Cygnet Theatre to christen Joan theater with theatrical love letter ‘Follies’

A new era for 22-year-old Cygnet Theatre begins this week when it debuts its new home space, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Performing Arts Center in Arts District Liberty Station, with a production of the Stephen Sondheim/James Goldman musical “Follies.”

“It’s a show I’ve absolutely dreamed of doing forever,” said Cygnet Artistic Director Sean Murray said, of the rarely staged 1971 musical in which former showgirls gather on the occasion of the pending demolition of the Broadway theater where they performed between the 1920s and early 1940s. “It’s about nostalgia and confronting yourself midlife about the choices you’ve made, and all of that is mixed in between this fabulous, surreal reunion in a theater full of vaudeville ghosts.”

Cygnet’s new theater, affectionately nicknamed The Joan, boasts a stage spacious enough to accommodate a cast of nearly 30 and the technical demands required of “Follies,” which hasn’t been produced locally since Starlight Musical Theatre opened its 1990 season with a staging at the San Diego Civic Theatre.

A New York Times article about a reunion of Ziegfeld Follies performers was the impetus for Sondheim and Goldman’s musical, which in the telling interweaves ghosts of the Weismann Girls’ younger selves in a poignant reflection on life decisions, relationships and aging. It features the Sondheim tunes “Broadway Baby,” “I’m Still Here” and “Losing My Mind” to name three.

With the “Follies” theme and story in mind, director Murray has cast 27 actors, including a number of veteran actors well-known to San Diego audiences including Sandy Campbell and the Long Beach-based Karole Foreman in the key roles of onetime showgirls Sally Durant Plummer and Phyllis Rogers Stone, respectively. Also among the cast are Anise Ritchie, Leigh Scarritt, Melinda Gilb and Dagmar Krause Fields.

The oldest ex-Weismann girl, Hattie Walker, will be played by 80-year-old Patti Goodwin.

“Patti and I did stuff together when I was (a young actor) in high school,” Murray recalled. “She was the queen of Starlight (Theatre) and Moonlight (Amphitheatre) in the 1970s and ‘80s. She came out of retirement to do this show.”

For Campbell and Foreman, “Follies” is their second Sondheim musical together at Cygnet, having both been in the cast of the theater’s 2018 production of “A Little Night Music” in its former Old Town Theatre space.

“Follies” for Foreman is “a timeless piece. We’re always at a point in our lives where we’re looking back at where we came from with awe and wonder, sometimes anger, sometimes cringing. It’s our past that made us who we are today.”

She said she loves her New York socialite character, Phyllis: “Seeing her journey and her struggle to reclaim that part of herself and to find a way to be independent in her circumstances is really appealing to me.”

In the same way, Campbell is delighted to portray Sally, whom she calls “a bit off the rails at times. She’s going to do what she’s going to do.”

Both actors appreciate a show that, Campbell says, is “a little off the beaten path. The music is fantastic, but the story itself is a little hard sometimes. I consider it a masterpiece. It’s so varied in what it is. There are pastiche numbers, there are all these in-the-book numbers and this follies thing at the end that is its own weird animal.”

Foreman, who teaches a musical theater class, said “Sondheim and his collaborator (Goldman) literally turned the musical inside out with this show. We don’t have a clear hero. We don’t have a clear villain. This is life. This is messy. Our lives and relationships and what we thought the world was, it is not.”

At Cygnet, Phyllis’ husband Ben Stone is being played by David Humphrey, with Russell Garrett as Sally’s spouse Buddy Plummer. Nio Russell (New Village Arts’ “The Color Purple”) is the specter of the young Phyllis and Audrey Deubig (“Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show” at Cygnet) the young Sally.

“One of the most wonderful things about this show,” Campbell said, “is the intergenerational element: It’s the young ones looking forward and seeing what is possible.”

Foreman expects that “With its intergenerational aspects, young people coming to the show will be inspired and entertained and moved. “

‘Follies’

When: Previews begin Wednesday. Opens Sept. 13 and runs through Oct. 12. 7 p.m. Wednesdays through Fridays, 2 and 7 p.m. Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays

Where: Cygnet Theatre at The Joan, 2880 Roosevelt Road, Arts District Liberty Station, San Diego

Tickets: $44 and up

Phone: 619-337-1525

Online: cygnettheatre.com