'Beehive' shows off music by women - and the hair, too
Big hair and big voices will take the stage when the Big Noise Theatre Company opens "Beehive: The '60s Musical" Friday, Sept. 26, at the Prairie Lakes Theater in Des Plaines.
This all-girl show, which continues on weekends through Oct. 19, chronicles the growth of music performed by women from Lesley Gore to Janis Joplin and by girl groups from Sharon Wynter and The Chevelles to Diana Ross and The Supremes.
"The show is pretty much all music, movement and '60s dancing with a bit of narration," said Nancy Flaster of Glencoe, the director.
On another level, using 43 fabulous wigs, designed and made by renowned New York wig stylist Jason Hayes, the show also illustrates how much the changing hair reflected and defined the changing times in the 1960s, Flaster added.
The six-woman cast includes Lori Spencer of Northbrook, Linda Andrews of Palatine, Grace Acker of Glenview, Pascale Trouillot of Bolingbrook, Jessica Vann of Chicago and Sarah Jane Blevins of Streamwood.
This off-Broadway hit was first produced in New York's Village Gate Theatre in 1985. Although it never made it to Broadway, it has enjoyed huge popularity as it has toured the country.
"I have been trying for eight or nine years to get the rights for Big Noise Theatre Company to perform this show and this year was the first time they were available in the Chicago area," Flaster said.
"This show is a natural crowd-pleaser, so I really wanted to do it," she added.
Having grown up in the era of big hair and big dreams, Flaster said she has a special affinity for the music of the '60s.
"We used to play records and dance to all this great music," she said. "It is nostalgia, but it's also music that defined a time period and continues to survive today."
Flaster said she remembers every song and what each one meant to a girl or boy growing up through those sweet and turbulent years. "And, of course," she continued, "there were those hair styles that got us through -- beehives, flips, bubbles."