Palatine native lights up 'Breaking Up is Hard to Do'
Fox Valley Repertory continues its second season reliving the summer of 1960 set to Neil Sedaka's great hits with the musical "Breaking Up is Hard to Do."
Directed by Fox Valley Rep Veteran and Multi-JEFF Award-winning Choreographer and Director Kevin Bellie, performances will take place at the Pheasant Run Resort Mainstage. And with Palatine native and Hoffman Estates High School alum Gary C. Echelmeyer having designed the lighting for this musical, the Neil Sedaka music as well as the actors will be shining brightly throughout the performance run through May 20, 2012.
While this is the first Fox Valley Repertory show for Palatine native and Lighting Designer Gary C. Echelmeyer, he has worked with Bellie several times in Chicago. Echelmeyer attended Hoffman Estates High School, where he started working on theatrical productions in 1998 and quickly discovered a passion for lighting. When he decided to study lighting design and received a scholarship from Illinois State University's School of Theatre. He started his career in Houston, Texas as the Lighting Supervisor with Houston Grand Opera. And in 2008, he moved back to Chicago to continue to pursue his career as a freelance Lighting Designer.
His work in the Chicagoland area has greatly varied with a wide range of producing organizations including: Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, Circle Theatre, Roosevelt University, Elgin Community College, St. Francis High School (Wheaton), St. Ignatius College Prep (Chicago), as well as continuing to design a traveling show called "Here To Stay: The Gershwin Experience."
“It's fun returning to and working in suburbs such as Elgin, Schaumburg, and St. Charles because I feel like I'm revisiting my roots,” says Echelmeyer. “The Fox Valley community is so fortunate to have such a wonderful venue to produce such high quality professional grade shows to audiences year-round. I am very passionate when it comes to my designs for the theatre and it's a great pleasure to work with a team who embraces the hard work and dedication necessary to show a great product to an audience.”
“Breaking Up is Hard to Do offers fun nostalgia to our patrons, as we call can remember a time when we were young and in love,” says Artistic Director John Gawlik. “Combine Dirty Dancing with “Where the Boys Are”, and you get a musical full of teenage infatuations, excitement, innocence, first kisses, first fights – which can all be used to describe this fun production.”
Breaking Up is Hard To Do is a cruisin' adventure through the summer of 1960, full of colorful characters, mistaken identity, and romance. Patrons will relive the excitement of their first kiss while tappin' their toes along to 18 of rock-n-roll legend Neil Sedaka's chart-toppin' songs, including “Where the Boys Are," "Sweet Sixteen," “Love Will Keep Us Together,” "Calendar Girl," and of course the title song, "Breaking Up Is Hard To Do.”
The cast of Breaking up is Hard to Do features (in alphabetical order): Michael Brown, Roselle native Stephanie Herman, Christina Myers, Creg Sclavi, Heather Townsend and Fred Zimmerman of Downers Grove.
Breaking Up is Hard to Do is now playing through Sunday, May 20, 2012. Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; Sundays at 2 p.m. Thursday performances are available on April 5 at 8pm; and April 12 & 26 and May 17 at 2pm. The show is rated PG.
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency, and is sponsored in part by the Daily Herald and Delnor Express Care.
Pheasant Run Resort is located at 4051 E. Main St., St. Charles, IL. For tickets, call the Pheasant Run Box Office at 630-584-6342, or visit www.ticketmaster.com. Additional performance information may be obtained at www.foxvalleyrep.org.