Skylight Music Theatre's 2022-'23 season features Disney holiday show plus new 'Song of Bernadette'

Jim Higgins, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
·3 min read
Rána Roman and Andrew Varela, who performed together in Skylight Music Theatre's "Kiss Me, Kate," will be back for "Evita" during the 2022-'23 season.
Rána Roman and Andrew Varela, who performed together in Skylight Music Theatre's "Kiss Me, Kate," will be back for "Evita" during the 2022-'23 season.
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Skylight Music Theatre's next season will bring a Disney flavor to the holidays, and the story of a French saint to the Broadway Theatre Center.

The 2022-'23 season, announced by artistic director Michael Unger and colleagues during a Skylight event Monday evening, includes "A Jolly Holiday: Celebrating Disney's Broadway Hits," a new family-friendly revue with 30 songs from Disney musicals; and "The Song of Bernadette," a new musical from composer Frank Wildhorn about Bernadette Soubirous, the girl from Lourdes whose Marian visions stunned the world.

Here is a list of Skylight's 2022-'23 productions, in chronological order:

  • "Mamma Mia!," Sept. 23-Oct. 16. The musical filled with ABBA songs, about a young woman on the verge of marriage trying to determine who her birth father is. Could this day be her Waterloo?

  • "A Jolly Holiday: Celebrating Disney's Broadway Hits," Nov. 18-Dec. 31. "Let It Go," "Circle of Life," "Be Our Guest" and "Bare Necessities" are among the songs in this revue. "The show is a perfect two-hour bauble for its core Disney lover and family audience. You get all the hits performed in straightforward, entertaining, loving ways that are embraceable, energetic, and effervescent," New Jersey Stage wrote in its review of the Paper Mill Playhouse production. A youth ensemble will supplement the Skylight's professional cast. Unger will direct.

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  • "Evita," Feb. 3-19, 2023. Rána Roman and Andrew Varela, who performed together in Skylight's "Kiss Me, Kate," return to play the Peróns in the Webber-Rice musical. While Skylight had planned a concert version of this show for a pandemic-scuttled season, the 2023 version will be a fully staged production.

  • "Noises Off," March 17-April 2, 2023. Skylight performs Michael Frayn's farce about a farce falling apart, on stage and backstage, with a twist: live music by an ensemble playing and singing music composed by lounge revivalists Combustible Edison. Unger will direct.

  • "The Song of Bernadette," May 19-June 11, 2023. The first fully staged production of a new musical that draws on the same source material as the famed 1943 movie: Franz Werfel's novel "The Song of Bernadette." Skylight calls this a "world premiere developmental production" of a show bound for Broadway.

In addition to those five subscription shows, Skylight will present staged concert readings of new musical works by BIPOC composers and writers, dates to be announced later.

Under the Skylight Presents! banner, these one-night tribute concerts are scheduled: "Sweet Baby James," Oct. 22; "An Evening With Prince and Michael Jackson," Jan. 20, 2023; and "Dancing Queen — An ABBA Salute," Feb. 24, 2023.

All performances take place in the Broadway Theatre Center, 158 N. Broadway. For subscription info, call 414-291-7800 or visit skylightmusictheatre.org.

Contact Jim Higgins at jim.higgins@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @jhiggy.

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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Skylight Music Theatre's 2022-23 season features Disney holiday show