Footloose, The Musical: Serving Up Summer – David Stringer, Publisher

With Footloose, The Musical,  Suze’s Prescott Center for the Arts (PCA) has served up a delightful summer treat of music and dance showcasing a talented cast of local teens. For those growing weary of the summer’s hot weather and low politics,  this high octane,  feel good night of  fun and escapism  comes at just the right time.  When the  lights go down and the music goes up at the Suze’s Cabaret theater, nothing can stand in the way of a good time with a stage full of singing and dancing young people.

Unlike most musicals,  Footloose was a hit movie before it became a theatrical production.  In 1984,  it was a breakthrough role for the young Kevin Bacon, and was the 7th highest grossing film of the year.  The title song, Footloose, and Let’s Hear It For the Boy,  were nominated for Academy Awards for Best Original Songs.

The story centers on a teenage boy who moves from Chicago to a small town in the mid-west that has banned dancing. This plot line was loosely based on Elmore City, Oklahoma, that had actually banned dancing and music in the 1880’s as a way to discourage alcohol and protect local morality. The city made national news in  1980, when the local school board voted to allow dancing at the Junior Prom.  The story line of the movie was said to draw on real characters and events. In 1998, the popular movie  version of the story and hit tunes were  turned into a live musical production.

The local production of Footloose is the impressive  result of PCA’s Summer Stock Ensemble Camp for local teens,  aged 14  to 20. According to director, Scott Neese, a veteran of over 50 theatrical shows,  auditions  started in early summer and were  followed by four weeks of rehearsals,  five hours a day, four days a week. That takes a lot of dedication for a bunch of teenagers on summer break. But everyone’s hard work paid off opening night with a remarkably smooth and cohesive production.

Footloose is a musical and the music is everything. A  live band under Chris Tenney’s direction, pounding out the show’s many hits,  gives the production a nice, professional  touch.  The mostly teenage cast hails from across the quad  city area and include young  people from  public schools,  charters,  and home  schooled backgrounds.  I wish I could single out every performer by name.

Photo: Maxx Bouchard as Willard Hewitt and Angel Morado as Ren McCormack

Angel Morado in the lead role of Ren McCormack is an engaging young actor who was a strong, unifying presence on stage. He brought authority to a role that called for not just a talent for song and dance, but a sense of  dramatic range  in scenes of teenage angst that were entirely  convincing.  Ren’s girlfriend,  Ariel Moore, was played by Norah Severson,  another PCA veteran now studying Musical Theater at Southern Utah University.  She brought a nice level of polish to the show’s production numbers and a quiet confidence in her dramatic scenes with Ren and her father, the Reverend Shaw Moore. The Reverend, who, as a town leader,  was responsible for Bomont’s restriction of  dancing was played by Chris Stonebraker, a versatile character actor and another PCA regular, most recently seen as The Governor in The Best  Little Whorehouse in Texas. He gave a well modulated performance as a character that grows from self-righteousness to the humility of self discovery. Ren’s best friend Willard Hewitt, played by Maxx Bouchard, turned in an exceptionally fine performance as a guy who couldn’t dance.   According to the program notes,  this was Mr. Bouchard’s debut role in live theater.  You wouldn’t have guessed it from his modest and disciplined  opening scenes that later exploded  in two of the evening’s show stopping performances—Let’s Hear it For the Boy, and Mama Says.

Footloose is above all a musical show of song and dance. The production numbers wouldn’t work without a well-trained cast who got the details right.  One mark of professionalism in the actor’s trade is staying in character.  Javan Traux in the role of  Garvin, who gave his age as 15, was mostly in background scenes. But he maintained his character and concentration like a trouper every minute he was on stage and never missed a step in his many dance scenes. Getting the details right made for a smooth and confident  opening night show.  The infectious fun  this talented and well rehearsed  cast was  having on stage created a wonderful night  of musical theater.

Photo: (left to right) Chris Tenney (music director), David Stringer (publisher of Prescott eNews), Jenn Flaa (Director of Suze’s), and Scott Neese (director of Footloose)

Footloose  continues at  Suze’s Prescott Center for The Arts  thru July 7^th.  Tickets are available online