Heritage starts new summer season with a Twist or two

If your summer vacation is just a few weeks old and you’re already bored, just be grateful you aren’t growing up in London in the 1830s. Instead of “Guitar Hero,” you and your friends just might be playing “Oatmeal Hero” right about now.

Child labor in slimy workhouses was a fact of life when Charles Dickens wrote the novel “Oliver Twist.” In a land before Lunchables, his young protagonist launches a series of plot-moving events in motion when he asks meekly for another bowl of gruel after a grueling morning of toil.

Can the good guy win when he’s hungry and down on his luck and adults usually don’t have his best interests at heart? That’s a question “Oliver!” asks in the Culbreth Theatre starting Thursday night.

Heritage Repertory Theatre’s new season opens with a serious approach to Lionel Bart’s musical, a perennial favorite known for such upbeat tunes as “Consider Yourself” and “Food Glorious Food.” It’s the first time Heritage has presented the family favorite, and Robert Chapel, producing artistic director for Heritage, wants to be sure audiences don’t go home hungry.

“The novel is a serious book. These were not nice people,” Chapel said. “What we’re trying to do is depict the really horrible conditions of the workhouse, for instance. And I’m trying in some ways to show the love affair between Nancy and Bill Sykes.”

Chapel’s cast includes 14 local young people, including Sam Scott as the Artful Dodger. Eight-year-old Cooper Timberline of

Richmond plays Oliver, and he’s also got his sights set on performing in “Mary Poppins” on Broadway, Chapel said.

The love story between Nancy and Bill was worth a closer look to help the plot make more sense, Chapel said.

Kind-hearted Nancy — played by Catherine Ogden, whom Heritage audiences may recall from “Ragtime” — remains devoted to a man who savagely beats and mistreats her.

She sings of her love in “As Long As He Needs Me,” one of the show’s most well-known numbers. To Chapel, it is important to establish why Nancy stays willing to give her violent lover chance after chance, because, otherwise, the song makes no sense.

Chapel said that this year’s Heritage season will bring back some features fans enjoy, including what the festival’s materials cheerfully refer to as “pre-recession pricing.”

“We want people in our theater,” Chapel said.

“We’ve gone back to our 2006 pricing, and we’ve gone back to our rotating repertory.”

Heritage, known for years as Heritage Repertory Theatre, stepped away last year from its tradition of offering splashy opening and closing musicals and presenting other summer selections in rotating repertory. Instead, each show opened, ran its course and closed in turn.

This year, in response to audience members’ requests, it’s back to the merry chaos of rapidly striking sets after each night’s show and replacing them with the sets for the next production.

Once the opening musical is done, the other plays will open one at a time — “Moonlight and Magnolias” on July 9, “On Golden Pond” on July 16 and “Little Shop of Horrors” on July 23, all taking turns in the Culbreth, and “Red, White and Tuna,” opening on July 21 in the Helms Theatre.

The tradition of a smaller musical in the Helms continues as well.

“Pump Boys and Dinettes,” filled with country-fried music by a couple of fictional down-home singing groups, runs from June 30 to July 11.

Presenting each production in turn can be easier on the cast and crew, but the rotating repertory had a solid fan base that couldn’t be denied.

Theatergoers told the Heritage team that if they spent a good chunk of July out of town on vacations, they missed some shows entirely, and so they didn’t need season tickets.

Now, “people can go away and come back, and still see all four shows in the last week,” Chapel said.

“It’s more work to strike sets, but they’re designed to do it, and it’s worth it. We’re going to stick to doing rotating rep.”

The change has helped sell tickets. Chapel also points to the scheduling of “family-friendly shows,” such as “Oliver!” and other musicals, and a dedication to keep some well-chosen classics in the mix as selling points.

“We are trying not to repeat shows,” he said.

There will be plenty of familiar faces in the casts, as well as behind the scenes.

Dave Cupp, who acted in numerous productions during his years as anchor for WVIR-TV, will be back at Heritage, appearing in “Moonlight and Magnolias” and “On Golden Pond.”

Robert Porter, who has acted in past productions, will be in the director’s chair for “On Golden Pond,” which also brings back favorite Martin Beekman.

Peter Balcke, whom Chapel calls “a great young actor,” will play Billy in “On Golden Pond.”

Geno Carr, whom audiences will remember from his turn as Luther Billis in “South Pacific” and plenty of other roles, will direct “Little Shop of Horrors.” And Heritage veteran Evan Bridenstine will finish playing Mr. Bumble in “Oliver!” and leap into “Red, White and Tuna.”

Fans of the “Greater Tuna” shows, each of which requires two accomplished actors to play a dizzying array of characters of all ages and both sexes, will be seeing something fresh and new.

John Paul Scheidler and Bridenstine will be the quick-change artists telling the tale of a Fourth of July reunion in Tuna, Texas, that’s full of characteristically comic fireworks.

“This script is finally done,” Chapel said. “They’ve tweaked it and tweaked it. We’re working from an unpublished script.” 

And speaking of quick changes, Rob Marnell, who has portrayed tuneful heartthrob protagonists in everything from “South Pacific” to “Damn Yankees,” will be playing villains this summer, including Bill Sykes in “Oliver!” and the dentist in “Little Shop of Horrors.”

Details

“Oliver!”

Heritage Theatre Festival

7:30 p.m. Thursday

Culbreth Theatre

$30; $26 seniors and UVa faculty and staff members;$15 students

Season tickets remain available

http://artsboxoffice.virginia.edu

http://www.uvahft.org  924-3376