Everybody knows “Annie” – the optimistic red-haired orphan, her lovable dog Sandy and the songs that have been stuck in our heads for nearly 50 years.
What people probably don’t know is the local feel-good story behind this timeless musical that will be performed at Aurora University in a few weeks.
When City of Lights Theatre & Cabaret presents “Annie,” audiences will also be watching the efforts of a unique independent community theater in Aurora – a nonprofit built by a single mom and her family that has faced life’s challenges the same way it has celebrated its greatest joys: by gathering around a piano with their voices blending in effortless harmony.
Kirsten Currie Tait and her eight kids sang their way through family celebrations as well as through heartbreak, including those difficult years when the parents separated and divorced. Today those same children, now ages 20 through 32 and scattered from coast to coast, are coming home to help their mother, who founded City of Lights in 2021, bring its biggest production yet to the stage.
For mom Kirsten, it’s the natural continuation of a life built around music. As a young girl who dreamed of performing, as a private piano teacher and as a mother raising a large brood, she never stopped believing music has the power to bring people together.
What began with frequent huddles around the piano has grown into this nonprofit, where nearly every member of the family contributes, whether performing on stage, designing posters, running the box office, handling marketing or managing the technical side of production.
No wonder friends like Jill Keller have long compared the Currie clan to the von Trapps in the “Sound of Music.”
“They are a fascinating family,” says Keller, who has known them for 12 years and was able to see their talents come together during City of Light’s first musical last summer when her son Dan was a member of the cast.
Currie Tait credits the fact “we were singing all the time” to the harmony she and her children continue to share. Because TV was limited in the home, musicals were always playing, including when chores were being done.
“Music was ingrained in our everyday lives – whether it was singing ”Alexander’s Ragtime Band” around the piano after lunch on our homeschool days, performing musical theater songs for each other in the evenings or singing hymns at church on Sunday mornings,” recalls oldest daughter Grace Currie.
“When my mom was at the piano, we were usually there too.”
And it wasn’t “just singing and piano,” notes older brother Michael Currie. “There were enough of us to stage half-hour ballets in the basement, set entirely to the preloaded tracks on the keyboard we kept down there.”
On long road trips, he adds, “we’d listen to musical theater albums while Mom explained the plot points between songs.”
Because Currie Tait and her first husband shared a similar passion – they met while performing together in a production of “My Fair Lady” – it was also music that got the family through those stressful times as the marriage ended when the youngest was just a year old.
“It brought such joy,” she recalls, “even during the hardest time.”
As the children grew into young adulthood, most venturing into non-musical careers that, in a few cases, took them to other parts of the country, one thing never changed. They always showed up for one another, including holiday celebrations in the big house on Aurora’s West Side, as well as birthday parties, where no one thought twice about breaking into three-part harmony when serenading the honoree.
“With a mom who could play and teach anything musically … we were always pushing the envelope of what we could appreciate and sing together, adding more voice parts as individual voices matured,” says Michael.
Currie Tait – who remarried a decade ago – decided to form City of Lights when she saw the need to fill an artistic gap between the high-end professional Paramount Theatre and Fox Valley Park District’s Summer Theater program.
In the state’s second largest city, she says, there should be a place for talented performers who may not make a living on stage but love theater enough to devote considerable time to creating something truly special.
City of Lights, which draws from other communities, including Chicago, is doing just that multiple times a year. A junior cabaret is offered in November and an adult cabaret alternates between December and February – all held at Two Brothers Roundhouse in Aurora.
Then there’s the annual musical, which premiered last summer with “Pippin” – a show that was so successful, the group decided to extend this year’s production. “Annie” will be performed at AU’s Perry Theater at 7 p.m. July 23-25, as well as July 30-31 and Aug. 1, with 2 p.m. performances on July 26 and Aug. 2. Tickets can be purchased at www.cityoflightstheatre.org.
Family members on stage will include Currie Tait’s daughter Mary, a middle school music teacher; youngest son Daniel, a junior at Illinois State University who is also doing music arranging; and her 7-year-old granddaughter Juliet.
Behind the scenes, everyone also has important roles. Michael is director (twin brother Luke is arriving from his Maryland home to see the show) and wife Rowan is costume designer. Grace, who is getting her master’s in choral conducting at Yale University, is assistant director and vocal director; Catherine, who works for Nike in Oregon, is graphic designer, along with her sister Monica. And daughter Lucy is handling the box office and community partnerships.
Mom herself is the producer, conductor and rehearsal accompanist. And the choreographer is Ann Marie Decker, who for years worked with Arlene Hawks’ FVPD’s Summer Stage program, mentoring many young performers, including seven of of the eight Currie kids.
The goal is to build City of Lights to the point where everyone who helps bring a production to life can receive a stipend.
“We are getting close,” says Currie Tait, noting that grants received from the Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley have made “a huge difference,” including a $5,000 gift that allowed the theater to purchase microphones.
An even loftier dream, she adds, is to “have our own building some day,” perhaps even open a dinner theater in Aurora.
“I joke with my kids this is really my ninth child,” says Currie Tait. “Right now it is a labor of love.”
dcrosby@tribpub.com
