How to go
What: “Menopause: The Musical”
Where: Victoria Theatre, First and Main streets, Dayton
When: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Sept. 14-16
Tickets: $29.50-$49
For more information: (937) 228-3630 or www.ticketcenterstage.com. For more about the show, go to www.menopausethemusical.com.
DAYTON — Musical theater doesn’t always focus on the pre-emergent (“Annie”), the hotly emergent (“Spring Awakening”), or the emerged and “out” (“Rent”).
At least one show looks ahead to a middle phase.
“Menopause: The Musical” will pulse into Dayton for the first time Tuesday through Thursday, Sept. 14-16, at the Victoria Theatre with 28 songs including “Change, Change, Change,” “Stayin’ Awake,” “My Husband Sleeps Tonight” and “Good Vibrations.”
The 2001 show premiered in Orlando, a precinct better known for making little ones gleeful.
Stacy Schwartz can almost guarantee a good time at the Las Vegas-tested, road-happy two-act production.
“We’ve talked about this quite a bit,” she said of the four cast members.
“We’ve all done several shows, but never anything with the consistent response this one gets.”
Schwartz plays the Soap Star, one of four distinctly different types of women “in the 45 to 55 age range” who have never met when they arrive at Bloomingdale’s in New York to check out a lingerie sale.
They begin to discover things they have in common.
According to publicity material for the show, those include memory loss, brain skips, hot flashes, night sweats, chocolate binges, not enough sex, or too much sex.
The show was written and produced by Jeanie C. Linders, who has a serious side.
She’s also the founder of the Jeanie C. Linders Fund, which supports women with ovarian cancer and projects including There’s No Place Like Home, which provides homes for women who have lost them due to natural disasters.
Her intent with “Menopause: The Musical” was to provoke laughter by poking fun at a subject that often isn’t very funny.
The three other women, according to Schwartz, “are the Iowa Housewife, who’s wearing her pearls and is making her first visit to the big city; the Professional Woman, who’s all business, efficiency and has her cell phone attached to her ear; and the Earth Mother, who’s all about peace, love and tranquility.”
Schwartz’s character is a soap opera actress.
“She’s Susan Lucci-esque. She’s getting a little older. The parts she used to play are going to younger women. Her body is changing.
“She’s the one who has the hardest time getting the audience on her side in the beginning because she’s possibly a little younger and a little thinner and seems to have more going for her,” Schwartz said.
Her big solo is “Hot Flash,” sung to the tune of “Heat Wave.” She also has a duet to “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and is part of many group numbers.
The songs are parodies of 1960s, ’70s and ’80s hits.
Schwartz fell in love with the theater at age 7, in summer camp, but by college, her practical side asserted itself.
She majored in speech communications at the University of Georgia.
She moved to New York, where she performed off Broadway and in a few tours.
A job took her to Florida, where she met the producers of “Menopause.”
“I was too young to be in a show with that title,” so they hired her to work in the office and, later, to serve as music director.
A couple of years ago, she was finally old enough.
Has she gone through menopause? “I experience it eight times a week,” she said.
The musical may not pass muster with theater snobs, “but whether we’re in Idaho or Chicago, the people love it.
“You don’t get into this business for the stability, but this show is steady work for all of us. It’s an anomaly.”
The “celebration of women and the change” tends to attract a female-centric crowd — “anywhere from an 80/20 mix to even 90/10,” she said.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2377 or tmorris@Dayton DailyNews.com.
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