I’m following a lead on news about a new theater troupe that focuses on musicals. Called the Little City Musical Theatre Company, the groups plans to stage its first production at South of Broadway in North Charleston. The premiere is Jason Robert Brown’s Songs for a New World and it opens on March 28. It runs through April 6. The for-profit company has been incubating for a year. It finished going through the incorporation process last week. There will be a website soon. It hopes to offer musical theater through the summer months, which is when the rest of the theater groups go dark. There’s even talk of performing in Marion Square over the summer. That’s all I know at the moment. I’m trying to get in touch with the theater’s spokesperson.
UPDATE (03.06.08)
I just got off the phone with Adam Johnston, one of the four co-founders of Little City Musical Theatre Company. The others are Ralph Prentice Daniel (who starred in Charleston Stage’s Beauty and the Beast), Cara Dolan, and Christina Yap. Over the past three months, they have established a collective vision for the fledgling group, which opens its first show on March 28 (see above).
That vision is ambitious, he said, but hey why not: to be the premiere musical theater company in the Southeast. Down the road, they hope to win a regional Tony award. But first things first. They wanted to establish a company devoted to musical theater in order to tap into Charleston’s deep talent pool. They hope that by being nomadic, they won’t have to worry about rents and the other overhead costs of being a theater troupe and a property manager.
The group hopes to take advantage of the summer months when other theaters go dark for the season. Ultimately, they want Little City to be associated with quality musical. It’s a tall order that a few will no doubt eye skeptically. But some thought the Village Playhouse wouldn’t last in Mt. Pleasant either.
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