‘Hooray for Hollywood’ to launch Super Summer Theatre season
When the temperatures go up in Southern Nevada, so does the curtain — figuratively speaking — at Super Summer Theatre.
The outdoor theater series, based at Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, launches its 41st season Friday and Saturday with the musical revue “Hooray for Hollywood.”
Following this weekend’s kickoff: a typically eclectic array of crowd-pleasing musicals, ranging from Disney (June’s “Beauty &the Beast”) to Dickens (September’s “The Mystery of Edwin Drood”).
The wide range they cover is immediately apparent on a recent weeknight at SST’s rehearsal studios, located just off the Strip in an office park not far from the Rio and the Palms.
In one studio, a strong-voiced chorus belts out a number from “Beauty and the Beast.” In another, a raucous rock beat blasts through the walls.
“That must be ‘Memphis,’ ” quips “Hooray for Hollywood” writer, director and performer Stephen Sisson, who’s supervising a rehearsal in the studio in between. “Or a rock ‘n’ rollin’ ‘Beauty and the Beast.’”
Those musicals — along with “Bring It On” in July — will enjoy extended runs. But, in the tradition of SST’s season openers, “Hooray for Hollywood” has just one weekend to get things right.
A song-and-dance “Tribute to the Music of the Movies,” the reelin’-in-the-years revue surveys Oscar winners past and present, from such vintage classics as “The Way You Look Tonight” (sung by Fred Astaire to Ginger Rogers in 1936’s “Swing Time”) and “Over the Rainbow” (introduced by Judy Garland in 1939’s “The Wizard of Oz”) to 2012’s ”Skyfall” and 2013’s “Let It Go,” from Disney’s animated hit “Frozen.”
Ironically, neither of the two showbiz anthems bookending the show (1937’s “Hooray for Hollywood,” from “Hollywood Hotel,” and, from 1953’s “The Band Wagon, “That’s Entertainment!”) won Oscars.
But none of that matters as Sisson and choreographer Edith Wiggins put the cast members through their song-and-dance paces.
Most of the performers are scholarship winners from the Gateway Arts Foundation, which is making its SST debut this season with “Hooray for Hollywood.” (Various local groups submit proposals to SST board members, who choose which shows to produce every year.)
Scholarship winner Stephanie Ferrazzi, for example, not only belts out everything from “Evergreen” (from 1976’s “A Star Is Born”) to “Let It Go” but portrays gossip columnist Louella Parsons — one of numerous Hollywood characters, factual and fictional, who pop in and out of skits that linking the songs.
Laurel and Hardy turn up, played by Stephen Rinck and Sisson himself.
In the introductory skits, Rinck — who’s been performing in SST shows since 2000 — also plays Walt Disney, James Bond and “The Love Boat’s” Capt. Merrill Stubing; the latter joins “Poseidon Adventure” star Shelley Winters to introduce (what else?) “Titanic” Oscar winner “My Heart Will Go On.”
Another SST veteran, Anita Bean, appears as (among others) Mary Poppins, Doris Day, composite Bond girl Lotta Cleavage and old Hollywood’s other gossip queen, Hedda Hopper.
Between songs, they deliver “comic slices,” Sisson explains, along with “tidbits of Hollywood trivia.”
With “all these transitions, I’ve learned a lot,” Bean says. “It’s not just fluff.”
Even if it were, however, the Spring Mountain Ranch setting makes SST productions special — for audiences and performers alike.
“I love it because it’s affordable,” says Angie Roundy, who’s handling “Hooray for Hollywood’s” props and sets. (Roundy’s 16-year-old daughter McKenna, a Gateway scholarship winner and cast member, sings“Skyfall” and leads the cast in the show’s “That’s Entertainment!” finale.)
“The atmosphere is always nice and pleasant,” Roundy says of SST, noting “it’s important for the kids to see what’s on the other side of television.”
Although director Sisson notes that adjustments must be made to compensate for such only-at-the-ranch variables as the setting sun, “it’s a beautiful performance venue. And there’s so many people,” he says. “The front row is what we put in the Onyx” Theatre, where he’s also worked, “on a full night.”
Bean, who’s also cast in this season’s “Memphis,” joins in describing SST’s Spring Mountain Ranch setting as “beautiful. You’re looking out there and there’s a thousand people with the sun going down.”
To say nothing of “the burros braying in the distance,” she adds. “And a lot of bugs.”
Sure, there are bugs, Rinck acknowledges, but he’s never actually seen any of the other creatures — scorpions and snakes among them — rumored to share the SST stage with the performers.
“Anything crawling,” he says, “I’m just going to squish — and keep going.”
Read more from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.
Preview
What: “Hooray for Hollywood”
When: 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday
Where: Spring Mountain Ranch State Park, 10 miles west of Charleston Boulevard and the Las Vegas Beltway
Tickets: $10.95 in advance, $20 at the gate (702-594-7529, www.showtix4u.com)
