|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
NEW BEDFORD — For two hours and 20 minutes this Friday night, theatergoers can escape to a tropical island inside The Zeiterion, with New Bedford Festival Theatre’s production of Jimmy Buffett’s “Escape to Margaritaville.”
The Festival Theatre’s return to The Zeiterion stage is complete with a live parrot, leis and, of course, margaritas. “What better way to come back in than with a party?” said Shawn Simmons, who is dance captain and a member of the ensemble.
“Escape to Margaritaville” is a jukebox musical composed of hits from tropical rock artist Jimmy Buffett, such as “Margaritaville” and “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” as well as one original number titled “Three Chords.” Iconic songs come to life with an original story written by television writer Greg Garcia, known for sitcoms like “Yes, Dear” and “My Name Is Earl” and actor Mike O’Malley, known for his roles in “Yes, Dear” and “Glee.”
“In a show like this, you really just get to kick back, have a margarita, if that’s your thing, and just watch everybody on stage have a wicked good time,” Simmons said.
Elizabeth Bettencourt, producing artistic director of New Bedford Festival Theatre, said the theater company wanted the production to be “a big, summer fun beach party” for the return of summer musicals to The Zeiterion.
The Zeiterion closed in late summer of 2023 for a $37 million restoration project, and reopened in January of this year. The New Bedford Festival Theatre performed its annual summer musicals at Steeple Playhouse during the past two years. The theater company was founded in 1990 and has been a resident company at The Zeiterion for over 30 years.
“It just felt like the perfect celebratory, fun, excited, bright, colorful vibe that we wanted to show everyone how we felt about being back at the Z,” Bettencourt said.
An immersive experience in paradise
Set on a fictional island somewhere in the Caribbean, the story takes place over the course of three years and follows Tully, a bartender and singer at Margaritaville Hotel and Bar, who falls in love with Rachel, a guest at the hotel. Opposites attract in romantic comedy fashion as Tully’s laid-back lifestyle clashes with Rachel’s career ambitions.
Eight performances are set to run at The Zeiterion from July 17 through July 26. On opening night and the July 23 performance, a parrot named Mickey will be in the lobby for photos with patrons.
During intermission, audience members will be able to walk on stage to order margaritas on the rocks from an onstage, resort-themed tiki bar.
“There’s some immersion going on, because we want everyone to feel immersed in the escape of this,” Bettencourt said.
The Nautical Whalers, the local chapter of the Jimmy Buffett fanbase known as Parrot Heads, will be handing out leis to audience members prior to the performance. Live steel drum music will play both on stage and on the street outside the theater for a half-hour before the show begins.
“You’re definitely gonna walk into the world of Jimmy Buffett before you actually sit down and watch the show,” said LJ Brodie, who plays Jamal, a busboy working at the resort in the show. “So you can really be there with us while we do this story for y’all.”
Actor Luke Surretsky plays Tully, who he described as a “Jimmy Buffett adjacent character.” He plays the guitar live for his performance as Tully, and previously performed as Johnny Cash in a jukebox musical called “Ring of Fire” at The Grace Performing Arts Center in Princeton, Illinois.
Surretsky said that although he was not that familiar with Buffett before this production, he is now “definitely becoming a parrot head.” He said he listened to Jimmy Buffett music “non-stop” and watched live videos of Buffett’s performances in preparation for the role.
“I’m really just trying to pay homage to Jimmy Buffett in my performance by watching a lot of him,” he said. “Even though Tully is his own character, I want it to be reminiscent of the energy that Jimmy Buffett brought to the stage, and of the lightheartedness and love that he had for his whole fan base.”
Even though the show is fun, there are lessons to be learned, according to Maria Albertina, who plays the boss of the resort, Marley. Albertina said that her character shares some pearls of wisdom with the younger characters.
“Even paradise isn’t without its flaws,” Albertina said in a phone interview. “If paradise becomes just strictly an escape, you may overlook other aspects.”
She added, however, that the show being an escape in itself is valuable for the audience.
“Art is a vehicle for education and change, but it’s also an escape, and can just simply exist to entertain,” she said. “Even within that escape, there’s the lesson of it’s OK to take a beat. It’s OK, even in the most desolate or desperate of times, that there is space to breathe, there is space to find joy.”
A homecoming for both Festival Theatre and local actors
On the first night of rehearsal, Bettencourt asked the cast and crew to raise their hands if they were returning to the company, and more than half of the people in the room raised their hands.
“It’s the best gift ever to bring people back and know that they want to keep working with us,” she said.
Although this is Surretsky’s first performance with New Bedford Festival Theatre, several other cast members are returning to work with the company, including Brodie and Simmons.
Brodie and Simmons previously performed in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” during the summer of 2023, which was Festival Theatre’s last show at The Zeiterion before it underwent construction.
Brodie described Festival Theatre as “a family that you’re going to always try to come back to.”
Bettencourt said that she also wanted to ensure that local professionals are working with Festival Theatre. Bettencourt herself got her first acting job with the Festival Theatre in the 1990s. Fifteen members of the 18-member cast are local professionals from southeastern Massachusetts and Rhode Island.
“It’s a super way to prove what kind of talent we have here on the South Coast,” she said.
This year, the team has been rehearsing in The Zeiterion’s newly added movement studio, which features air conditioning, barres and wall mirrors.
Nino Ruggeri, an actor based in New York City, plays Tully’s friend and fellow bartender, Brick. Originally from Canton, Massachusetts, he is returning to New Bedford for his third show with the company and said he appreciates the new rehearsal space.
“Details, both big and small, have been fully refurbished, and brought back to life,” he said.
Ruggeri hopes the audience experiences the fun that the cast is having.
“We are all having a ball doing this show,” Ruggeri said. “Hopefully that translates to the audience, because, if we’re having fun, they’re having fun. And again, it’s a Jimmy Buffett musical, I’m hoping everyone’s got a margarita and is having the time of their lives.”
Marisa Grace Rebelo, an ensemble member from Fairhaven, previously performed with New Bedford Festival Theatre in “Singing in the Rain,” “Mary Poppins” and “My Fair Lady.”
“We all just can’t wait to perform for an audience, and to be back at The Zeiterion,” she said in a phone interview. “For a lot of us, it feels like home. It’s a place that is very special to a lot of us…The audience is just going to feel that energy and that excitement, and just have a ton of fun.”
Evening performances of “Escape to Margaritaville” will be held at The Zeiterion at 7 p.m. on Friday, July 17; Saturday, July 18; Thursday, July 23; Friday, July 24; and Saturday, July 25. Matinee performances will be held at 2 p.m. on Sunday, July 19; Saturday, July 25; and Sunday, July 26. Tickets can be purchased here.
Kiva Bank of New Bedford is a student at Yale University who is covering arts, culture and the city as a summer intern for The Light. Email Kiva Bank at kbank@newbedfordlight.org.