Forum Theatre’s ‘Route 66’ takes us on a trip back in time

For decades, it was lovingly called “The Main Street of America” or “The Mother Road” as it wound its way through the scenic heartland from Chicago to Los Angeles. It stretched 2,448 miles through eight states – including 13.2 miles in eastern Kansas near Galena.

U.S. 66, opened in 1926 and decommissioned in 1985 when it was replaced by the Interstate Highway System, remains alive in the national consciousness somewhere between myth and legend.

And “Route 66,” the latest show from The Forum Theatre, is a lively and nostalgic jukebox musical by Roger Bean that celebrates America’s love of the open road during the highway’s 1940s-1950s heyday. The show previews Thursday and opens Friday for eight performances through Feb. 28.

The musical re-creates a road trip using 34 popular tunes of the era to describe the sights and sounds along the way, from doo-wop and pop through Missouri and Kansas, to country-western through Oklahoma and Texas, to Beach Boys hits as the highway arrives in sunny Santa Monica, Calif. Among cleverly repurposed treats are “Six Days on the Road,” “King of the Road,” “On the Road Again,” “Beep Beep,” “Dead Man’s Curve,” “GTO,” “Little Old Lady from Pasadena” and, of course, the title tune where – as promised – you can “get your kicks.”

Bringing the road trip to life are four adventurous friends played by Ray Wills, Robert Barnes, Ted Dvorak and Chelsey Moore. Dvorak is the high classical tenor, Barnes the deep resonant bass, while second tenor/baritone Wills and mezzo-soprano Moore share the middle ground. The four harmonize as a quartet but also divide up into various duets and trios as well as getting solo showcases. Accompanying are music director Steve Rue at the keyboard with a small combo of bass and drums.

“It’s something a little different for us, but it’s a huge crowd-pleaser that has done really well wherever it has played. We really love the music. We thought it would just be a lot of fun for us and the audience,” says director Kathryn Page Hauptman.

“I’m of a generation that remembers Sunday drives and vacations by car every summer. By the time I was in high school, I had been to every state. The romance of the open road is very nostalgic for a lot of us. This show brings back a lot of personal memories of good times,” Hauptman says.

“Our world has become so fast-paced that we don’t take time to look at nature along the roadsides anymore. This invites us to enjoy the trip, not just the destination.”

Wills, seen as the title character in the Forum’s “Man of La Mancha” last season, says: “In a nutshell, this show is just pure fun. It’s just cool. It’s four (friends) who decide to go on a road trip and then just do it.”

Wills says the four will be playing variations of themselves and using their own names rather than taking specific characters. “There’s not a lot of dialogue. We tell the story from song to song to song,” he says. “We keep our own personalities.”

Interestingly, although the show is about a road trip, there’s no prop car to clutter up the stage. “When we get to Broadway, we’ll have a car,” jokes Wills, a Broadway veteran who spent five years in “The Producers.”

For deep bass Barnes, recently in the Forum’s “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” the show is “a real toe-tapper and finger-snapper that brings back a lot of memories.”

“When we would go from Wichita to Disneyland, we’d drive through New Mexico where we would always stop to visit family. We made the trip in a ’57 Chevy that Dad drove everywhere,” Barnes says. “That’s what this show brings back for me.”

Barnes notes slyly that when people reminisce about Route 66, they always talk about going west to Los Angeles. Nobody, he says, ever talks about going east to Chicago.

Moore, a Sterling College theater graduate also just seen in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner,” is young enough that the vintage music is more historic than nostalgic.

“I’m a lifelong Kansan and when we’d be road-tripping to California to see my grandparents, we’d listen to songs like these all along the way. A few of the songs I was familiar with, particularly the Beach Boys hits. I love blues and jazz, which fits with the 1940s-1950s songs at the beginning of the show. I wasn’t that familiar with country-western because it isn’t something that I listened to before. But it’s growing on me,” Moore says.

As the only female in an all-male cast, Moore says she has the advantage of getting to play the flirty card on occasion.

“I’m playing sort of a tomboy – supposedly just one of the guys. But as the only female, I get to add the spunk. There’s a song called ‘I’m Gonna Gallop to Gallup, New Mexico,’ which lets me get really flirty,” she says.

Operatic tenor Dvorak, soloist at Plymouth Congregational Church who has sung opera in Germany twice, confesses that road trips are not quite as nostalgic for him because he had a tendency to get carsick while growing up. What he likes about this show, however, is the variations in the music and how all the performers’ voices “lock” together.

“I get to explore all the parameters of my voice. I’m a classical tenor and I can be pretty loud. I usually have to back down a bit to keep from overpowering others,” Dvorak says. “But I’m enjoying how well everybody’s voices lock together. I can just let ’er rip.”

This story was originally published February 13, 2015 at 4:01 PM with the headline "Forum Theatre’s ‘Route 66’ takes us on a trip back in time."