Hot Tickets: Bigfork Summer Playhouse announces lineup for 2013

With seven returning actors and a strong slate of musicals, the Bigfork Summer Playhouse enters its 54th season in fine fashion.

The playhouse recently began its push for season ticket sales — an important part of the theater’s financial operations, director Brach Thomson said. “Those sales are what help us pay the actors when they show up in the next few weeks,” Thomson said. In addition, the theater has to fork over $40,000 up front for royalties to the musical Spelling Bee.

 The playhouse opens May 17 with Spelling Bee and follows with Monty Python’s hit Spamalot June 8. The other shows are Legally Blonde, Sound of Music and Chicago.

Thomson is in his 13th season at the playhouse, following in the footsteps of his parents, Don and Jude. Don has been with the theater since 1964, and Jude since 1965.

The 400-seat Playhouse is run by the Thomson family, and it relies entirely on ticket sales for revenue. “We have to choose our shows carefully,” Thomson said.

Brach relies on his expertise in professional theater, but sometimes things just happen, as they did this year, when the musical “Chicago” tried to renege on its contract. The play had gone back on Broadway after Thomson secured the rights to performing it, and that made things complicated.

The Thomson family has a formula it uses each year to develop a winning combination of plays. In a theater market that is much more competitive than it was, say, 20 years ago, the Thomsons have to pay strict attention to what works. They always try to have a show that’s old school, a “war horse” as Thomson calls it, that theater-goers can count on wherever it’s performed.

Then, they want something that is family friendly, a show the whole family can enjoy. Also, they shoot for something that is new, a musical that’s not familiar to northwest Montana. And the fourth one is where they take their chances — a show that pushes the envelope for the Bigfork Summer Playhouse. This year, that show is “Chicago.”

“You can’t just pick one genre any more,” Thomson said. “People don’t just go to theater the same way any more. People now have so many choices. It used to be we were the only game in town, and there are three other theaters in the valley that are competing with us.”

Sound of Music is the “war horse” that is sure to please any crowd and sells tickets. “Any time you can do that, it’s great family entertainment,” Thomson said. “It just is a good solid show. You just can’t go wrong with some of those older-school shows.”

The Playhouse has again teamed up with local restaurants to offer “dinner and a show” tickets. This year the participating restaurants are Grill 459, Showthyme and the Bigfork Inn.

Although he’s been at the helm for 12 years, Brach relies on his parents’ set of skills honed over 55 years.

“They know what works and what doesn’t, but it’s great to have a new set of ears and eyes,” he said. “Sometimes I’m the monkey wrench boy.”

Actors at the Bigfork Summer Playhouse use their experience to give them a leg up in their careers. By doing several different shows a week the actors can greatly increase their market value after one season.

 “We’re very competitive with what we pay, and they have a good experience here,” Thomson said. “We work them hard, but they walk out of here hopefully wanting to come back. One of the highest selling points for us is an actor being able to go from Chicago to Sound of Music. They get the variety and diversity and get to really pad their resume, which is good for an actor.”

Don and Jude Thomson purchased the downtown building in 1974. They then donated it to the playhouse’s foundation. A new theater was built in 1987.

THE 2013 LINEUP AT THE BIGFORK SUMMER PLAYHOUSE

SPAMALOT

‘Spamalot’ tells the legendary tale of King Arthur’s quest to find the Holy Grail. However, diverting a bit from the true story, this hilarious musical features such oddities as a line of beautiful dancing girls, a flatulent Frenchmen and killer rabbits.

25th ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE

The competition is intense. The words are hilarious. Let the spelling begin! The show centers around a fictional spelling bee in Putnam County, New York. Six kids face off in the battle of their lives. They compete against each other as well as members of the audience.

THE SOUND OF MUSIC

Maria is a sweet young postulant whose love of freedom makes it obvious to her superiors that she is not suited for religious life. Thus, she is sent off to be the governess to Captain von Trapp’s seven troublesome children.

LEGALLY BLONDE

Elle Woods has it all. She’s the president of her sorority, a Hawaiian Tropic girl, Miss June in her campus calendar, and, above all, a natural blonde. She dates the cutest fraternity boy on campus and wants nothing more than to be Mrs. Warner Huntington III. But, there’s just one thing stopping Warner from popping the question: Elle is too blonde — to the dismay of Warner’s East-Coast blue blood family.

CHICAGO

In the roaring twenties in Chicago, Roxie Hart, an ambitious chorus girl, murders her lover. She then convinces her gullible husband, Amos, that her lover was in fact a burglar. Amos agrees to take the rap until the police convince him that the burglar was in fact Roxie’s lover.

Thus, Roxie goes to jail and joins another famous stage performer and murderess, Velma Kelly. Both Roxie and Velma are headline hunters seeking to capitalize on pre-trial publicity for the sake of acquittal and stage careers.

On the web:

bigforksummerplayhouse.com