2023-2024 Season Announced by Springboro Community Theatre

THE WIZARD OF OZ
By L. Frank Baum, With Music and Lyrics by Harold Arlen and E. Y. Harburg

Auditions: June 12-14, 2023
Performances: August 4-6 & 11-13, 2023

We’re off to see the wizard! Young Dorothy Gale is swept away by a tornado from her Kansas farm to the magical land of Oz. There, she encounters a host of whimsical characters: good witches, bad witches, animals that talk, scarecrows that walk, and things magical to behold. To find her way home, she must journey along the Yellow Brick Road to see the mysterious and all-powerful Wizard in Emerald City. Along the way, she makes new friends, but must also brave many dangers, including the Wicked Witch of the West, who will stop at nothing to get her hands on Dorothy’s magical ruby slippers. To make it home safely, Dorothy must learn an important lesson: there’s no place like home.

THE CEMETERY CLUB
By Ivan Menchell

Auditions: July 31 & August 1-2, 2023
Performances: September 15-17 & 22-24, 2023

Three Jewish widows meet once a month for tea before going to visit their husbands’ graves. Ida is sweet tempered and ready to begin a new life; Lucille is a feisty embodiment of the girl who just wants to have fun; and Doris is priggish and judgmental, particularly when Sam the butcher enters the scene. He meets the widows while visiting his wife’s grave. Doris and Lucille squash the budding romance between Sam and Ida. They are guilt-stricken when this nearly breaks Ida’s heart.

A GENTLEMAN’S GUIDE TO LOVE AND MURDER
Book and Lyrics by Robert L. Freedman, Music and Lyrics by Steven Lutvak

Auditions: September 18-20, 2023
Performances: November 3-5 & 10-12, 2023

When the low-born Monty Navarro finds out that he’s eighth in line for an earldom in the lofty D’Ysquith family, he figures his chances of outliving his predecessors are slight and sets off down a far more ghoulish path. Can he knock off his unsuspecting relatives without being caught and become the ninth Earl of Highhurst? And what of love? Because murder isn’t the only thing on Monty’s mind….

BEDTIME STORIES (AS TOLD BY OUR DAD) (WHO MESSED THEM UP)
by Ed Monk

Auditions: November 6-8, 2023
Performances: December 29-31, 2023 & January 5-7, 2024

It’s Dad’s turn to tell his three rambunctious kids their bedtime stories, but when he gets fuzzy on the details, the classics get creative: a prince with a snoring problem spices up The Princess and The Pea, The Boy Who Cried Wolf cries dinosaur instead, and Rumpelstiltskin helps turn all that pesky gold into straw. You may think you know your fairy tales, but not the way Dad tells them.

BIG FISH
Music and Lyrics by Andrew Lippa, Book by John August

Auditions: January 2-4, 2024
Performances: February 23-25 & March 1-3, 2024

Edward Bloom, a traveling salesman, lives life to its fullest… and then some! Edward’s incredible, larger-than-life stories thrill everyone around him—most of all, his devoted wife Sandra. But their son Will, about to have a child of his own, is determined to find the truth behind his father’s epic tales.

I BET YOUR LIFE
By Fred Carmichael

Auditions: February 26-28, 2024
Performances: April 5-7 & 12-14, 2024

Soap opera author Matthew Stoddard has written a screenplay about a terminally ill man who hires a hitman to kill him and then finds out he was misdiagnosed. Matt’s agent and best friend, Greg, thinks the plot is not feasible so Matt contacts a gangster and arranges for an incognito hitman to join them at a dinner party in the country to prove his point. Circumstances place a real hitman among the guests and the action accelerates as they try to find out who it is before the deadline. Stacy, secretary and love interest to both men, does her best to help them solve the identity question as surprise after surprise thwarts them.

THE ENCHANTED BOOKSHOP
By Todd Wallinger

Auditions: April 8-10, 2024
Performances: May 31 & June 1-2 & 7-9, 2024

An ordinary used book shop by day, A Likely Story becomes a magical place each night. Thanks to a spell from the Book Fairy, the characters inside the books come alive each and every night. Six of those characters — Dorothy Gale, Robin Hood, Pollyanna, Sherlock Holmes, Heidi, and Tom Sawyer — long to help Margie, the scatterbrained owner, save her struggling store. But they’re not allowed to leave the building or be seen by human eyes. So when a pair of bungling smugglers comes looking for a stolen necklace hidden inside one of the books, the characters are torn. Should they warn Margie and risk disappearing forever? Or can they find a way to defeat the crooks without being seen? Including appearances by other literary characters such as the Queen of Hearts, Long John Silver, and Doctor Doolittle, and with a toe-tapping score from Stephen Murray featuring jazz, march, and pop tunes, this charming musical will enchant audiences young and old.