Santa Fe College Fine Arts Department scholarship students take the leading roles in the college’s fall theatre production, “The All Night Strut!” – a Big Band-era musical review directed by Professor Terry Klenk. The performance is scheduled fort 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Oct. 9 – Saturday, Oct. 12, in the Fine Arts Hall at the Northwest Campus, 3000 NW 83 St., Gainesville.
Tickets are $15 orchestra, $12 balcony, $9 senior and children 12 and under, and free to Santa Fe College students and employees. For ticket information, call the Box Office 352-395-4181, or visit the Fine Arts ticket website at http://www.sfcollege.edu/finearts/
A worldwide hit since it was first produced in the 1970s, “The All Night Strut!” follows a cast of two African-American and two White characters to show how people come together, get torn apart, and then are brought back together through music.
Klenk described “The All Night Strut!” as “a classy, sassy homage to Big Band music, a celebration of the 1930s and 1940s with jazz, blues, bebop and standards that thrill the heart, tickle the funny bone and raise the rafters—a fast-paced, gently nostalgic view of the great American songbook.”
Cab Calloway, George and Ira Gershwin, Johnny Mercer, Jerome Kern, Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington are just a few of the writers whose songs will be featured. See the attachment to this press release for a full list of the production’s musical numbers.
The cast is accompanied by the Pit Singers, directed by Professor Lynn Sandefur, and the Santa Fe Big Band, directed by Professor Stephen Bingham, with dance breaks choreographed by Professor Sarah Harkness-Sebastian.
“We call this ‘The Big One’ because we are developing a creative team on a scale we have not done before, with faculty members and students involved in music, dance, set design, costumes, lighting and technical direction,” Klenk said. “This is the largest set we’ve ever created and one of the biggest shows to light that we’ve ever done.”
All that work is focused on creating the nightclub atmosphere in which the musical’s action occurs, evoking the ambience of places like the Cotton Club and the Coconut Grove that were famous for presenting such big bands as Count Basie, Tommy Dorsey, Duke Ellington, and Glenn Miller.
“’The All Night Strut!’ is about how people find the songbook of their lives,” Klenk concluded, “and the production really showcases the optimism in American music.”