Rehoboth Beach’s Clear Space Theatre Company is staying busy this summer with a trio of blockbuster musicals, small-scale cabaret shows, and programs for kids.
Anchoring the company’s summer lineup are three blockbuster Broadway shows: Rent, Hairspray, and Beautiful: The Carole King Musical.
Clear Space Theatre’s managing director Joe Gfaller says Beautiful tells the personal story of a famous musician.
“Watching her journey to find her voice and to trust herself as someone who can be a singer-songwriter instead of the person behind the scenes who writes other people's music is a beautiful, full circle sort of story,” said Gfaller.
Gfaller says Rent also tells a story that resonates on a personal level.
“What's beautiful about Rent - it's the first time that musical theater directly addressed the HIV-AIDS crisis that our country faced 30 and 40 years ago, said Gfaller. “And what [playwight and composer Jonathan] Larson does so beautifully was the piece is not about what it means to face a terrible illness. The piece is entirely about what it means to embrace being alive.”
While there’s plenty of entertainment to be found with those mainstage musicals, Clear Space is also offering a series of cabaret shows, putting performers in a more intimate setting.
“I think what's beautiful about the cabaret model is, what a performer is providing to an audience is entirely driven by their personal interests, their passions, their joys.”
Clear Space also offers two newly-created shows for children on Saturday mornings.
Ticket and show information is at clearspacetheatre.org.
Delaware Public Media's arts coverage is made possible, in part, by support from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency dedicated to nurturing and supporting the arts in Delaware, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts.
