The Area Stage Company has announced that Oliver! the musical, featuring a talented cast of 37 young actors, will open on Mar. 6. This will be ASC’s final production at the Riviera Theatre, its home for the past 11 years, before the company expands into its new 7,000-square-foot home at Sunset Place.
Oliver!, an award-winning Broadway favorite and a musical adaptation of the classic Charles Dickens novel, first premiered on the West End in London in 1960 with music, lyrics, and libretto by Lionel Bart. The tale springs to life on the streets of Victorian England where we meet Oliver, a malnourished orphan in a workhouse who escapes to find acceptance by a group of pickpockets led by the comedic but sinister Fagin.
When Oliver is captured for a theft that he did not commit, the benevolent Mr. Brownlow takes him in. Fearing the safety of his hideout, Fagin employs the sinister Bill Sikes and the sympathetic Nancy to kidnap Oliver back, threatening his chance to find love. The show features the well-known show tunes Food Glorious Food and Consider Yourself, and the heart wrenching ballad As Long As He Needs Me.
Giancarlo Rodaz, ASC’s own award-winning associate artistic airector, will direct and design the musical, having just received the prestigious 2019 Silver Palm award for his innovative direction of She Kills Monsters and The Wizard of Oz , and fresh off an extremely successful run of his Matilda the Musical in the Fall.
Oliver! will be performed in its entirety by Area Stage Company’s Conservatory students, ages 7 and up. The running time is 2 hours. Performances are on Fridays at 7:30 p.m.; Saturdays at 2 and 7:30 p.m., and Sundays at 5 p.m., from Mar. 6 to 21. Tickets are $15 – $25.
Visit www.areastagecompany.com/oliver-tickets for tickets.
