine arts education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

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