Whether you’re a fan of the Adam Sandler- and Drew Barrymore-led flick or just want to have some ‘80s-inspired fun, keep an eye out for the North Riverside Players’ upcoming production of “The Wedding Singer.”
Coming to the stage at the North Riverside Village Commons from Oct. 4-6 and 11-13, “The Wedding Singer” — the 2006 Broadway musical based on the 1998 movie — is the North Riverside Player’s fall production, kicking off the group’s annual show season, which will include a murder mystery fundraiser in February and another full show in the spring.
In a phrase, show producer and North Riverside Players Board President Al Meyer said the musical will be “a lot of fun.”
“I was watching rehearsals last night, and the cast is having a blast. The music is fun. We’ve got a great team: director, choreographer, music director,” he said in an interview Wednesday, Sept. 18. “There’s a lot of great dancing, a lot of movement, a lot of motion, and it’s funny.”
Meyer said the theater company’s board of directors selected “The Wedding Singer” to be this year’s fall musical due to a number of factors after other group members pitched it.
“We try to make sure that we’ve got a director in mind that would want to direct the show. We pay a very small stipend to the key staff members, so this has to be about passion. The director really has to love the show, because [they’re] getting paid car fare, maybe,” he said. “We were looking for the show we want to do compared to what we did last season. We don’t want to necessarily compete with other theater groups, and there’s a lot of theater going on in the western suburbs, right? So, we’re trying to keep an eye on what they’re doing.”
He said the decision arrived in part due to a concurrent suggestion for the spring production, which helped the group settle on two throughlines for the season.
“It has evolved into sort of a theme, because the spring show is going to be ‘Steel Magnolias,’ which is also set in the ‘80s,” he said. “The directors for this show, ‘The Wedding Singer,’ our murder mystery in February and then our drama in the spring are all women directors … This season, it just turned out, it’s all about the ‘80s and it’s all about women directors.”
Meyer, who has been a member of the Players since the group got its start in 1991, said he’s been excited this year and in past years to see younger members join its ranks.
“Some of us are getting a little bit older, but the good news for us is that we’ve got some young people that are really coming into their own here in our group,” he said. “This director, Jordyne [Flanagan], is a young woman who’s had a lot of experience being stage manager and assistant director. This is her first time as a solo director for us.”
Meyer said the choreographer and several cast members for “The Wedding Singer” are also relatively new to the Players. In comparison, he said, the fall production will be his 61st Players show in a row. He attributed the troupe’s ability to find and retain talent to its open auditions and policy of not pre-casting actors.
“We throw a net wide throughout Chicagoland. I mean, Chicagoland is a tremendous theater town,” he said. “You get all kinds of people from literally all over [the] Chicago metro. We’ve had people from far north, far west, far south. We’ve had people from Indiana work with for us over the years. They go wide. Every show brings in some new people.”
Serena Pomerantz, who will play Holly in “The Wedding Singer,” is one such new recruit. The actress, who is the daughter of the Landmark’s contributing editor Donna Greene, joined the group last year after auditioning for its fall production of “Spamalot.”
“I didn’t know anybody involved in the production or anything, and it was just the nicest group of people, honestly, I’ve ever worked with. [They] were also super driven to want to put on a good show,” she said. “So often with theater, it’s very tough to find people who take it seriously but are willing to laugh at themselves, and they can have it be a good experience. Sometimes, it’s either people who don’t take it seriously at all or people who are just too intense.”
Pomerantz pointed to Meyer and other group leaders as a source of inspiration for the troupe.
“He is literally building the set himself and doing so much of the behind-the-scenes work. It is full-on this group [where] people lead by example, and it motivates everybody to want to be even more awesome,” she said.
Meyer said his favorite part about working as a producer for the Players is getting to see the culmination of his team’s hard work once it’s time to take the stage for real.
“People ask me, ‘Al, you’ve done sixty-some of these things in a row. Why do you do it?’ What I like about it is, I like taking — these are all amateurs, right? — I like taking amateurs that come together for eight, 10, 12 weeks, tackle a new show, and then … they do six shows, and you have this live performance, after these people have come together and put this thing together, and the quality of the productions is really high for amateur theater,” he said. “That’s what I do it for. I attend all the performances. I want to see this thing start from scratch, all these talents come together, and then you have these six live performances. That, to me, is what it’s all about: watching the show.”
You can buy tickets to see “The Wedding Singer” at nrplayers.com/tickets or by calling the box office at 708-526-8084.
