Actress tunes into 'Musical'
Singer/actress Katie Siri has performed in a lot of musicals in her career and most of them are parodied in the hit off-Broadway musical, "The Musical of Musicals: The Musical" at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre in Arlington Heights.
"I first started performing in the third grade," she says. "Lake Zurich High School was doing a production of 'The Sound of Music' and I was cast as Gretl (the youngest of the Von Trapp children)."
Since then Siri, who studied music theater at Viterbo University in LaCrosse, Wis., before moving to Chicago to become an actor, has also appeared in, or is familiar with, shows by Stephen Sondheim, Jerry Herman, Andrew Lloyd Webber, and Kanter and Ebb.
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"I love Sondheim," Siri says. "I also love Jerry Herman."
Sondheim, Herman and the rest are satirized in "The Musical of Musicals," a show that retells in the styles of these major artists a simple story of an actress who can't pay the rent.
"The more you know about musicals, the more jokes you will get," says Siri, who last appeared at the Metropolis playing the lead in one of the few musicals not satirized in the show, "High School Musical."
"But even if you only know a little about musicals, the show is still very entertaining."
The director, Grayslake resident Robin Hughes, agrees.
"I love that the show plays with so many genres of musicals,' Hughes says.
Hughes comes by her love naturally. Today she pays her bills directing and working as a casting director at the Metropolis. But not that long ago she was acting herself at local theaters. She also put in her time acting in a lot of musicals.
This experience has come in handy. It is not easy putting together a show packed with obscure and not so obscure jokes about musical theater. Hughes knew that the big musical fans will come out of the woodwork for this show. And they are just the ones to know when something is not quite right, or the joke is off.
"We did lots of research on the spoofed shows," Hughes says. "That is what our dramaturge did. Any libretto I could get my hands on, any DVDs and CDs, I would digest for another joke for the show. Still every day in rehearsals we would catch another reference, another joke in the show."
Hughes and company also worked hard to re-create the performing styles of the great musical theater actors, people like Ethel Merman, Glenn Close, Mandy Patinkin and Patty LuPone.
"We do send ups of these performers in the show, too," Hughes says, "along with some of the major choreographers, like Agnes de Mille (who created the dances for "Oklahoma!").
"But the thing is we are having fun with these shows, but we aren't subverting them," Hughes says. "'The Musical of Musicals: The Musical' is a loving homage to the people who make and perform in musicals."
"The Musical of Musicals: The Musical" runs through June 21 at the Metropolis Performing Arts Centre, 111 W. Campbell, Arlington Heights, Illinois. For tickets and information call 847.577.2121 or visit the Metropolis Web site: .metropolisarts.com.