By Kristina Dorsey, The Day, New London, Conn.
Dec. 09–When you enter the Ivoryton Playhouse over the next 10 days, you’ll feel as though you’re heading into the big top.
Even before the actual show starts, the building will boast a definite carnival atmosphere. Magicians will create illusions in the lobby. Jugglers and people making balloon animals will be moving around the theater.
It all serves to set the tone for the main event: “Barnum.”
Ivoryton Playhouse is putting on this musical about Bridgeport’s own P.T. Barnum, the showman of showmen. The storyline follows his circus-centric creativity, naturally, but also his romance with wife Charity.
For the Ivoryton Playhouse folks, choosing to stage “Barnum” in December was a conscious decision. Director Jacqui Hubbard says, “We wanted to do something different for Christmas. … P.T. Barnum is from Connecticut, and the whole idea of a circus at Christmas was kind of fun.”
“Barnum,” which ran on Broadway from 1980 to 1982, features music by Cy Coleman (whose many credits include “Sweet Charity”), lyrics by Michael Stewart and book by Mark Bramble .
“It’s really a show about color,” Hubbard says. “P.T. Barnum was an incredibly colorful man.”
The reference to color is literal. Wife Charity (played here by Beverley Galpin) is the sensible one and wears browns and grays. She wants her husband to get a job at Bridgeport Clockworks, while Barnum (played by Bruce Connelly) wants to light up the world.
Connelly, who plays Barkley the dog on “Sesame Street,” made his Ivoryton debut earlier this year in “Finian’s Rainbow.” Hubbard says the actor can ably convey Barnum’s larger-than-life personality and develop a great repartee with theatergoers (the character of Barnum often talks directly to the audience).
“Barnum” is staged in a circus ring, peopled at Ivoryton with all the appropriate high-flying figures — a trapeze artist, aerialists on silks, tumblers.
The playhouse’s December production is always its community show, with lots of local folks involved. The tumblers include local girls who are gymnasts. The trapeze artist is someone who just moved from the West Coast and had given up the trapeze to become a fireman.
“Barnum,” Ivoryton Playhouse, 103 Main St., Ivoryton; opens tonight and runs through Dec. 19; 7:30 p.m. Thurs.-Sat. and 2 p.m. Wed. and Sun.; $30 ($28 seniors, $15 kids); (860) 767-7318, ivorytonplayhouse.org.
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