Audiences have spoken. That’s why Eliza Doolittle will once again study with Professor Henry Higgins in Music on Stage’s production of “My Fair Lady.”
“We did a survey of our audience and ‘My Fair Lady’ won the toss,” Artistic Director Frank Roberts said. The company last staged the musical in 2003.
Roberts played Higgins in that earlier production for a different director. He is reprising that role, but directing himself this time.
“It’s challenging directing yourself,” Roberts admitted. “But it’s a role that I love and it’s something that I wanted to revisit.”
Roberts strives to make Higgins more likeable. “As he’s written, he comes off as a know-it-all, as a tyrant to get Eliza to say her vowels and speak properly,” he said. “You really don’t like him until much later in the show. I try to give him as much heart as I possibly can from the very beginning and show his passion for the English language.”
Eliza Doolittle is played by Amanda Walsh, who has performed at a number of area theaters including Windy City Music Theatre and Wilmette Center for the Arts.
Walsh’s Eliza is “a strong, assertive woman,” the actor said. “I love that she is stubborn and very sure of what she wants. She’s clever. She has this way of working people around her. I love that she knows what she wants and goes for it.”
Walsh laughingly added that Eliza “is a little tactless, which is something I relate to.”
Playing this role is the fulfilment of a lifelong dream for the actor. “When I was really little, ‘My Fair Lady’ was my favorite movie,” she said. “I have always want to be Eliza Doolittle.”
That doesn’t mean it’s easy, though. “She talks a lot,” Walsh explained. In addition, “She has such a distinct voice. Trying to remember those patterns of speech is certainly interesting. And then, throughout this show, you sort of feel like you’re playing two different characters because she goes through such a transformation.”
Glen Lindemann plays Colonel Pickering, the Professor’s assistant in the project of transforming Eliza. “I kind of grew up with Music on Stage,” Lindemann said. Although he hasn’t worked with the company since 1985, when he appeared in “West Side Story,” he noted that his parents performed with Music on Stage in the early ’60s. “I used to go to rehearsals with them and I was in some shows as well,” he said.
Lindemann has a slightly different take on Pickering than in other stagings. “(Director) Frank (Roberts) is letting me play him a little more broadly than probably a normal interpretation,” he said. “He’s got a little bit of a twinkle in his eye.”
After a long performing gap, Lindemann said, “It’s fun to be onstage again and be able to be creative.”
This will be an intimate production consisting of the principal actors and a 10-person ensemble but it boasts gorgeous costumes and sets, plus an 11-piece live orchestra, led by music director Marty Karlin.
“We try to bring a little bit of Broadway to Palatine,” Roberts said.
Music on Stage presents, ‘My Fair Lady’
When: 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 3 p.m. Sundays, March 17-26
Where: Cutting Hall Performing Arts Center, 150 E. Wood St., Palatine
Tickets: $20 in advance, $23 at the door; $18 and $20 for seniors and children under 12
Information: (847) 202-5222; www.cuttinghall.org
