Harris Center Welcomes The National Tour Of SOMETHING ROTTEN!

By: Mar. 13, 2019
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Harris Center Welcomes The National Tour Of SOMETHING ROTTEN!

It's an increasing rarity among Broadway musicals: a completely original work not based on a movie, play, book or other source material. With 10 Tony nominations including Best Musical, Something Rotten! is a "fresh, irreverent and hysterical" musical (Associated Press) coming to the Harris Center for five performances.

Set in 1595, the hilarious musical tells the story of Nick and Nigel Bottom, two brothers who are desperate to write their own hit play while the "rock star" Shakespeare keeps getting all the attention. When a local soothsayer foretells that the future of theatre involves singing, dancing and acting at the same time, Nick and Nigel set out to write the world's very first musical.

With its heart on its ruffled sleeve, Something Rotten! is "The Producers + Spamalot + The Book of Mormon. Squared!" (New York Magazine).

Something Rotten! comes to the Harris Center on Thursday, April 18, 2019 at 7:30 pm; Friday, April 19 at 2 and 7:30 pm; Saturday, April 20 at 2 and 7:30 pm. Tickets are $48-$83; Premium $92. 10% Discount for Friday Matinee Single Tickets. Tickets are available online at www.harriscenter.net or from Harris Center Ticket Office at 916-608-6888 from 12 noon to 6 pm, Monday through Saturday, and two hours before show time. Parking is included in the price of the ticket. Harris Center is located on the west side of Folsom Lake College campus in Folsom, CA, facing East Bidwell Street.

The New York Post calls it "Broadway's big, fat hit!" Something Rotten! is that, but it's also an irresistible ode to the musical, that dazzling creation that entertains, inspires, and reminds all that "everything's better with an exclamation point!"

Laced throughout with humor for Shakespeare aficionados and musical theater geeks - and everybody else - Something Rotten! is set in Elizabethan London, where William Shakespeare is a rock star of the stage. Nick and Nigel Bottom (the last name comes from A Midsummer Night's Dream) star as two brothers who are stuck in Shakespeare's shadow and are desperate for a hit. Nick's wife Bea is a can-do gal who, in the style of Shakespearean heroines, will cross-dress to get things done; as she tries to help, Nigel falls for a pretty Puritan named Portia, whose father strongly disapproves. Unreliable soothsayer Thomas Nostradamus, nephew of the Nostradamus, looks into the future and tells Nick that theater's next big thing will be - tahdah! - "musicals", where people sing, dance and act all at the same time! As the musical's co-writer John O'Farrell observes, "Something Rotten! is about show business and putting on a show. Just doing that in Tudor times gives it an extra spin."

The show originated from an idea that brothers Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick had two decades ago. Karey started his career as a successful screenwriter for Disney Animation and Wayne was a Grammy Award-winning songwriter. They imagined a writing team trying to come up with a hit play under the shadow of the most famous of playwrights. Karey remembers, "It was a series of conversations that happened over many years. We were big history buffs. We started with 'wouldn't it be funny if Shakespeare's London were a lot like what Broadway was like in the '30s?' And we went from there."

In 2010, Karey reached out to his friend Kevin McCollum, producer of original hits like Rent and Avenue Q. "We called Kevin and said, 'What do you need?' He said that Avenue Q was presented as three songs and an idea," Karey says. "He came to my house and we pitched him five songs and the idea. He said, 'I think you've got something here.'" By the time Something Rotten! opened on Broadway in April 2015, after more than four years of work, the Kirkpatricks had written more than 50 songs (15 made it into the show) and O'Farrell and Karey had done countless rewrites. "The funniest musical comedy in at least 400 years!" (Time Out New York)

The completely original musical Something Rotten! is directed and choreographed by Tony Award winner Casey Nicholaw (The Book of Mormon, Aladdin), with music and lyrics by Grammy Award winner and Tony Award nominee Wayne Kirkpatrick and Golden Globe Award and Tony Award nominee Karey Kirkpatrick and a script by Karey Kirkpatrick and best-selling author John O'Farrell. The award-winning design team of Broadway veterans includes Scott Pask (scenic design), Gregg Barnes (costume design), Jeff Croiter (lighting design), Peter Hylenski (sound design), Josh Marquette (hair design), Phil Reno (music direction / conductor), Glen Kelly (arrangements), Larry Hochman (orchestrations), Steve Bebout (associate director), and casting by Telsey + Company/Bethany Knox, CSA.

The Harris Center for the Arts at Folsom Lake College brings the community together to share in cultural experiences featuring the work of artists from throughout the region and around the world. Built and operated by the Los Rios Community College District, the $50 million, state-of-the-art regional performing arts center boasts three intimate venues with outstanding acoustics, an art gallery, a recording studio, elegant teaching spaces, plenty of safe parking and all the other amenities of a world-class performing arts venue. Each year the Center hosts over 400 events attracting more than 150,000 annually.



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