In the beloved Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland films of the 1930s, staging a full-length musical production seemed ridiculously easy: A bunch of talented youths would simply unite with the rallying cry "Let's put on a show!"
Yet according to Lori Potts, director of the area vocal-jazz ensemble the Quad City Singers, her group's inception came about just as simply - although the rallying cry, in that case, was more along the lines of "Let's put on a concert!"
"It was really just kind of casual," says Potts of the Quad City Singers' 1994 beginnings. "Just friends getting together and deciding, 'You know, we like to sing, so let's form a group and see what happens.'"
Quad City Music Guild's current presentation of My Fair Lady runs just a few minutes shy of three hours, and there isn't a dull moment in it.
If I counted correctly, St. Ambrose University's Charlotte's Web and Quad City Music Guild's Miracle on 34th Street featured a grand total of five dozen actors between them. Yet the true stars of both musicals weren't among those individuals; despite boasting an excellent Wilbur the Pig in Ryan Westwood, Charlotte's Web was primarily a triumph for set designer Kristofer Eitrheim, and Miracle belonged to no one so much as scenic artist Bob Williams. Eitrheim's and Williams' contributions were dazzling, and my only regret in raving about their work now is that it's too late for new audiences to admire it. (Both presentations ran only one weekend and closed on December 2.)
When I learned that Quad City Music Guild's new presentation of Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat would feature a cast of nearly a hundred - 98, to be exact - I was both thrilled and slightly concerned. Thrilled because ... well, come on, what fan of musicals wouldn't want to see and hear an assemblage of that many performers?
Anyone who has spent a significant amount of time in theatre knows that if your first dress rehearsal goes even the least bit well, there's cause for celebration. Having seen the first dress of the Quad City Music Guild's You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown this past Sunday, I can assure the production's participants: There's cause for celebration, because things appeared to go considerably better than "the least bit well."
