'All Shook Up' starts Friday

HUNTINGTON -- One football-throwing Chad has already ridden into Huntington and stolen the hearts of many Tri-Staters with his good looks and athletic prowess.

Huntington Outdoor Theatre is banking on another hot, young Chad -- this one a black-leather-jacket-wearing, motorcycle-riding, hip-shaking, guitar-playing bad boy -- to turn up the musical heat and win over just as many tender hearts in the Tri-State.

Chad, a James Dean-meets-Elvis kind of character, is just one of the stars ready to hit the stage Friday night as part of H.O.T.'s production of the new musical, "All Shook Up," juiced with a jukebox full of Elvis Presley hits.

Now in its 16th season, H.O.T. is rocking the Ritter Park Amphitheater with the infectious sounds of a dozen Elvis hits during the musical, "All Shook Up," which runs nightly Friday through Sunday as well as July 17-19, and July 24-26, at the amphitheater.

The show starts at 8:30 p.m. The pre-show starts at 7 p.m. with the children's pre-show called, "Twistin' in the '50s," followed by the community pre-show.

Gates open at 6:30 p.m. for picnics, although full concessions are available.

Get your tickets early at the Big Sandy Superstore Arena Box Office and Borders Books and Music in the Huntington Mall.

Tickets are $16 and $14 for 65 and older and children 5 to 12. Children 5 and under are free. Groups of 20 or more are $14 if they are purchased at the same time. All tickets include a $1 surcharge for the Greater Huntington Parks and Recreation District.

Set in the Midwest during a 24-hour period in the summer of 1955, the story follows Chad, played by Philip Cron, a character fresh out of jail who rides into a sleepy town whose prudish mayor Matilda played by Courtney Dugan has (like in "Footloose") outlawed loud music, dancing and indecent behavior.

It's not long after that the good-looking greaser rumbles into town and gets the ladies "All Shook Up" with his hip shaking and guitar playing and the guys all fired up to live wild and free for the moment.

The town is full of quirky characters. Everyone, including Chad, seems to be looking for love in all the wrong places as the little love-tangled web of this small town keeps turning as the Steve Freeman-designed sets of a diner/dive, museum, main street, and finally an abandoned fairgrounds spin in and out to transform the open-air stage into one big, '50s-fueled musical soap opera.

As Chad says he is searching for the highest form of love, "Burnin' Love," and that kind of life-changing love is on the minds of Natalie a tomboyish, young mechanic (played by Christina Gayheart); Dennis (everyone's best friend played by Mark Radford) Miss Sandra (a Marilyn Monroe-esque museum operator played by Jessica Maier) Dean (a soldier played by Cody Verbage) Lorraine (a spunky waitress played by Kristin Caviani) and the older trying-not-to-be-a-couple couple, Jim Haler (a shy widower played by Kennie Bass) and the sweet-singing, sassy Sylvia (played by Kerri Easter).

Shayne Gue, assistant director to veteran director and H.O.T. co-founder Helen Freeman, said it's easy for anyone to relate to these characters in their quest for love.

"I found myself relating to so many of the characters going through their struggles, " Gue said. "First and foremost, though, I think it is the music and the dancing that youth will like."

Gue, a 20-year-old who has done some three dozen shows since he began theater in 1999, said the show really has the best of both worlds -- a dozen Elvis hits such as "Jailhouse Rock," "Heartbreak Hotel," "Blue Suede Shoes," "A Little Less Conversation" and today's arrangements and staging.

"This show is going to attract a whole new crowd that may not be into musical theater but that are into Elvis," Gue said. "And while the older crowd may be into Elvis, the arrangements are for modern Broadway pop voices."

Musical director and conductor, Mark Smith, who also plays keyboards during productions, has assembled an all-star '50s-esque rockabilly unit that's also pumping with a couple horns.

"We've got the standard '50s band with sax and trumpet racheting up the rock," Smith said. "You've got to have that dirty sax of the '50s."

Smith said it doesn't matter what age you are, this stream of sing-a-long songs that Elvis made famous, will move you.

"Elvis didn't write any of these songs, but he made them his own," Smith said. "It's simple and rhythmic and anybody can do it and feel it."

Choreographer Patty Freeman, who's got the entire cast dancing on stage for several numbers, said they talked to the cast that includes many college and high school kids about the infectious energy of the late 1950s when Presley came onto the letter-sweater-wearing pop music scene with his lip-snarled, hip-twisting rockabilly that burst with such a vitality and energy that it put a scare into parents everywhere.

"There was this special kind of beat and swing in the dancing that everybody wanted to share," Freeman said. "We kind of taught everything uptempo because once it starts, it's not an up and down energy swing. It is fast and energetic the whole time.

"You've got to be pumped all the time for this show. You've got to make sure your batteries are charged. Even if the song is a ballad, you've got to rock the house with your passion and your energy."

Freeman said it was a heck of a lot of fun to choreograph since folks end up dancing literally all over the sets built by Steve Freeman, who serves as H.O.T.'s scenic designer and technical director.

"You have to have fun with this show and we do," Freeman said. "We're dancing on the floor, on the benches, on the bar and on the steps."

Although many of the actors are young, they are familiar to H.O.T. and area theater.

This is the second starring role for Cron, who starred as Romeo last year in H.O.T.'s production, and other young performers such as Jessica Maier and Caviani, have racked up parts in 20 and 17 shows, respectively.

While many of the faces are familiar to H.O.T. and area stages, there are some newcomers.

Among the standouts, is Pittsburgh native Courtney Dugan, a second year student at Marshall University's Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, who hits the stage for the first time in five years.

A theater veteran, she loves the tight-knit family of H.O.T., and the college student has enjoyed her odd role as an old, rule-happy mayor/mother, just one of the many comedic characters in the constantly funny musical written for Broadway by Joe DiPietro.

"It's a really silly story that's full of these little shots of comedy," Dugan said. "It's not just punch-line kind of jokes, it's more witty."