'Little Night Music' rare gem

It take a community theater troupe with the right amount of chops - and guts - to tackle the work of Stephen Sondheim.

His musicals, including "Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street" feature nonstop lyrics at breakneck speeds. But the players from LZP Productions, based out of Palatine's Cutting Hall's welcome the challenge, and are prepping to debut their version of Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" on Saturday, Jan. 10.

"He'll fit the most unusual words into lyrics that you could ever possibly imagine," said Ken Priess of Hawthorn Woods, who doubles as the show's vocal coach and plays the role of Frederik Egerman.

Added his wife Morra, who also wears many hats for LZP, including one of the show's directors: "It really requires really trained singers for the most part."

"A Little Night Music" has a predominantly female cast, including the role of 18-year-old Anne Egerman, played by Emilie Frake of Gurnee. The 23-year-old says she can relate to her carefree role. Anne is a young bride and a bit on the naive side who is struggling with the concept of marriage.

"I hope, especially for the women, they see themselves in her a little bit when they were younger," Frake said.

The musical opened on Broadway in 1973 and is based on the Ingmar Bergman film "Smiles of a Summer Night" by Ingmar Bergman. The song "Send in the Clowns" made the show popular, though sometimes the music overshadows the witty dialogue.

"It's one of those things when you hear everyone speaking so elegantly and eloquently, you don't realize they're saying all those double entendres, which makes it fun," said Mary Campbell, who plays Madam Armfeldt.

Morra Priess said it's been long a time since the area has had a production of "A Little Night Music," and others are following LZP's lead. She notes Palatine's Harper College is doing their own production later this year; another is planned for Light Opera Works in Evanston.

"It's very stylized but it's very funny," she said. "It's set in Sweden but it's sort of a French farce because everyone's changing partners and everything, all it's missing is a thousand doors slamming."

LZP originally stood for Lake Zurich Playhouse, a reference to the eponymous theater that, in its heyday in the 1940s and '50s, featured players like Harvey Korman and Geraldine Page. LZP now stages all of its productions at Cutting Hall.