Get ready for an entertaining musical evening of rock ’n’ roll with four of the biggest names in music as Village Theatre opens its new fall season at the Everett Performing Arts Center with “Million Dollar Quartet” — starring professional singers in the challenging roles of Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins and Johnny Cash.
Known for the quality of its productions, Village Theatre picked a blockbuster cast to hit the boards for this one. The show already has earned enthusiastic praise from Seattle reviewers for its “Quartet” presentation at the theater’s home venue in Issaquah. Now the show is running Nov. 2 through 18 in Everett.
“The show was received extremely well in Issaquah, and it’s doing very well in ticket sales for Everett, too,” said Josh Roberts, director of marketing for the theatrical organization. Portrayals of the four immortal performers, and renditions of 30 of their immortal songs, are handled superbly by experienced actors who play their own instruments and mimic the singing styles of their stage personas.
The setting for the show is based on a rare 1956 gathering of the four superstars at Sam Phillips’ Sun Records Studio. Although Presley had moved on to RCA records by that time, he was well acquainted with the other three who were still Sun recording artists.
As a musical, of course, the attraction isn’t just the professional performances of the faux singing stars but listening to 30 famous songs of the ’50s and ’60s — including “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Great Balls of Fire” and “Shake, Rattle &Roll.” More mellow moments slow to such melodies as the gospel hit “Peace in the Valley.”
Floyd Mutrux, who co-authored “Good Rockin’ Tonight — Sun Records and the Birth of Rock ’N’ Roll” with Colin Escott and directed the birth-of-rock movie “American Hot Wax,” co-directed “Quartet” with Matt Walker for Village Theatre.
In a starring role as Johnny Cash is Lance Guest (whose credits include starring on “St. Elsewhere,” “JAG” and “NYPD Blue,” as well as playing Alex Rogan in the 1984 sci-fi movie “The Last Starfighter”). Rising recording artist and actor Levi Kreis, who just completed a 251-city national tour promoting his two albums, plays Jerry Lee Lewis. Stage and nightclub artist Rob Lyons plays rockabilly legend Carl Perkins, and Dane Stokinger, veteran of the national tour of “Miss Saigon” and the European tour of “Jesus Christ Superstar,” takes on the challenging role of Elvis Presley.
Matt Wolfe, a familiar Village Theatre player in such shows as “Hello, Dolly!” and “The Music Man,” joins the cast of “Quartet” to play Sam Phillips as the “Father of Rock-n-Roll,” and Jessica Skerritt, who has performed at ArtsWest, Civic Light Opera and Harlequin Productions, is Elvis’ showgirl girlfriend, Dyanne.
Village Theatre, with more than 17,000 subscribers and a projected audience of 170,000 annually for its five-play seasons, has launched more than 60 new musical stage productions and promoted youth education programs through Pied Piper and KIDSTAGE, serving more than 53,000 young people, families and schools each year. This season’s sponsors include the Boeing Co., Continental Airlines, Microsoft and Lombardi’s restaurants.
Coming up on the season’s playbill are “The King and I,” “Barefoot in the Park,” “Little Women” and then “AIDA.”
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