MUSKEGON, MI – A hometown musical that premiered 50 years ago in Muskegon is returning to the stage.
“Muskegon Lumber Queen: The Musical” is a melodrama, fictional story set in Muskegon during the 1880s lumber boom, according to a press release.
The musical has three showtimes and will be held at The Stage at the Corner, at 280 W. Muskegon Ave.
Performance dates are:
7:30 p.m., Friday, Oct. 3
7:30 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 4
3 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 5
Tickets are $10 each and available online.
The lakeshore community is known for its lumber barons, with names like Charles Hackley plastered all over town in memory of industries past. Historical homes and museums tell locals and visitors the stories of old Muskegon.
The musical references a couple familiar names, like Hackley and Hume, in Muskegon and characterizes what it might have been like to live there during that time.
The show was originally produced in 1975, by Mike Vogas, who is also directing this year’s revival.
“Fifty years ago, I asked two friends, to help me create a family-friendly musical play about my new home,” Vogas said, who moved to Muskegon in 1969 after a year at Yale’s drama school.
Vogas created the Muskegon Children’s Theater in 1972 and was looking for show ideas.
“The idea of Muskegon Lumber Queen grew from that effort and celebrated the community’s rich logging history.”
He said a former Muskegon Chronicle sports reporter helped do the research and bulk of the writing for the script.
The children’s theater ended in 1979 after Muskegon Public Schools stopped funding the program, Vogas said.
The 1975 musical was performed for three consecutive years before it fell off. The actor who played the lead in the original cast approached Vogas about reviving the show.
“It was sitting on a shelf,” Vogas laughed, explaining how his reluctance has turned to gratitude. “It’s an unexpected gift for me to do it.
“We’re giving young people particularly some insight into, ‘Where in the world did this community come from?’”
The play follows young logging foreman Fred Hansen, who hopes to win the heart of Annie Sorensen, daughter of a sawmill owner.
Trouble brews when the conniving Harry Dawson conspires with notorious log pirate Gilmer to steal Sorensen’s father’s vital shipment of pine logs, a move that would bankrupt him and force his daughter into an unwanted marriage.
With the help of a quick-thinking errand boy called Little Johnny, Hansen uncovers the plot, alerts the police, and joins in a rousing offstage battle that saves the logs and the mill.
The show features “lively musical numbers, from rousing logging songs to barroom Can-Can dances, comedic quartets, villain songs and tender ballads creating a vaudeville-like flow that keeps the pace brisk, and the audience entertained,” the press release stated.
The show invites audience participation. Viewers can cheer for the hero, sigh for the heroine, and boo the villain as he schemes his way toward eventual defeat.
Vogas said there were “minor rewrites” to update the script, creating more women’s roles and casting a woman in a part previously played by a man.
There are 30 cast members and a total of 50 people involved, including cast and crew. Some original cast members are involved, and others are performing for the first time.
“What they have done is just stupendous,” Vogas said. “I can’t believe the sound that fills that place up. From the time we start, to the time we finish, I am so proud of what this group of amateurs is doing.”
The Stage at the Corner is a church-turned-performance venue in town where the show will take place.
“I walked into that old church and I cried,” Vogas said. “It’s like the Grand Ole Opry in there.”
The musical’s script, music and supporting materials have been gifted to the Lakeshore Museum Center. Schools and other community organizations can request the materials to produce their own productions for fundraising or historical celebration without cost.