Rehoboth Beach’s Clear Space Theatre Company is in the midst of a busy summer season, with three mainstage musicals, offerings for young actors, and a cabaret series.
Clear Space’s Managing Director, Joe Gfaller, said the theatre is a hive of activity during the summer.
“It's quite a lot,” he said. “We're doing somewhere in the range of eight to ten performances a week across four to five different shows every given week on our stage.”
Among those performances are three blockbuster musicals, “The Cher Show,” “Mean Girls,” and “Pretty Woman.”
The actors from the mainstage musicals are working hard this summer, acting in all three shows, giving them a chance to hone their skills while entertaining audiences.
“You're getting to see someone one day be an amazing background dancer in ‘The Cher Show,’ and then the next day they are chewing the paint off the scenery, playing the lead in ‘Pretty Woman,’ Gfaller said. “So that's, I think, what's especially fun about that repertory environment.”
James FitzSimmons, who is directing “The Cher Show” said the musical is more than a retrospective of the iconic singer’s career, it’s also an introspective look into what makes Cher, Cher. One way the show does that is by casting multiple actors to play Cher at different points in her life and letting those interactions interact with each other on stage.
But, he added, he didn’t push the four actors playing Cher to do a perfect imitation.
“We didn't want an imitation.I didn't want someone to play at being Cher,” he said. “I wanted them to inhabit this woman, and that's what the script is. It's like, who is this woman?”
Joining “The Cher Show” on the mainstage are two other big musicals, both based on hit movies - “Mean Girls” and “Pretty Woman.” Gfaller said that, while the stage versions do differ in some respects from their cinematic originals, the movies’ original creators played a role in developing the musical version.
“I actually think both ‘Mean Girls’ and ‘Pretty Woman,’ the book writers for those two shows did a really beautiful job of capturing the essence and the spirit of both of those original films in order to bring them to the stage,” he said.
“Mean Girls” is not only on the mainstage, it is also being performed by young actors participating in Clear Space’s summer camps. It’s just one of many shows being presented this summer by actors under age 18, including “Frozen Jr.,” “Shrek Kids,” and a brand new work for the stage.
“This year we've commissioned a world premiere called ‘Sybil Under the Stars,’ which is a play for kids ages 4 through 12,” Gfaller said. “And that's happening both on our stage and touring to various parts of Sussex County throughout the summer.”
Rounding out Clear Space’s summer season is its series of cabaret performances, which bring in Broadway stars for intimate performances.
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.
