Broadway to Biloxi: ‘Footloose the Musical’ coming to Beau Rivage Casino this summer
It’s been 40 years since the “Footloose” movie and soundtrack premiered in the the 1980s and now the Broadway musical is on its way to Biloxi for a three-week anniversary run.
It’s also the 25th anniversary year for Beau Rivage Resort & Casino in Biloxi, where “Footloose the Musical” will be performed over three weekends from June 21 through July 7.
Shows will be on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Tickets go on sale Friday, March 1 and start at $20 plus tax and fees. A family four-pack of tickets is $60 with the code Fun.
The show is generating excitement even before it reaches Biloxi. The first day of auditions in New York, actors who can also sing and dance were lined up around 34th Street and Eighth Avenue — “literally around the block” — said Jeb Rand, president and executive producer for Rand Enterprises & Productions. He’s had 1,748 submissions for a cast off 22 and six crew members for the show.
All the actors are from New York, except a couple from Hollywood.
“Our lead is currently on the national tour of ‘Pretty Woman,’” Rand said.
Another dozen people will handle the sound, lights and production at the Beau Rivage, where entertainment director Ramon Ruiz says he thinks the community and Coast visitors will be “eager and excited to see a Broadway show,” as they were when “Cats” came to the Beau Rivage several years ago.
“Right now to see any of those type of shows you have to pretty much go to New Orleans,” he said.
“We’re really glad that we were able to get the show and do this in a price range where people here on the Gulf Coast can bring their entire families to watch it,” he said.
‘Let’s hear it for the Beau’
Live music will give the 90-minute show at the Beau Rivage a whole other level of professionalism and energy, Rand said, especially when the music is so synonymous with the show.
The soundtrack for “Footloose” was released before the movie in 1984 and Rand said he was told Kenny Loggins’ “Footloose” title track and album was what finally knocked Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” off the charts.
Other favorite songs from the movie that will rock the 1,550-seat Beau Rivage Theater are “Let’s Hear if For the Boy” and “Holding Out for a Hero.”
This is the 12th show Rand Productions has produced at the Beau Rivage.
While the Broadway company owns the rights for the “Footloose” Broadway tour, “We’re the only other national professional producer that has the rights to the show,” Rand said.
“Let’s Hear it for the Beau,” he said, “for bringing Broadway in your backyard.”
How close is the musical to the movie?
Rand and Ruiz will protect the integrity of the show, but are allowed to make certain changes.
The story’s the same timeless coming of age tale that will resonate with the generation who thrilled to the original movie, Rand said, and those who saw the remake.
A teen moves from Chicago to a small town where dancing is prohibited and he works to change the attitudes of the preacher and the community.
“He’s mad at the world, that his dad walked out and his mom is moving to Beaumont,” Rand said. The audience will relate and feel sorry to him and his girlfriend, Ariel.
“She’s hard and rough and tough. But she’s sweet. She’s vulnerable,” Rand said. “I want them to be vulnerable, yet edgy and relevant.”
The costumes will be from around the 1990s, which aren’t so different than today but more updated than the movie.
The choreography by Dewayne Barrett, a big Broadway tour choreographer, also will get an update.
“We say it’s a match between Broadway and hip-hop funk,” Rand said.
The production is a change from recent summer entertainment at the Beau Rivage, he said, and is geared to bring people of different ages together to enjoy the story, costumes, songs and dance experiences of a Broadway production.
