The male actors of “The Full Monty” are prepared to bare all in the spirit of fundraising.
The musical comedy about working-class-guys-turned male strippers, set to premiere on Friday, July 27, kicks off a three-show series produced by the Performing Arts Collaborative (PAC) to benefit the restoration of Seymour’s historic Strand Theater.
The Seymour Cultural Arts Commission enlisted PAC’s help.
Husband and wife Richard and Evelyn (Evie) Gard run and direct the program, which is a group of professional and emerging actors whose goal is to promote the performing arts and music through initiatives within the community.
Richard, a professor of music at the Yale School of Music and Naugatuck Community College, and Evie, the director of public relations and marketing at Gateway Community College, started the group in 2004 and have organized similar benefits throughout Connecticut.
“We’re trying to bring this caliber of a show to this part of the state,” said Evie. “We think it’ll be a great thing for Seymour.”
They have one rule when it comes to their productions.
“We never do a show just to do a show,” said Evie. “We do it for a cause.”
In 2009, for example, PAC presented the Rocky Horror Show Live Halloween Experience at the Playwright (now Wicked Wolf) in New Haven in collaboration with AIDS Project New Haven.
This time around, money raised from ticket sales and donations will go towards the restoration of Seymour’s historic theater. The funds would help pay for stage repairs, new wiring throughout the building and state-of-the-art equipment.
The Gards hopes the theater is restored as a live performance space as well as an affordable movie night destination.
“We’re taking this historic landmark, now famous for being one of the last single-screen movie theaters in the state, back to its roots with live-performance theater,” Richard Gard said in a press release.
The Full Monty
“The Full Monty” musical is based on a 1997 British film, but reset in Buffalo, N.Y. It centers around six laid off steel mill workers who have been hurt by the bad economy.
The depressed friends become even more emasculated when they learn that their wives not only have found jobs, but also enjoy spending their new found wealth at Chippendale strip clubs.
Intrigued by the “women’s mania” and in need of quick cash, the men set out to create their own male stripper show. These hard-edged steel workers must work out, wear g‑strings, learn the intricate art of strip dance and, ultimately, deliver the full monty.
This means the actors playing the characters will be fully nude on stage.
Or will they?
There are a few tricks of light being used, Richard said, but he would not reveal any more specific details.
“It’s very titliating, but it’s not X rated,” he said.
The one difference in the PAC’s production of “The Full Monty” musical is that the setting was changed from Buffalo to the Valley.
This was done to reflect a difficult 30-year deindustrialization period in the region’s history, when brass mills, and rubber and wire factories were shut down.
The choice to direct “The Full Monty” as one of the three shows this season was not a coincidence. In all her shows, Evie said, she and Richard like to emotionally connect with the audience and what they’ve been through.
“In all the shows that we do, I always like to site some relevance,” she said. “The experience is real.”
“What happened in Buffalo and Detroit has happened here. As opposed to fantasy, it speaks to them,” Richard said.
The Cast
“The Full Monty” cast features the vocal and acting talent of Joe Martin and Reuben Barnes (Naugatuck) as Dave and Ethan, Christopher Sumrell (Woodbury) as Malcolm, John Demetre (Hamden) as Harold, Keith Young, Sr. (West Haven) as Horse, Randy Ronco (Middletown) as Jerry Lukowski and 12-year-old Scott Wilcox (New Haven) as the Jerry’s son, Nathan.
Other cast members are current college students from Naugatuck Valley Community College, the University of Connecticut and Western Connecticut State University.
Music for the show is being provided by the Rubber City Blues Band of Naugatuck.
All 22 cast members are volunteers and represent a wide range of acting and musical ability.
The theatre group hires a mix of professional and emerging actors, so the people who are just starting out will get training and experience from working with the professionals.
“The depth of the talent of the cast is the best I’ve ever worked with,” said actor John Demetre.
One of the early challenges in working with such a diverse group was getting the male actors comfortable enough to take of their pants.
“I’m still coming to grips with it,” Demetre said.
When first asked by Evie to strip down during rehearsal, Keith Young remembers turning to his fellow cast member and asking, “Is she serious?”
“It was definitely a shock,” said Young, who was discovered by the PAC via his CTV show “Keith Calls It.” This is his first time doing theater.
But once everyone started dancing together, Evie said, the men lost their inhibitions.
While seeing half-naked men on stage is certainly one of the musical’s most memorable moments, “The Full Monty’s” main message is not nudity, but community.
By addressing the common life problems experienced by Valley residents, the cast hopes audience members will feel a similar bond toward the Seymour community and help restore the Strand.
“The Full Monty” will run at the Maintstage Theatre of Naugatuck Valley Community College in Waterbury. Show times are July 27 at 8 p.m. and July 28 at 3 p.m. and 8 p.m.
Tickets are $25 and can be purchased online at www.pacshows.com. Group and season tickets are available by calling the Performing Arts Collaborative at (203) 376‑9359 or via email at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).
Richard O’Brien’s “Rocky Horror Picture Live!”, the second installment in the series, will run from Oct. 26 to Nov. 3, and Smokey Joe’s Cafe will run from Dec. 28 to Jan. 5, 2013, with a special New Year’s Eve gala performance.