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Summer Theatre Festival logoThe 2010 Summer Theatre Festival

Every Thursday, Friday and Saturday
in July and August

All Shows Begin at 7:30 pm (Unless otherwise noted)

Become a Member now for the best value. Make a single purchase, then pick and choose the plays you wish to attend. You will have the opportunity to select your desired membership level as part of the purchase process.
For further information about how Memberships and Flex Passes work, please visit the Tickets page.
If you prefer, you may purchase tickets for any show using the "Buy Now" buttons immediately following the title, date, and time information for each show listed below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Summer Theatre Festival Cast • The Forever Yours Company*

*The Forever Yours Company is a PDF file. Adobe Reader is required to open and view the downloaded report. Depending upon your browser, the downloaded report will either open in a new window or be downloaded directly to you computer. You may then read it, print it, and/or save it to you computer.

Download the Summer Theatre Festival Brochure*

*The report is a PDF file. Adobe Reader is required to open and view it. Depending upon your browser, the downloaded report will either open in a new window or be downloaded directly to you computer. You may then read it, print it, and/or save it to you computer.

The Summer Theatre Festival is brought to you in part by     
 

Jive at FiveJive at Five 

July 2

Jive at Five has been performing its infectious brand of swing dance and jazz music to happy dancers and concert goers across the state of Michigan and beyond since 1992. "Jive at Five could show up and create a party just about anywhere. It's impossible to sit still when they're playing."

 

Moonlight & Magnolias 

by Ron Hutchison
directed by Tom Harryman

July 8-10

Did you know that the working title for Gone with the Wind was "Moonlight & Magnolias?" This play is an insight into 1930s Hollywood and the making of that classic movie. David O. Selznick is determined to rewrite Gone with the Wind. He engages the services of “script doctor” Ben Hecht, who has never read the book, and director Victor Fleming, poached straight from the set of The Wizard of Oz. The play is an epic of laughter. Starring local, professional performers Sheila Kulp Wahamaki, Joe Carmolli, San Francisco’s Michael Sommers, and Chicago’s John Gray.

 

Tree of Life Cultural Arts Studio

Treee of LIfeJuly 15-17

Drum. Dance. Move. Stretch. EXPRESS! In many cultures, drum and dance are ways of building community. Come and enjoy an evening of innovative styles of drumming and dance, including African, Middle Eastern, Afro-Modern, Jazz, and Hip-Hop. Learn the origins of songs and dances, and feel the spirit that comes from within. Enjoy world music, drumming, and dance from the Tree of Life Cultural Arts Studio.

 

Dearly Departed

by David Bottrell and Jessie Jones
directed by Debra Freeberg

July 22-24

In the Baptist backwoods of the Bible Belt, the beleaguered Turpin family proves that living and dying in the South are seldom tidy and always hilarious. Despite their earnest efforts to pull themselves together for their father's funeral, the Turpin's other problems keep overshadowing the solemn occasion: Firstborn Ray-Bud drinks himself silly as the funeral bills mount; Junior, the younger son, is juggling financial ruin, a pack of no-neck monster kids, and a wife who suspects him of infidelity in the family car; their spinster sister, Delightful, copes with death as she does life, by devouring junk food; and all the neighbors add more than two cents. As the situation becomes fraught with mishap, Ray-Bud says to his long-suffering wife, "When I die, don't tell nobody. Just bury me in the backyard and tell everybody I left you." Amidst the chaos, the Turpins turn for comfort to their friends and neighbors, an eccentric community of misfits who just manage to pull together and help each other through their hours of need, and finally, the funeral. According to the NY Daily News "Dearly Departed is drop dead funny." This cast comes to White Lake from across the greater West Michigan area and beyond …

 

White Lake Youth Theatre Presents

Skupper Duppers

July 29-31

The White Lake Youth Theatre kids invite you on their sailing voyage in search of culture, some adventure, and excitement! Some voyages set out for exploration. Some sail for trade, and some for treasure. The schooner Skupper Dup, however, sets sail in search of folklore. When they find it, the crew is transformed into the stuff of legend—ravens and crabs, gods of the sea, players of steel band drums and blowers of conch horns. These bilingual stories are gathered from American ports of call, from Hawaii and Puerto Rico, Alaska and the Virgin Islands. The audience is no mere onlooker to the voyage. The ship is the performing area, and the crew enlists the audience in hoisting the mainsail, swabbing down the decks, and joining in the sea chanteys that set the rhythm of their work.

Tickets for the WLYT show are $10 for adults, $8 for students under 18

 

An Dro

An DroAugust 5 

An Dro performs traditional acoustic music with a creative twist that defies easy categorization. While the band's sound is built on a foundation of Celtic tunes, their repertoire includes traditional Irish melodies, medieval French songs, Breton dance tunes, Scandinavian refrains, Appalachian influences, Latin rhythms, and African grooves.

A Double Dipper—Two for $25 concert tickets & ice cream!
Enjoy two evenings of musical entertainment at a special rate of $25, over a 20% savings! Take in An Dro's Celtic music concert on Thursday, August 5, and come back again to enjoy Blue Dahlia's cinematic experience as they present the live accompaniment to Buster Keaton's The General on Friday or Saturday of that same weekend. Enjoy ice cream with the band as part of this Double Dipper special!

 

Blue Dahlia   

Blue DahliaAugust 6-7  

Using a broad range of style and instrumentation, Blue Dahlia has penned their own original scores to silent film classics. Join us as this group performs a live, musical soundtrack onstage to Buster Keaton’s silent film, The General. Unique and extraordinary cinema entertainment!

A Double Dipper—Two for $25 concert tickets & ice cream!
Enjoy two evenings of musical entertainment at a special rate of $25, over a 20% savings! Take in An Dro's Celtic music concert on Thursday, August 5, and come back again to enjoy Blue Dahlia's cinematic experience as they present the live accompaniment to Buster Keaton's The General on Friday or Saturday of that same weekend. Enjoy ice cream with the band as part of this Double Dipper special!

 

Schwartz & Ogborn: A Comedy Show

August 12-14

Schwartz & OsbornSchwartz & Ogborn—Comedy from the Windy City and the Big Apple—present a collection of short comic scenes that explore the absurdities of everyday life. From an obsessive-compulsive Hell's Angel to a cruise ship vacationer with a long list of regrets, the audience will see what can happen when outrageous characters take on problems which we can all relate to. Schwartz & Ogborn have a rare ability for combining the dark with the light-hearted, in scenes that erupt in joyously physical, wildly imaginative, and always humorous comedy. This sketch revue has been written as an exclusive performance for the people of Whitehall, Montague, and the West Michigan lakeshore, so don't miss this opportunity to see a special show offering a fresh take on classic comedy with local insight and humor from Schwartz & Ogborn: A Comedy Show!

 

Blithe Spirit

by Noel Coward

August 19-21

Imagine London during World War II. Germany’s Blitzkrieg assaults the city with an arsenal of bombs. Buildings collapse. Lives are lost. People flee to the English countryside. Now imagine a 40 year old playwright living in England during this time. He spends five days writing a play (in between his covert operations as a member of Britain’s Secret Service). What might that play be about? War? Survival? Politics? Pride? Despair? No. The playwright is Noel Coward. And the play he created during England’s battle-scarred year of 1941 is Blithe Spirit, a delightfully satirical comedy about ghosts. It playfully mocks the traditions of love and marriage. It also thumbs its nose at the Grim Reaper. What a perfect defense mechanism against the harsh realities England faced during World War II. West End audiences embraced this darkly amusing comedy. Blithe Spirit became a resounding success that continues to haunt the British and American stage.

 

Forever Yours

by Mitch Coleman
directed by Mike Hill

August 26-28

The White Lake Dramatic Club peforms this original play, produced with special agreement by the playwright, Montague’s Mitch Coleman. This locally cast production is a summer stitch! Maggie Mulroney has a secret. The 70-something widow has met a man, and fallen in love. There’s just one problem. He’s dead. He’s been cryogenically frozen in the hopes of one day being brought back to life. Maggie has decided that she too, would like to be frozen after death, so that she and her new love can hope for a life together in the future. She’s left her estate to the cryogenics company, to pay for her long-term storage. Her assets, you might say, are “frozen.” When Maggie breaks the news to her children, complications really set in. Her son Sean, a priest, thinks mom is leaving her estate to the church; her son Kevin, a self-absorbed ad exec., wants money to start his own ad agency, and her son-in-law, Ray, needs money to pay off a loan shark as a mob ‘bill collector’ is already on the way. When the mobster and the cryogenics representative show up at the house on the same day, identities are mistaken, doors are slammed, and everyone learns important lessons about life, love, and how much ice you can fit into the trunk of a Cadillac El Dorado.

 

The Howmet Playhouse is a year-round venue. Be sure to visit the EVENTS menu for our complete schedule of plays, music, movies, and more.