Carey Dinner Theatre
- June 14-30: "I Love a Piano"
- July 10-21: "Schoolhouse Rock Live!"
- Show times: Tues. to Sat., 7 p.m.
- Tickets: $30, includes meal & show
- Box Office: Opens June 4
Call (601) 318-6221
Carey Dinner Theatre will celebrate its 43rd season with two musicals in June and July at the Joe and Virginia Tatum Theatre on the Hattiesburg campus of William Carey University.
“I Love a Piano”
The first show is “I Love a Piano,” a musical featuring the timeless and beloved tunes of Irving Berlin, one of America’s greatest song writers. Using an upright piano as a centerpiece, the action follows Berlin’s career from his earliest hit, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.” The piano, with its one bad key, takes six performers through the 20th century, and becomes the instrument of record at a sheet music store, a pre-WWI parlor, a silent movie theater, a Depression-era dance hall, a WWII canteen, a 1950s summer-stock theatre, and finally to the present.
Conceived and written by Ray Roderick and Michael Berkeley, the show features more than 60 of Berlin’s classics, from “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm,” “Blue Skies,” “Cheek to Cheek,” and “Always,” to show-stopping numbers such as “God Bless America” and “There’s No Business Like Show Business.” The show runs June 14 through 30.
“Schoolhouse Rock Live!”
The second show is the pop culture phenomenon, “Schoolhouse Rock Live!” This is a high-energy, nostalgic piece of classic Americana, whose music and humor were first introduced on ETV in the 70s and 80s. Designed to educate and entertain, the songs make learning math, science, English, history and civics fun for the whole family. The stage version has delighted audiences from university stages to regional theatres and beyond for two decades.
“Schoolhouse Rock Live!” follows Tom, a nerve-wracked school teacher who is nervous about his first day of teaching. He tries to relax by watching TV. Various characters representing facets of his personality emerge from the set and show him how to win his students over with imagination and music, through such songs as “The Preamble,” “Just a Bill,” “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly,” “Conjunction Junction,” “Interplanet Janet,” and “Rufus Xavier Sarsaparilla.” The CDT production runs July 10 through 21.
Ticket information
To make reservations or to be added to the mailing list, call (601) 318-6221. The box office is open from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, beginning Monday, June 4. The admission price of $30 includes a buffet meal, the show and sales tax. Dinner is served at 7 in the Joe and Virginia Tatum Theatre, and the performance follows. There are no performances on Sundays and Mondays.