Book by Neil Simon
Music by Cy Coleman
Lyrics by Dorothy Fields

Performed
August 8-11 and 14-18, 2001
at
The Boal Barn Playhouse

Production Staff

Director	Susanna Ritti
Music Director	Michael C. Rider
Scenic Designer	Zachary DeGeorge
Choreographer	Steven F. Korkus
Lighting Designer	Jason Zantisch
Costume Designer	Ann Mareszewski
Technical Director	Bill Mulberger
Stage Manager	Heidi N. Lucas
Apprentice Coordinator	Michael C. Rider

About the Show

When choreographer Bob Fosse saw Federico Fellini’s film The Nights of Cabiria, he found the perfect vehicle for his wife Gwen Verdon who had not been in a musical for several years. In the film, Cabiria was a shabby, aging Roman streetwalker who still maintained her childlike innocence and gullibility. Fosse decided to move the locale from Rome to New York and to soften Cabiria’s character by making her a dance hall hostess, but still keeping her warm-hearted charm. Fosse frequented the dance halls that were very much a part of the Times Square neighborhood. Indeed, that milieu accounts for the musical’s most successful numbers. Although some critics were bothered by the show’s sleazy atmosphere and its emotional let-down ending, Sweet Charity was a dazzling success. What bothered critics in 1966 would probably not now, thirty-five years later. Musicals have changed with the times. Times have changed in other ways. The dance palaces of the 1960s gave way in the 1970s to porno theatres which have since vanished. Now Disney reigns where once lonely guys would pay “ten cents a dance” ($6.50 by the 1960s) for a half-hour of dance and talk.

Richard B. Gidez

The Cast

Charity Hope Valentine	Martha Traverse
Helene	Elaine C. Meder
Nickie	Nichelle Strzepek
Carmen	Corey Jean Whitesell
Rosie	Rachel Barthmaier
Suzanne	Pam Selfe
Frenchy	Iillian Merriwether-deVries
Betsy	Janis Fisher
Elaine	Amy Baumgarten
Hostess	Tarin Wells
Herman	William Daniel Daup
Ursula March	Kristen A. McKee
Vittorio Vidal	Michael Martin
Oscar Lindquist	Chris Hillner
Daddy Brubeck	Lynn Donald Breon
Assistants to Brubeck	Justin Pifer Michael Waldhier
Ensemble	Robbie Hackman Shaun T. McMurtrie Laura Stocker Erin Stover Mark Strzepek