The Relevant Stage Presents Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Beginning Friday, June 11, 2010.

June 7, 2010 - PRLog -- The Relevant Stage Presents Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Beginning Friday, June 11, 2010.

Book by Jeffrey Lane
Music and Lyrics by David Yazbek
Based on the film Dirty Rotten Scoundrels
Written by Dale Launer and Stanley Shapiro & Paul Henning
Produced by special arrangement with Music Theatre International, Inc.

Based on the 1988 film, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels centers on two competing con men living on the French Riviera. At first, the suave and experienced Lawrence Jameson takes the rookie con man, Freddy, under his wing. But soon Freddy tries to compete directly with Lawrence. The competition comes to a peak when they agree that the first con man to extract $50,000 from the female heiress, Christine Colgate, wins and the other must leave town forever. Nominated for 11 Tony Awards with a score by David Yasbek, composer of THE FULL MONTY, the show earned a Tony Award for Best Leading Actor in a Musical for Norbert Leo Butz as "Freddy", and DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS delighted audiences for over a year and half on Broadway.

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS is a Broadway musical, with music and lyrics by David Yazbek and a book by Jeffrey Lane; it is based on the successful film of the same name. The musical ran on Broadway in 2005 and also had a US tour. The musical premiered in San Diego, California on September 22, 2004, before moving to Broadway in January 2005 and officially opening in March at the Imperial Theatre. The cast included John Lithgow, Norbert Leo Butz, and Sherie Rene Scott, with Joanna Gleason and Gregory Jbara. The show closed on Broadway on September 3, 2006 with a total of 626 performances. International productions have opened in Tokyo, Mexico City, Madrid, Stuttgart, Seoul, Oslo, Stockholm, Copenhagen, Reykjavik, and London.

DIRTY ROTTEN CREATORS ANSWER THE QUESTION, "ISN'T IT ROMANTIC?"
By Kenneth Jones - January 13, 2005 © www.playbill.com

DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS, the musical comedy about two competing con men let loose in the French Riviera, isn't a love story in the traditional sense, but the men of the title do romance one another. Although this is the same French coast of LA CAGE AUX FOLLES, where the central characters walk arm in arm into the sunset together, the bond formed by rough-edged swindler Freddy and smooth veteran Lawrence in DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS marks the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

About Freddy and Lawrence — isn't it romance? "Oh, absolutely," librettist Jeffrey Lane told Playbill On-Line. "They see in each other that they are like two halves. They each have something the other needs. Lawrence, when he first meets him, he just dismisses Freddy. But when he's talking to Andre in the next scene he says, 'He reminds me of me when I was just starting out: The danger, the fact that you are making it up as you go along.' Lawrence is the guy who has the class, who has done it all and is smart. Freddy is the guy raised by his bookie grandmother, been on his own since he was 15. You know what? They both could do fine on their own. But it's not as much fun."

Tony Award-winning director Jack O'Brien (HAIRSPRAY) agreed. "I don't think it's a sexual thing, and we never play that, but it is a romance," he said. "Them getting together is basically because Lawrence Jameson sees the naïveté he once demonstrated — there’s a kind of passing on of methodology there. That's a different kind of love between people: You know, a mentor-protégé type thing."

The musical came about after movie company MGM invited writers, directors and producers to consider its catalog of titles for musicalization. Lane, Yazbek and producer Marty Bell had all inquired about the 1988 Frank Oz directed "Dirty Rotten" film.

"Separately — we didn't know each other — we all wanted to do the same piece," Marty Bell explained. "So we all got together to talk about it. I didn't think it would work out, I thought I'd want to get my own people, but they had such a great take on it that we started together. As soon as Jeffrey wrote his first draft I felt like I'd found the musical comedy book writer I've been looking for for 20 years."

Lane (TV's "Mad About You") said he was attracted to "the whole idea of theatre being a con, the fantasy that a person creates. I've always been fascinated by con men because they have to be really smart about people and able to look right into a person's heart and see what that person wants, and yet never ever really reveal themselves."

Fans of composer-lyricist David Yazbek's score for his freshman Broadway effort, THE FULL MONTY, will be happy to know that with DIRTY ROTTEN he continues his knack for spinning playful, comic lyrics while drawing on many musical sources. "I tried to stay away from French music, I can't stand it, that accordion stuff," Yazbek told Playbill On-Line. "There's a continental flavor to the score, y'know, a string section, but there's also room for funk and that kind of stuff. When it was time for something festive and summery, I came up with this samba. There's a couple of really old fashioned ballads. When I say old-fashioned, I mean really old-fashioned, like, '40s and '50s."

Yazbek explained, "These characters, some of them, are ultra rich, ultra, in the Broadway way, witty, so I was able to have fun with trying to do Noel Coward-y kind of stuff. That's one of the reasons I wanted to do the show: Just the idea that I could do really craft-laden lyrics, but also have kind of a crass, low-brow thing going on."

What was learned in the fall 2004 tryout at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego? "We learned the show worked, right away," said Tony Award nominee Norbert Leo Butz. "Audiences loved it, almost from the get-go. Then something really dangerous happened: We started enjoying it too much. We started feeling entitled to get laughs, and got a little too proud of ourselves. That's hard to learn because it's addictive. Restraint is hard to learn."

Was it "frozen" once its California run (Sept. 22-Nov. 7, 2004) began? Bell explained, “We didn't change any of the numbers, we just made book changes. I've gone through it in my head: Every scene in the show has some change, whether it's dialogue, music, dance. There are no new songs since San Diego, there are rewrites within songs."

Production Team:
Director/Choreographer: Lindsey Lee Taylor
Musical Director: Dr. Jeanette-Louise Yaryan
Lighting Designer/Technical Director: Richard Taylor
Costume Design: Kara McLeod
Set Design: Phil Buono
Carpentry: Mark Wells
House Manager: Carla Negri

Principle Cast:
Ray Buffer / Lawrence Jameson
Kenneth Taylor / Freddy Benson
Michelle Zelina / Christine Colgate
John Paul Batista / Andre Thibault
Kristin Towers-Rowles / Muriel Eubanks
Leigh Golden / Jolene Oakes

Ensemble:
Melissa Fong-Dance Capt, Beth Benedict, Minerva Schott, Valerie Ruel, Romel DiSilva, and Jeremy Hitch

Performances are:
Friday, June 11; Saturday, June 12; Friday, June 18; and Saturday, June 19 at 8PM.
Sundays, June 13 and 20 at 2:30PM
A FREE performance for Senior Citizens 55 and over will be presented Friday, June 11 at 12 Noon. First come first serve/1500 seats.

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The Relevant Stage Theatre Company performs in residence at The Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro, CA. TRS' mission is to challenge hearts, engage minds and expose truths. TRS tells relevant stories about the contemporary world we share.