Manatee Players looks to ‘Succeed’ with big musicals in new season

This year marks the 61st anniversary of the enduring, Pulitzer Prize-winning musical “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” a show about an ambitious young man’s rapid rise in the corporate world.

The focus is on J. Pierrepont Finch, who uses a self-help guidebook to rise from window washer to chairman of the board of World Wide Wickets, but he does so at a time when attitudes about women and how they are treated in the workplace were far different from what is considered acceptable today.

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“There’s a kind of sexism that makes us cringe today,” said Rick Kerby, the producing artistic director of the Manatee Players, who is directing and choreographing a new production of the musical to open his company’s season. “It reminds me of seeing an old sitcom where they’re all smoking in restaurants. It’s just wrong.”

That’s why Kerby’s production is being staged as “an absolute period piece. It has those sexist jokes that were the norm then, but they’re not appropriate today, and we’re trying to play it with cartoony humor. We’re certainly not trying to justify it,” he said.

The show also mocks the general nature of office politics as everyone maneuvers to survive or get a promotion.

“I think the show makes fun of itself and it’s done with such broad humor,” he said. “I call it the Daffy Duck school of acting because it’s so broad. Even the songs themselves, when it was written in the day, they were acknowledging it wasn’t ok.”

The musical features a score by Frank Loesser (who also wrote “Guys and Dolls”), and a script by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert, based on the book by Shepherd Mead.

In one song, a boss has to remind his staff that “A Secretary is Not a Toy.” In another, the leading lady, a secretary named Rosemary who has her eyes on Finch, dreams about giving up her job to be a devoted wife in the song “Happy to Keep His Dinner Warm.”

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Alexander Zickafoose, a music teacher at Booker High School, returns to the stage as Finch. He previously had leading roles at Manatee Players in “Pippin,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” and “Newsies.” He stars opposite another frequent performer Sarah Yonko (previously Sarah Cassidy) as Rosemary, a role she played in 2012 at the Venice Theatre. At Manatee Players, she has starred in “I Do! I Do!” “Mary Poppins,” “Tarzan,” “Les Miserables,” “Into the Woods” and other shows.

Mike Nolan plays J.B. Biggley, the head of the company, and Chris Cordero, a newcomer to the company, plays Biggley’s underhanded and ambitious nephew, Bud Frump.

Kerby describes Finch as “a crafty, smart individual who takes advantage of opportunity.” It requires an actor who can play the role with “an innocence and naivete about him. You have to buy into that or else he comes off as a slime ball.” He said Zickafoose “has that natural charm. He comes to the table with that and doesn’t have to dig for it.”

“How to Succeed” launches a season that includes some major and ambitious productions, including Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical version of the classic film “Sunset Boulevard,” which will close the mainstage season April 27-May 14.

One musical currently running on Broadway, a revival “The Music Man” (Dec. 1-18), is on the schedule, along with another musical revival that just closed on Broadway, Stephen Sondheim’s “Company” (March 2-12). The rest of the mainstage season includes the classic “Gypsy” (Oct. 20-30) and the more recent Pulitzer Prize-winning “Next to Normal” (Jan. 19-29), about a woman dealing with mental illness.

In the smaller Kiwanis Studio Theatre, the season will open Sept. 14-Sept. 25 with Jonathan Larson’s “Rent,” and will be followed by “Pets” (Nov. 2-13), a musical revue about the relationship between people and their animals (Nov. 2-20); “Go Ask Alice,” about a high school girl’s involvement with drugs (Feb. 1-5); and Alfred Uhry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “Driving Miss Daisy.”

For ticket and subscription information, call 941-748-5875 or visit manateeperformingartscenter.com.

‘How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying’

Music by Frank Loesser, book by Abe Burrows, Jack Weinstock and Willie Gilbert. Directed and choreographed by Rick Kerby. Runs Aug. 11-21, Manatee Performing Arts Center, 502 Third Ave., West, Bradenton. 941-748-5875; manateeperformingartscenter.com

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This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Manatee Players opens new season with classic ‘How to Succeed...’