Thu 7/1 @ 7PM
Sun 7/4 @ 2PM
No, it was 1944’s On the Town, about sailors on a brief leave in Manhattan, that had the famous tune “New York New York, it’s a helluva town.” Wonderful Town, from 1953, revolved around two sisters trying to find their way in the big city and featured the song “Ohio,” with the lyrics “Why oh why oh why oh/did I ever leave Ohio?” In 2021, the Ohio Legislature could give them a long list of reasons!
One thing both musicals had in common was music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, every one of them the child of Jewish immigrants (a group which provided the vast majority of the early-mid 20thcentury’s great pop/musical songwriters), all born on the east coast in the 1910s.
Mercury Theatre Company is celebrating its return to live summer theater with two performances of Wonderful Town, with a cast of 15 and Kelvette Beacham and CorLesia Smith as the two sisters who lead the riotous conga line at the end of Act I but do not return to Ohio at the end of Act II. Maybe they’re waiting until women and LGBTQ+ people have at least as many rights as guns. (The conga takes place on the legendarily gay Christopher Street where, 16 years later, at the Stonewall Inn at 53 Christopher Street, the modern gay rights movement began.)
The performances will take place at Notre Dame College’s Regina Auditorium in South Euclid. For tickets and information, go to mercurytheatrecompany.org or call 216-771-5862.