Earthquakes, tidal waves, infernos and dozens of unforgettable songs of the ’70s, take center stage in Broadway’s side-splitting homage to classic disaster films, Disaster!, playing at Curtain Call in Stamford, June 3 through 18.
Disaster! is a new musical straight from Broadway, featuring some of the most unforgettable songs of the ’70s. “Knock on Wood,” “Hooked on a Feeling,” “Sky High,” “I Am Woman” and “Hot Stuff” are just a few of the scintillating hits in this hilarious musical comedy with a book by three-time Emmy Award nominee and SiriusXM Broadway host, Seth Rudetsky, and Jack Plotnick. Greenwich native, Steve Marzullo, served as musical supervisor for the off-Broadway production and musical director for the Broadway run.
Marzullo, whose other NYC credits include Mamma Mia, Grease, On The Twentieth Century, Grease and many more, said, “It was one of the funniest shows I got to do on Broadway. We were laughing all the time during the rehearsal process.”
“Sometimes, we just want to laugh and have fun at the theatre, and that’s what we’ll have with Disaster!,” said Lou Ursone, Curtain Call’s executive director and producer for this June production.
“This show rivals the silliness of Spamalot and Something Rotten, while it spoofs movies we know well,” he added. (The song list looks like the Billboard Top Hits of the 1970s.) And like Marzullo, Ursone and his team have been laughing during the current rehearsal process.
“Disaster! is exactly the kind of show you would expect from someone like Seth Rudetsky,” said George H. Croom, director of the show. Rudetsky co-wrote Disaster and starred in the Broadway production. An accomplished musician, actor and radio host, Rudetsky and Jack Plotnick created Disaster! garnering generally positive reviews, including from the New York Times which called Disaster, “inspired lunacy.”
After a three-year run on off-Broadway, Disaster opened on Broadway in 2016. “When it comes to lunacy on stage, I know no one better than George,” Ursone said. Croom’s past directorial projects at Curtain Call include Something Rotten and Spamalot.
It’s 1979, and New York’s hottest A-listers are lining up for the opening of a floating casino and discotheque. Also attending is a faded disco star, a sexy nightclub singer with her eleven-year-old twins, a disaster expert, a feminist reporter, an older couple with a secret, a pair of young guys who are looking for ladies, an untrustworthy businessman and a nun with a gambling addiction. What begins as a night of boogie fever quickly changes to panic as the ship succumbs to multiple disasters, such as earthquakes, tidal waves and infernos. As the night turns into day, everyone struggles to survive and, quite possibly, repair the love that they’ve lost… or at least escape the killer rats.
Joining Croom on the creative team are music director, Clay Zambo and choreographer, Jennifer Jonas Cahill, with set design by Peter Barbieri, Jr., lighting design by Adam Lobelson and costumes by Megan Morello. The cast features: Miguel Acevedo, Monica Castillo, Lynne Colatrella, Brian Bianco, Sara DeFelice, Jennifer Faccenda, Jeffrey Fulton, Chris Giordano, Carly Jurman, Bill King, Rob Nichols, Simone Palmer, Markiss Robert, Emily Rooney, Robert Santoli, Jennifer Silverman and Ari Sklar.
Disaster is the final show of Curtain Call’s 2021-2022 season. Summer programming includes their 19th year on “the green” with a free production of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure in July, followed by a youth theatre production of The Pajama Game in August.
Performances will be held Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00pm and Sunday afternoons at 2:00PM, from June 3 through 18. The Kweskin Theatre is located at The Sterling Farms Theatre Complex, 1349 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, CT. Doors open one half hour before show time. Tickets are $35 for adults, $25 for senior citizens and $20 for children under 21. Box Office: 203-461-6358 or on the web at www.curtaincallinc.com.
Disaster is produced in cooperation with The City of Stamford with support from the CT Office of the Arts and funding from the Shuttered Venue Operators Grant. The show is sponsored by Britta & Denis J. Nayden Charitable Foundation Ltd. It is produced through special arrangement with Music Theatre International, NY, NY.
Curtain Call was voted Fairfield County’s BEST LOCAL THEATRE GROUP ten years running in the Annual Readers’ Poll of the Fairfield County Weekly and has received similar BEST OF awards from Stamford Magazine and StamfordPlus magazine for 2008 through 2022. Curtain Call received The Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts in 2011 and the ACE Award for Excellence in Arts & Culture from the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County in 2016.
