Center Stage’s Annual Holiday Show To Feature “Meet Me In St. Louis”

Ready for seasonal programming that will leave you feeling warm and fuzzy?

Center Stage at Southampton Cultural Center will have the Long Island premiere of Joe Landry’s Meet Me in St. Louis: A Live Radio Play this November.

Based on Sally Benson’s The Kensington Stories and the MGM motion picture Meet Me In St. Louis, starring Judy Garland and Margaret O’Brien, the production follows the lives and romances of St. Louis’ the Smith family in 1903 – the year before the World’s Fair arrives. Landry’s 2013 radio play is adapted from the book by Hugh Wheeler.

“I am thrilled to be continuing this holiday tradition of presenting Joe’s timeless and humbling nostalgic whispers of gentler times,” Director Michael Disher reflected. “Featuring our greatest technology – imagination, Joe effortlessly transports us through sounds and spoken word. And in this case, with a familiar score, to boot.”

Center Stage’s annual holiday show will star Michael Casper, Gabriel DiFrancesco, Joey Giovingo, Amanda Jones, Alyssa Kelly, John Lovett, Katrina Lovett, Catherine Maloney, Pamela Morris, Michaal Lyn Schepps, Anna Schiavoni, Lon Shomer and Edna Winston. Amanda Jones will serve as musical director while Alyssa Kelly choreographed the production.

The seasonal extravaganza will showcase songs by Hugh Martin and Ralph Blaine, including classics like The Boy Next Door, Skip To My Lou, The Trolley Song, Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas and Meet Me in St. Louis.

“This is a charming portrait of upper-middle-class American family life at the turn of the last century, when the World’s Fair was coming to St. Louis, complete with outdoor electric lights,” a New York Times review notes.

“It’s pleasant to visit an idealized world in which a family’s biggest problem might be whether to have dinner at 5:30 or 6:30 and a vicious dirty trick would be to put some unattractive boys’ names on another girl’s dance card,” the review adds.

Meet Me in St. Louis: A Live Radio Play can be seen at Southampton Cultural Center’s Levitas Center for the Arts Friday, November 23 through Sunday, December 9, with performances on Fridays and Saturdays at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Landry, the playwright, will be attending opening night and will take part in a talkback with Disher.

Tickets are $25 for general admission and $12 for children (under 21). There is also special Dinner/Theater packages available.

Southampton Cultural Center’s Levitas Center for the Arts is located at 25 Pond Lane in Southampton. For more information, call 631-287-4377 or visit www.scc-arts.org.