Next month, 9 to 5: The Musical is making its way to Greensboro and Eatonton, thanks to a joint production by the Lake Country Players (LCP) and the Plaza Alliance for the Performing Arts (PAPA).
Co-directed by Dennis McClain, his wife and PAPA Board Chair Dottie McClain, LCP Board Chair and Artistic Director Mo Brower and Sarah Daly Weir, the local production also features Music Director Donna Valvo and Brower again as choreographer.
Though Mama Mia was the group’s initial choice for this season’s joint effort, production rights were not available. Brower said she then heard from a theater friend in Connecticut who told her about a run of 9 to 5 they had recently completed and suggested it might be a good fit for the combined LCP/PAPA production.
“She said it was very successful up there. In fact, every one of their shows sold out and they ended up adding dates and they sold out, too,” said Brower, a Broadway-trained professional dancer.
After some discussion among the production principals here, a decision was quickly reached this summer to go forward with 9 to 5 at Greensboro’s Festival Hall and later The Plaza Arts Center in Eatonton.
With Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin starring, 9 to 5 was the nation’s second-most popular movie in 1980, following only Star Wars-The Empire Strikes Back in box office ranking. Its title song, written and sung by Parton, won Grammys that year for Best Country Song and Best Female Vocal Performance and in 2021 the song was inducted into the Online Film & Television Association Hall of Fame.
The movie inspired a successful TV sitcom of the same name in the mid-‘80s and in 2005 Parton began writing new songs to create a Broadway production of 9 to 5: The Musical, which debuted in April 2009 before going on a nationwide tour later that year.
“The play did really well on Broadway; they did a really, really good job of adapting it to the stage. The music is great; the play is great; it’s just fun,” Brower said.
“The beauty of local theater productions is to get a chance to show some of the talent that’s in the community and to be able to appreciate that talent,” Dottie McClain added. “People who come to this show will laugh, they’ll move in their seats with the music, I think they will have a really great time.”
McClain explained auditions were held at The Plaza over a span of two weeks in August, with all actors seen by the directors at least twice before parts were assigned. She said sometimes it’s obvious who fits certain parts and other times it can be a source of discussion, but either way it’s a rapid process, with most of the major roles cast within just one or two days of the auditions’ completion.
“It’s a definite mix,” McClain recalled. “There are some people that definitely want to try out for a lead part, and there are other people that just say, ‘I’ll take whatever role I can get.’ In fact, the one who says, ‘I’ll do anything,’ is highly welcomed because we know that they’re going to be team players. It takes a lot of time, a lot of energy even to have a really small part, but there are people that want to do that, and we are very, very happy—and thankful—about that.”
Brower pointed out, too, that casting and producing a musical presents unique difficulties on several levels.
“Musicals are probably the most labor-intensive of all the types of productions you can do because it’s not just about learning your lines and your blocking; you’re also learning music, you’re learning dances, and then you have to learn harmonies with other people,” she said. “There’s just so many different parts that have to work together. It takes so much collaboration among so many people to make it work. Musicals are a beast. But they’re also a lot of fun.”
McClain and Brower also agree that 9 to 5 is a particularly challenging musical to put together as its score, the musical arrangement is surprisingly complex.
“Working on this production gave me a whole new appreciation for Dolly’s genius and talent," Brower said. "Really, when you think about where she came from and her lack of formal education, you know, growing up in a one-room cabin and the poverty and everything, and to think that this woman wrote this type of music; it really just gave me a whole different perspective about her as a musician."
The combined LCP/PAPA production of 9 to 5: The Musical will debut Nov. 10-12, with nightly 7 p.m. shows at Festival Hall (201 N. Main St., Greensboro), before moving to The Plaza Arts Center (305 N. Madison Ave., Eatonton) for 7 p.m. shows Nov. 18 and 19, plus a 2:30 p.m. matinee Nov. 20.
Tickets are already on sale, starting at $25 each for all shows, with purchasing and more information for both venues available at plazacenter.org/performing-arts-alliancepapa/9to5.