The night is young and the music’s high: the Mayfield announces a new and music-filled season

By Liz Nicholls, .ca

Come Monday to Chiquitita … the musical hits just keep coming, in the upcoming 52nd season announced by Mayfield Dinner Theatre artistic director Kate Ryan this week. It’s a lineup designed to capitalize on the theatre’s well-known musical strengths.

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At the Mayfield the jukebox will be having a Heat Wave, you might say. At the centre of the five-show lineup are two jukebox musical comedies and a musical that chronicles in its song list the music, and the storied, dark, and highly dramatic life, of Johnny Cash. There’s a newly assembled tribute to the music of the 70s and 80s. And since the night is young and the music’s high, a new concert-style tribute to ABBA is the season finale, with text commissioned from Edmonton actor/ playwright Jocelyn Ahlf.

Ryan’s new season opens with The Marvelous Wonderettes: Dream On (Sept. 1 to Nov. 1), a 2008 Off-Broadway musical comedy that gathers to its light-hearted sitcom-esque bosom a remarkably fulsome collection of 50s and 60s hits, It’s My Party, Leader of the Pack, I’ve Got The Music In Me, You Don’t Own Me, Mr. Sandman among them. When the title song squad gets called upon to perform at their high school prom (the boys got bounced for smoking), they rise to the occasion, in four-part harmony. O wait, have I spilled the beans?

Julie Tomaino, the director/choreographer who’s also at the Citadel next season bringing Annie to the stage, directs The Marvelous Wonderettes, with musical direction by Jennifer McMillan.

Ryan herself directs the season’s other musical comedy, Jimmy Buffett’s Escape To Margaritaville (April 13 to June 13, 2027), a 2017 Broadway musical that’s a veritable mantra for de-stressing and escapism, full of Jimmy Buffett hits, puns, outrageous characters, and a demented plot you’ll have to figure our for yourselves. Ah, and also “an erupting volcano,” to challenge the ingenuity of the design team. Ryan calls it “our nod to the ‘lean-into-it ridiculousness of it. No-apologies fun.…kind of a Mamma Mia! meets Rock of Ages!” Musical direction by Jennifer McMillan.

Ring of Fire, a 2006 Broadway musical jukebox journey through the life and career of the Man in Black, tells its story through a song list of some 38 Johnny Cash hits. Rachel Peake, artistic director of the Grand Theatre (and a former associate artistic director at the Citadel), directs the Mayfield production Feb. 2 to April 4, 2027). Ryan was struck, she says, by the staging and musical excitement of Peake’s 2024 Arts Club Theatre production in Vancouver.

The holiday seasonal extravaganza is a tribute to the music of the ‘70s and ‘80s, the legendary artists who sprang into the collective consciousness on vinyl — biggies like Queen, Fleetwood Mac, Donna Summer, Madonna, Michael Jackson…. Legends of the 70s & 80s (Nov. 10 2026 to Jan. 24, 2027) pairs the music direction, arrangements, and orchestrations of Bob Foster (whose list of Mirvish Productions credits is distinguished) with text by Christine Bandelow and Kevin Dabbs (The 90s: It’s All Coming Back To Me Now, One Night With Roy Orbison).

For One Night With ABBA, the Mayfield season finale concert tribute (June 29 to Aug. 8, 2027) — leave ’em burning and then you’re gone — Ryan has enlisted the services of playwright and Teatro Live! star Jocelyn Ahlf to write the text, with music direction, arrangements, and orchestration by Jennifer McMillan.