"The Gospel According to Tammy Faye" opens The University of Akron Theatre Program's 2011-12 mainstage season with eight performances beginning Sept. 8 at Sandefur Theatre in Guzzetta Hall, 139 Buchtel Ave. on the UA campus. Performances are Sept. 8-10 and 15-17 at 8 p.m. and Sept. 11 and 18 at 2 p.m.
Written by UA alumnus JT Buck, a 2004 graduate of the UA Theatre Program, and Fernando Dovalina, "The Gospel According to Tammy Faye" features an eclectic pop-country-gospel score and fantasy-style mode of storytelling. The cast includes students, professional actors and a live four-piece band.
Tickets are available for purchase 30 minutes prior to the shows, or call the UA Theatre Ticket Office at 330-972-7895 to make reservations. Tickets are $12 for general admission, $10 for seniors and UA faculty, staff and alumni, and $6 for students.
Dramatic life makes great theatre
"Tammy Faye's larger-than-life persona and dramatic life story are ripe for theatrical treatment, says UA theatre professor, Susan Speers, who is directing the musical. Bakker was known as "The First Lady of Televangelism" for founding, along with her husband Jim, the world's first satellite-broadcast Christian network in the 1980s. The network imploded in a series of scandals, including Jim's marital infidelity and accusations of financial fraud.
Known even more for her bold makeup, including the famous mascara-laden eyelashes, in later years Tammy Faye Bakker battled cancer and became an unlikely hero in the gay community.
Buck and Dovalina met while both were graduate students of veteran Broadway producer Stuart Ostrow and the late Pulitzer-winning playwright Lanford Wilson at The University of Houston. Beginning with interviews conducted with the subject herself, the pair say that they sought to trace Tammy Faye's rags-to-riches-to-redemption story in a way that is even-handed and uplifting.
"Doing a campy send-up of her story would be easy and therefore boring," says Buck. "We want this show to appeal to everyone whose life has been affected by terminal illness, infidelity, or religious hostility. In short, almost everyone."
Story is very personal
"The Gospel According to Tammy Faye" was work-shopped with staged readings at Manhattan Theatre Club, starring Tony nominee Sally Mayes and Broadway veterans Heather Parcells and Bill Youmans, as well as sold-out performances at the Cincinnati Fringe Festival and in Houston, where it played on the stage of the Alley Theatre as a benefit for a local AIDS charity — opening on the night Tammy Faye died.
After a several-year hiatus from the project, Buck and Dovalina are using the UA performances to prepare the show for a stab at the big leagues with possible major city engagements.
The show has also become an increasingly personal crusade for Buck. His mother was diagnosed with stage-four brain cancer in March, and died just four days before the UA production went into rehearsals.
"In many ways this show was always intended as an homage to my mom," explains Buck. "I wrote the music with Mom very much on my mind. Working on it again in the midst of her dying process has been intense."
Buck adds, "Both Tammy and my mom faced mountains of obstacles and always found a way to rise above them. Both faced their end with dignity and strength. That's always worth singing about."
Media contact: Cyndee Snider, 330-972-5196 or cyndee@uakron.edu.