WINTER GARDEN, Fla. – Something rotten’s going on at the Garden Theatre — no, literally.
The smash hit production, “Something Rotten!,” which follows the Bottom Brothers as they try to write the world’s first musical and emerge from under Shakespeare’s shadow, opens at the Winter Garden performing arts center Friday and runs until May 21.
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“I describe it as a handful of mentos in a vat of Coke,” said Alan Bruun, the show’s director. “It combines my two favorite things — musical theater and Shakespeare — and takes the piss out of both of them.”
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De’Lon Grant, known for his role in Broadway’s “Come From Away,” and Connor Saccal, an actor in multiple national and international tours, star as the promising pair of siblings, Nick and Nigel Bottom, as they squabble and scheme to write their way through the Renaissance and best the Bard himself, played by Disney legend Billy Flanigan.
It’s got all the tongue-in-cheek you’d expect from a musical about making a musical, especially impressive given the cast had only been in rehearsal for a matter of weeks.
“To find performers who are true triple threats, actually quadrauple threats, (who can) act, sing, dance and tap... it’s inspiring to be in the same room with these guys,” Bruun said.
The show runs on a contagious current of humor and the cast continuously hits the mark in laughs and musical notes, all while tapping and dancing their hearts out during the high-energy solo and group numbers.
The audience can plainly see the fun being had, in everything from the energetic physicality brought by Christopher Schmidt as the soothsayer to the brawling bravado on display between Grant and Flanigan.
“I’m not used to being so out front. Give me supporting with like a laugh line and like a little song, a little step,” Grant said after a preview performance on Thursday.
But he made more than a little impression, belting out showstopping songs like “God, I Hate Shakespeare” and “Bottom’s Gonna Be on Top” that brought the audience to their feet, trading in tomatoes for applause.
This is the theater’s second live production since partnering with Victory Productions. The theater returned to the scene in January with “Rock of Ages” after a six-month hiatus in live performances following a feud between the board and its employees.
“It’s wonderful to be here. It’s wonderful to have this theater open, it’s wonderful to have this extraordinary, extraordinary cast and production team here at the Garden Theatre to do this,” Bruun said.
For more information on “Something Rotten!” and to purchase tickets, click here.
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