BROADWAY SAN/DIEGO
Announces 30^TH ANNIVERSARY 2006-2007 SEASON,
Will feature SWEET CHARITY starring Molly Ringwald,
DOUBT starring Cherry Jones,
And LEGENDS! starring Joan Collins and Linda Evans;
As well as CIRQUE DREAMS~JUNGLE FANTASY,
THE 25^TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE,
ALTAR BOYZ, ALL SHOOK UP, CHICAGO; 
And Several Encore Engagements,
Including San Diego’s own DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS! 

SAN DIEGO -- It’s a brand-new season for Broadway/San Diego.  As part of the ongoing effort to present the best of Broadway’s musicals, special events and plays to San Diego audiences for thirty years, Broadway/San Diego’s 30^th Anniversary 2006-2007 Season includes ten productions audiences across the country have been waiting for – with four major stars and nine San Diego premieres - and the return of four popular audience favorites.   

“We’ve worked very hard to bring our audiences the newest and hottest shows on the road,” says new Broadway/San Diego General Manager Diane Willcox, “and with Molly Ringwald starring in Sweet Charity, the incomparable Cherry Jones recreating her role in the Tony® Award-winning Doubt, along with those “Dynasty” dames Joan Collins and Linda Evans having at each other once again in Legends!, it’s a great year for leading  ladies.”  Willcox remarked “for the family, Cirque Dreams will transport you into their Jungle Fantasy; in the Tony® Award-winning The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, six young people in the throes of puberty are overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves; and a heavenly guy group will get teenage girls swooning in Altar Boyz.   Men get their just rewards with the return of Bob Fosse’s classic – and sexy – hit, Chicago; boomers can revisit the Elvis years with the hip-swivelin’ All Shook Up.  Those Dirty Rotten Scoundrels will return to swindle San Diego’s own Gold Coast once again; and audience favorites Movin’ Out, Riverdance, Hairspray and Stomp will keep your feet tapping.  There’s something for everyone in Broadway/San Diego’s 30^th Anniversary 2006-2007 Season!” 

In time to celebrate Broadway/San Diego’s 30^th Anniversary year, a new season sponsor has come aboard:  San Diego County Credit Union.  Rod Calvao, President and CEO of San Diego County Credit Union, noted “We’ve been involved with Broadway/San Diego for many years as a member of their President’s Club, so when the opportunity was presented to us to become the sole season sponsor for the 30^th Anniversary year, we were delighted, and accepted.  Being involved with Broadway/San Diego and their efforts to bring first-class touring Broadway musicals and special events to San Diego compliments the many community outreach activities that San Diego County Credit Union supports,” Calvao added.

The 2006-07 Broadway/San Diego season, sponsored by San Diego County Credit Union, includes: 

September 12 - 17, 2006

MUSICAL       

SWEET CHARITY, the Broadway musical that offers “fun, laughs, good times,” will start their National Tour here in San Diego.  SWEET CHARITY will star the sensational film and television star Molly Ringwald, directed by Scott Faris (international companies of Chicago in Australia, Austria, Sweden, South Africa), and choreographed by Tony® Award winner, Wayne Cilento (The Who's Tommy, Wicked, How To Succeed...).  The star of Broadway's Cabaret and such memorable films as The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, and Sixteen Candles takes center stage as dance hall hostess Charity Hope Valentine, who's a true original, eternal optimist ... and the unluckiest romantic in New York City.  SWEET CHARITY'S tuneful score (by Cy Coleman and Dorothy Fields) boasts such hits as "Hey, Big Spender," "There's Gotta Be Something Better Than This" and "If My Friends Could See Me Now"; and a hilarious book by none other than Neil Simon.  SWEET CHARITY is a funny, poignant and tender story of one woman’s belief that, despite adversity, all her dreams will come true.

October 17 - 22, 2006

FAMILY EVENT

In the spirit of the successful international touring sensations Cirque Ingenieux and Cirque Dreams comes the latest reinvention of theatrical circus artistry from Cirque Productions, CIRQUE DREAMS Jungle Fantasy, a colorful dream in an enchanted forest performed on stage and in the air.  An international cast of graceful aerialists, spine-bending contortionists, vine-swinging characters, strongmen and balancing acts bring this jungle dream to life in a lush, Broadway setting filled with wildly unpredictable designs, special effects, inventive choreography, puppeteering and dazzling costumes.  Imaginative theatrics combined with world-class acrobatics make CIRQUE DREAMS Jungle Fantasy an exhilarating journey the entire family can experience together.                                                                 LOCAL SPOTLIGHT PARTNER:  CORKY’S PEST CONTROL

October 31 - November 5, 2006

PLAY

DOUBT, the most awarded play on Broadway last season, will launch a 24-city national tour in September, 2006.  In a rare event for a national tour, San Diego favorite Cherry Jones, who won a Tony® Award for her performance as Sister Aloysius, will recreate her role.  DOUBT, by John Patrick Shanley, is the winner of the 2005 Tony® Award for Best Play, and the 2005 Pulitzer Prize, as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Lortel and Obie Awards as Best Play.  The national tour is directed by Doug Hughes (winner, 2005 Tony® Award for Best Director for DOUBT).   Set against the backdrop of a Bronx Catholic school in 1964, DOUBT is the story of a strong-minded woman faced with a difficult decision. Should she voice concerns about one of her male colleagues … even if she’s not entirely certain of the truth?  Set design is by John Lee Beatty, costume design is by Catherine Zuber, lighting design is by Pat Collins, original music and sound design is by David Van Tieghem.

November 17 - December 3, 2006

MUSICAL

PLAID TIDINGS is San Diego’s newest holiday attraction!  This yuletide version of FOREVER PLAID, one of San Diego’s all-time favorite musicals, makes its local debut at one of the city’s cultural jewel-boxes, The Spreckels Theatre.  PLAID TIDINGS is a brand-new show that offers the best of FOREVER PLAID tied-up in a nifty package with a big Christmas bow on top!  Filled with Christmas standards that have been “Plaid-erized,” our boys are back to do their Christmas Special.  Sprinkled among the holiday offerings are audience favorites like their riotous three- minute-and-eleven-second version of “The Ed Sullivan Show”, this time featuring the Rockettes, The Chipmunks and The Vienna Boys Choir, and a Plaid Caribbean Christmas which puts the “Day-O” in Excelsis!  This is one holiday treat that is truly “heaven-sent!”  As a special treat to San Diego, creator Stuart Ross will direct PLAID TIDINGS, with three of the original San Diego Plaids: Stan Chandler, David Engel and Larry Raben, returning in their original roles, with San Diegan David Humphey rounding out the quartet.

December 5 - 10, 2006

MUSICAL       

In the Tony®-Award winning new musical comedy THE 25^th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE, six young people in the throes of puberty, overseen by grown-ups who barely managed to escape childhood themselves, learn that winning isn’t everything and that losing doesn’t necessarily make you a loser.  SPELLING BEE has been hailed by the Wall Street Journal as “perfect in every possible way – that rarity of rarities, a super-smart musical that is also a bona fide crowd pleaser.” This tuneful, offbeat and at times heartwarming show offers audience members the opportunity (strictly voluntary) to become part of the action as on-stage spellers. The NY Times calls SPELLING BEE, “irresistible, riotously funny and remarkably ingenious – gold stars all around.”   SPELLING BEE is directed by James Lapine, the Tony® Award and Pulitzer Prize-winner (Sunday in the Park with George, Into the Woods) who also directed the Broadway production.  The musical, conceived by Rebecca Feldman, with additional material written by Jay Reiss, features music and lyrics by Tony® Award-winner William Finn (Falsettos, Elegies, A New Brain) and a Tony® Award-winning book by Rachel Sheinkin.                     Mature Language

January 9 - 14, 2007

PLAY

LEGENDS!, a comedy by Tony®-award winning author, James Kirkwood (A Chorus Line), centers on two somewhat desperate and waning movie stars named Sylvia (played by Joan Collins) and Leatrice (played by Linda Evans).  Both actresses are courted by an unscrupulous young producer to star together in a Broadway show, despite the fact that they have hated each other for decades.  He convinces both ladies to go along by misleading them into believing that they will be starring in the show with Paul Newman. This hilarious set-up provides the background for the full-blown comic confrontation between these two divas and the surprising and hilarious resolution, played to the hilt by the two stars that the world will know as “rivals to the death” from the internationally acclaimed television series “Dynasty.”                                                                  Mature Language 

March 6 - 11, 2007

MUSICAL

ALTAR BOYZ, the acclaimed musical comedy now in its second year, winner of the coveted Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Off-Broadway, is the longest running new musical comedy to open in New York in years! Full of sharp parody, sinfully spectacular dancing, and irreverent humor, this spoof about a heavenly guy-group is adored by audiences and critics alike.  With an extraordinary mix of side-splitting songs “convincing enough to be played on MTV,” uncontrollable laughs and lighthearted fun, this award-winning and totally original new musical is 90 minutes of pure delight that's suitable for all ages and will have the whole family laughing and singing along.  

June 26-July 1, 2007

MUSICAL

Combining all-time favorite Elvis Presley songs with a sure-fire rock’n’roll story, ALL SHOOK UP tells the romantic tale of how a young girl’s dream comes true when a guitar-playin’ roustabout rides into a square state and turns the town upside down with his hip-swivelin’, lip-curlin’and sexy song singin’. The clever book is by Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change), with buoyant and energetic direction by Tony® Award-nominee Christopher Ashley (The Rocky Horror Show), and features such classics as "Heartbreak Hotel", "Burning Love", "Jailhouse Rock", "Blue Suede Shoes," “It’s Now or Never,” and "Don't Be Cruel."  This well tuned hot-rod musical took Broadway by storm and guarantees to have your entire family jumpin’ out of their blue suede shoes! "The best retro rock show since Grease" - NBC-TV.                          LOCAL SPOTLIGHT PARTNER:  SAM CALVANO HOME LOANS—MIDDLESEX, INC.

July 17 – 22, 2007