Friday, February 14, through Sunday, February 23
The Spotlight Theatre, 1800 Seventh Avenue, Moline IL
Nominated for five 2006 Tony Awards including Best Musical and described as a “fizzy confection” by Variety magazine, the musical version of Adam Sandler's film-comedy smash The Wedding Singer enjoys a local run at Moline's Spotlight Theatre February 14 through 23, with composer Matthew Sklar and lyricist Chad Beguelin praised by New York Theatre Guide for their 1980s salute and its “truly clever and often hilarious score.”
It's 1985 as The Wedding Singer opens, and rock-star wannabe Robbie Heart – who still lives in his grandmother's basement – is New Jersey's favorite wedding singer and the life of every party … until his fiancée Linda leaves him at the altar. Shot through the heart, Robbie is so distraught that proceeds to make every wedding reception as disastrous as his own. When he meets an admiring young waitress named Julia, however, Robbie falls madly in love. The only trouble is that Julia is about to be married to a Wall Street shark, and unless Robbie can pull off the performance of the decade, the girl of his dreams will be gone forever. With a score that pays loving homage to the pop songs of the 1980s, The Wedding Singer takes audiences back to a time when hair was big, greed was good, collars were up, and a Jersey wedding singer might just have been the coolest guy in the room.
Directing The Wedding Singer for the Spotlight Theatre is Ian Sodawasser, familiar at the venue for his roles in such recent productions as Big: The Musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love & Murder, and The Happy Elf. Enacting Sandler's original role of Robbie Heart, Chase Austin boasts area credits including the Spotlight's The Spitfire Grill, the Circa '21 Speakeasy's The Rocky Horror Show, and Quad City Music Guild's Jesus Christ Superstar. Robbie's love interest Julia is portrayed by Amelia Fischer, recently seen in the Spotlight's Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical, with Robbie's bandmates played by fellow venue veterans Adam Sanders (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and Sethe Christensen (Billy Elliot: The Musical). And 14 area talents complete The Wedding Singer's ensemble: Maddie Campbell, Andy Curtiss, Tim Dominicus, Becca Johnson, Jacob Johnson, Gary Mayfield, Sabien Minteer, Kristine Oswald, Yvonne Siddique, Kirsten Sindelar, Clare Thomson, Kelsey Walljasper, Sara Wegener, and Joe Wren.
The Wedding Singer runs at the Spotlight Theatre from February 14 through 23 with performances at 7:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays and 2 p.m. on Sundays. Admission is $20, and more information and tickets are available by calling (309)912-7647 or visiting TheSpotlightTheatreQC.com.
