Gershwin tuner fuels Goodspeed season

'Brigadoon' to open 2001, 'Laughed' spotlights slate

By MARKLAND TAYLOR

SOUTHBURY, Conn. -- A new musical drawing on the George and Ira Gershwin songbook plus revivals of Lerner & Loewe's "Brigadoon" and Stephen Sondheim's "A Little Night Music" will make up the 2001 Goodspeed Musicals season at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Conn., March 30 to Dec. 16.

New tuner "They All Laughed!," set on Long Island during Prohibition in the late 1920s, will have a book by Joe DiPietro ("I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change") inspired by material of Guy Bolton and P.G. Wodehouse (who wrote the book for the Gershwins' "Oh, Kay!," among other musicals).

'Laugh' track

Running June 29-Sept. 22, "They All Laughed!" will be helmed by John Rando, director of the current Broadway production of Neil Simon's "The Dinner Party," and choreographed by Joey McKneely ("Smokey Joe's Cafe," "The Life").

Songs include the title number plus "He Loves and She Loves," "The Sweet and Low Down," "Heaven on Earth," "Clap Yo' Hands," "Let's Kiss and Make Up" and "My Cousin in Milwaukee."

Season will open March 30-June 23 with "Brigadoon," directed by Greg Ganakas and choreographed by Peggy Hickey. "A Little Night Music," helmed by Darko Tresnjak, will end the season, running Sept. 28-Dec. 16.

Tresnjak's production of Tom Stoppard's "Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead" was a hit at the Williamstown (Mass.) Theater Festival several seasons ago and will be revived at New Haven's Long Wharf Theater later this season.