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The Wild Party

Manhattan decadence in the 1920's provides the backdrop for this tough musical fable.

More information

Description

  • Full Length Musical
  • Drama

  • Time Period: 1920s
  • Target Audience: Adult
  • Set Requirements: Unit Set/Multiple Settings
  • Cautions: Intense Adult Themes

  • Performance Group:
  • Community Theatre, College Theatre / Student, Professional Theatre

  • Accolades:
  • Nominee! 7 Tony Awards including Best Musical
    Nominee! Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album
Manhattan decadence in the 1920's provides the backdrop for this tough musical fable. 

Queenie, a vaudeville chorine, hosts the blow-out of the title with her vicious lover, a black-face minstrel. The guests are a vivid collection of the unruly and the undone: Queenie's conniving rival; a cocaine-sniffing bisexual playboy; a washed-up boxer; a black brother act; a diva of indeterminate age and infinite life experience; the fresh-off-the-farm ingénue whose naïveté quickly evaporates; a lesbian actress and her comatose girlfriend; and the bargain basement Valentino who catches Queenie's roving eye. 

The jazz and gin soaked party rages to a mounting sense of threat as artifice and illusion are stripped away. When midnight debauchery leads to tragedy at dawn, the high-flying characters land with a sobering thud, reminding us that no party lasts forever. 

MATURE SUBJECT MATTER. MAY BE INAPPROPRIATE FOR SCHOOLS.
REVIEWS:

"The first musical triumph of the new century!"

New York Daily News

"It should have many more reincarnations in the regional theatres and elsewhere and take its rightful place among the few great works of contemporary musical theatre."

Suzanne Bixby TalkinBroadway.com

"THE WILD PARTY is a dark, sensual, and glittering musical. [It proves] that the good, old-fashioned book musical form is still vibrant and very much alive. Bravo!”

Thomas Burke TalkinBroadway.com

"With his controversial THE WILD PARTY, prolific composer-lyricist Michael John LaChiusa continues to stretch the possibilities for contemporary musical theater. His racy musical is based on a 1928 poem about one night of escalating decadence, through which LaChiusa stages a brilliant, savage, polystylistic unmasking of the lies we live by."

Thomas May amazon.com
Premiere Production: In 2000 Michael John LaChiusa's musical The Wild Party premiered at Broadway's Virginia Theatre where it ran for 68 performances.

Characters

  • Casting: 7M, 8F
  • Casting Attributes: Strong Role for Leading Woman (Star Vehicle), Minority casting
  • Chorus Size: Large

  • QUEENIE - a fading vaudeville chorine, neither young nor old
    BURRS - Queenie's vicious lover, a blackface vaudevillian
    JACKIE - a playboy of dubious sexuality
    MISS MADELAINE TRUE - a nearly famous stripper
    SALLY - Madelaine's date, a morphine addict
    EDDIE MACKREL - a black, aging ex-champion of the boxing ring
    MAE - Eddie's ditzy wife, a former chorine
    NADINE - Mae's excitable 14-year old sister
    PHIL D'ARMANO - part of a black brother act
    OSCAR D'ARMANO - part of a black brother act
    DOLORES MONTOYA - an ageless star of yesteryear
    GOLD - a vaudeville producer with Broadway ambitions
    GOLDBERG - a vaudeville producer with Broadway ambitions
    BLACK - a handsome, suave escort
    KATE - a dagger-tongued, former chorine and would-be star

    • Available Material

    Name Price
    Perusal Material Shipped immediately. This is optional. Order Now

    1 x Libretto-Vocal Book
    1 x Piano Conductor Score

    		$24.00
    Pre-Production Pack Shipped upon receipt of a signed License Agreement and full payment of all invoices. This is optional.

    1 x Libretto-Vocal Book
    1 x Piano Conductor Score

    		$75.00
    Rehearsal Material Shipped a minimum of 3 months before the last performance. This must be hired as a condition of the License to produce this show.

    20 x Libretto-Vocal Books
    2 x Piano Conductor Scores

    		$550.00 +$135.00/pm
    Orchestral Material Shipped a minimum of 1 month before the last performance. This is optional.

    1 x Piano Conductor Score
    1 x Reed I (Clarinet, Soprano Saxophone, Alto Saxophone)
    1 x Reed II (Clarinet, Alto Saxophone)
    1 x Reed III (Flute, Piccolo, Clarinet, Tenor Saxophone)
    1 x Reed IV (Clarinet, Bass Clarinet, Baritone Saxophone)
    1 x Trumpet I (Doubling Flugelhorn)
    1 x Trumpet II (Doubling Flugelhorn)
    1 x Trombone
    1 x Piano (Doubling Celeste)
    1 x Bass (Acoustic Bass Doubling Tuba)
    1 x Guitar (Doubling Banjo, Standard Ukulele, Baritone Ukulele)
    1 x Violin I-II
    1 x Violin III (Doubling Viola)
    1 x Drums (Traps, Police Whistle, Wood Block)
    1 x Percussion

    		$350.00 +$135.00/pm
    Lib/Vocal Book 10 Pack Shipped with (or after) Rehearsal Material. This is optional.

    10 x Libretto-Vocal Books

    		$50.00 +$50.00/pm

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