It's a good morning to Jocelyn fish. You usually get up this hour. No. I only do it for
you, Don. What's going to usually get up? Oh, it depends. I can roll out about at eight
o'clock. It's still. I live six minutes from the theater guild. So don't worry. Even on
my days of I still get up at 4 30. Yeah, I used to be such a morning person. I really
I was in high school. Oh my gosh. I was up early all the time. I don't know what happened.
I got older. All my life. I've been getting up early for radio. And so it on weekends when
I see the club who's seven o'clock. I said to panic. Nobody told wake me up. Okay. So the
recent Jocelyn series other than she's a very nice person. And we like talking about the
other scene theater guild last night. They broke the news on the new 2026 27 season of shows.
Eight new shows. This is the 89th season. 89th season. Theater guild was founded in 1938. So yeah,
89th season. So that means WRJN was 10 years old. Yeah. When you guys started. Wow. All right.
We're going to go through the whole list here. Yep. And then we're going to talk about the current
show. This is the current season's far from over. No, we still got two jobs together. Yeah,
it was crazy. We're announcing one who's still got other stuff going on. It's a good juggling game.
That old stuff. Yeah. Okay. The first one is dad's season tickets. Now this runs July 17th through
the 26th. What's this about? It is about a family whose tradition is going to Lambo field
and cheering on the green and gold and all of the love and fight and humor that comes along
with that. And the dad's getting ready to talk about who, which of his three daughters
is going to inherit his season tickets. That's then and that's a thing that really only happens
in green. Yes, it does. Yes, it does. So this is by Wisconsin playwright. Music and lyrics by him
as well. So it's a fun musical. I'm sure we're going to have all Packard out lobby and what have
you to celebrate a really fun summer musical. I don't have a lot of hats because I'm not a
hat person, but I do have a Packer's hat. Yes. And I wear it a lot only in the winter because
got to keep this hair and shape. And so I might even wear it that way. Yeah. And I'm not a pack.
I'm not a big hat person. I might wear it. It's got kooky, kooky songs like one of them is called
what do you do on a buy week? It's a musical. It's a musical. Yeah. So that will be our musical
in the summer. Musical comedy. I love it. Dad season tickets. Now you do start your season in July,
not like everything starts in September, but not at the scene theater. Right. And the dad's
season tickets is technically a bonus show if you want to get season tickets at the theater guild.
But yes, we do start in July because our fiscal year runs July 1st to June 30th. So when do I
get my season tickets? If you are current season holder, you'll get a mailing in about two weeks
here to renew or change or what have you in the scheme of things. And then other people are more
than welcome to start calling even today and become a subscriber because this is a really,
really great lineup. And our season ticket package starts at $70 per person, which right now is
a very, very good deal with what everything costs in the world. Well, I have the same seats for
at 20 years. So and I get that extra seat for my mom and I can't give it up. I just, I don't want,
I just, yeah, I just feel like I can do it. So we leave it there and we always bring a guest
with us if they want to come and join. Okay, so that's July 17th through the 26th, the musical comedy,
dad's season tickets. That's definitely a green Bay, Wisconsin thing. All right, then on September
11th, the fall season, the play that goes wrong. Just like no noises off the zone a little bit.
This one's a little more over the top. So this is a huge, was a huge, huge hit in the UK and has
transferred to Broadway. And it's about a small community theater that's trying to put together
a murder mystery and everything quite literally comes crashing down. The set falls apart. The actress
gets knocked unconscious. The dead body can't play dead. All the actors trip over everything,
including their lines. And it's just, it's fantastically falls apart in the most theatrical way.
And it's so so funny. Is this a typical rehearsal over the theater? No, is this based on some kind of
truth? No, no, no. And part of the reason it's in this September slot is the set literally falls
apart around the actor. So we have to have the set up at about two weeks in advance so they can
practice with the set falling apart. So it's a big construction challenge.
No, somebody will get knocked unconscious. Okay. And this next one, I'm looking so forward to
I didn't get it from the name originally. It's October. By the way, the play that goes wrong is
September 11th to the 27th. That's a season ticket. One not bonus one. Okay, for sure.
Okay, October 30th through November 15th. The fall show is Angel Street. Gaslight now. This is
based on the movie Gaslight. I think this came first, actually. Okay, yes, yes. Then the movie's
based on this. This is the one with Charles Boyet, Ingrid Bergman, a Joseph Cotton,
and a very young Angel Landsell. This is Gaslight. This is where the term comes from. This is where the
term Gaslight comes from. It's a young woman who is a picture of Victorian, you know, housewife
to her husband. And he starts to disappear for a long hours of time. And there starts to be
strange noises in the house. And the gas lights flicker every time he disappears. And she's like
slowly losing her mind because he keeps telling her, no, it's fine. Everything's fine. I don't
know what you're talking about until this detective comes in and they work out what's going on
together. And there's a lot of very sinister layers. A lot of very very sinister layers. And it
really is one of those mysteries that continues to mount and mount scene after scene after scene
until you kind of are at what's going to happen breaking point. But yes, so this is most people
will probably know this as Gaslight. The theater guild last performed Angel Street 80 years ago.
So we performed this in 1947 at the Main Street theater in downtown Racine. So it's been 80 years.
That you have to call an Angel Street. And that is what the official title is is Angel Street
in parentheses. Gaslight. And the movie is called Gaslight now movies. Whatever they feel like doing.
We are chatting this morning. Jastlin Fish is here, director of marketing and development for
the Racine theater guild. We're talking about the new 2026 27 season. All right. We got dad
season tickets in July. We've got the play that goes wrong at September. We've got Angel Street
otherwise known as a K.A. Gaslight in October. And then you bring it back a really good musical.
People are going to love it. It's coming back again. December 11th to the 20th. It's a quick run
for Chitty Chitty Bank. Chitty Chitty Bank is coming back. Yes. We have done this quite a few times,
you know, over the last 26 years, where we'll do a show for the one season and bring it back
for the next season, just because people love it so much. And to be honest, it is a lot of
money to produce a big musical like that. And we've invested in the costumes. We invested in the
car. And so people really had a great time with it. I know you and I have tried it about it multiple
times. And we're very excited to bring back to the Chitty Chitty Bank. Right. That's December 11th
to the 20th. It's a quick run. So don't doubt it. Yes. And that one will have outreach shows for
his schools again as well. Now when the winter winds are blowing, the snow is blowing. We've got
got of carnage, which is a lot of carnage is a absolutely chaotic comedy of manners without
manners because the best way to describe it. It's about two couples whose sons get into a scuffle
on the playground and they get together to talk about how they're going to deal with it. And it
very, very, very quickly goes off the rails and lots of finger pointing, lots of yelling,
lots of just over the top, almost animalistic fighting. So all decorum goes absolutely out the
window. It's it's quite something. Yes. Meena Reza who wrote it also wrote art if people know that
play. So a little more a little content wording on it because there is some language, but it is
it is an absolutely hilarious, very, very dark comedy though. I'm right. I'm going forward to
that one. Dark is what I want. 15 for the 31st. That's got a long run. Then in February,
it's February 26 through March 14. It's the cottage. The cottage. So this is a new newer play.
It was only on Broadway, I think like four or five years ago. It's a modern nod to Noel Coward and
those old, you know, farces of his. So it's about Sylvia and Bo who are on their annual romantic
rendezvous affair that they have together. And Sylvia reveals to Bo that she's decided to tell
her husband and his wife about the affair. And so everyone comes to the cottage and there's
lots of mistaken identities, lots of sex, lots of love, lots of you know, all those all those
ins and outs of a good first. And it's kind of got a different ending than most farces as well.
So I'm very, very excited about that. You ran a good one a couple of years ago was the movie
2 blive spirit. Oh sure, sure. Yeah. That's another one. Kind of on the farcical side of things for
sure. And actually, the cottage is also written by Sandy Rustin who wrote Clue, which we did.
Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh gosh. What was that? Four years ago? Five years ago. So it's got that same very
zippy field to the comedy as well. In April, though, this is April 9 through the 18th of 2027,
which I'll talk about next year. Hannah's suitcase. So this is going to be an outreach show as well
for local schools. This is a book. Many, many children have read or know of. And if not, it's just a very
it's a pretty incredible true story about this teacher and her students at a Holocaust Museum
who find this suitcase that has Hannah's name on it and has information about where she came
from and it says orphan as well. And so they try to do this nation and then national wide search
of who Hannah was and what happened to her because she was a victim of the Holocaust. So it's a
really, really moving story and it goes between their search to find out who she was and who Hannah
Brady was at the same time. It's a really wonderfully juxtaposed story. And we actually have been in
contact with the playwright who got us in contact with Hannah's family even too. So the photo
that you see on the logo if anyone looks it up, we got that directly from Hannah's family.
I interviewed worked at another radio station a couple of years ago and I got it was a big
process to get a hold of her, but a Holocaust survivor. And she was on 2020 and I see you
toward the DACA and organ bells and all those camps and Auschwitz. And I called if made a few
phone calls to the Holocaust survivors organization and they got a got me a hold of her. She's in
England and she agreed to go on for an hour and we took out all the commercials took out all the
newscans just one hour with her. I didn't want it to erupted. I wish I had a copy of it. The
old radio station probably still has. But in all my 50 some odd years on the air is the best
anyway. I bet I bet I could not believe what I was hearing what she told as a teenager.
She went to five concentration camps with her mother until when they just had her mother
and she was on her own and till the Americans came in and captured her and saved her in
give her a new life. And she's a matter of fact the way she tells it. Yeah. And I think that this
is a really good approach to explaining the horrors of the Holocaust in ways that youth can
understand you know. And so I don't think anybody can ever appreciate it. Yeah. No. And
they'll never fully wrap their I mean even the research I was doing for for this show. You
can find Hannah's drawings that they talk about in the show like online and I just sat there and
I was like oh my gosh. I know. Yeah. So I think it's going to be a really good intro for for
lots of good conversations that need to be had because we have to remember what history happened
to ensure it doesn't happen again. Then the big finale every year you have a lot of all the
stops with the big guns. Yes. And this one's come from away from 21st through June 6th. So excited
to be doing this. We're going to be one of the first community theaters in southeastern Wisconsin
to do it. So really, really excited. This is also based off of the true story on September 11th.
The air traffic to the US was shut down. So all of these planes had to be rerouted somewhere.
And this is based off of planes that got rerouted to Gander, Newfoundland in Canada. And all of a
sudden the 7,000 passengers land in this small remote town and this town takes care of everyone
with just such genuine kindness and hospitality and love in a very, very dark and scary time
in our history. And it's so moving and it's so incredibly stage 2 because everyone will play
multiple roles and there's planes and sleeping centers. There's so many locations and a lot of
people call it cheerography because there's a lot of chairs that move to create all these locations.
But the music is really quite something as well. It sounds like Canadian music in a way,
which I think is really cool. And of course, this September will mark 25 years since September.
I know. I always work in the earth when we have that morning, yeah.
So a really, really incredible musical that some people may not know. And if you don't,
I really, really encourage you to come see it and check it out. And even if you're not a musical
or a play person, it's one of those shows that's going to stick with you. Everybody's a musical.
I think so. I grew up going to Broadway musicals. My entire youth was my mom and
took me to every Broadway musical there was. Now, if somebody wants to, is this online yet?
This is all online. It's on our website. It's on our Facebook page. I sent a big email out last
night. You can call me and ask me questions, whatever. Now, also our chat here with Jocelyn also
online to get in that online. But podcasts, we're going to do the podcast. We'll be up later
this afternoon. In case you're missed any of it. But in the meantime, you have the Hobbit.
The Hobbit. Yes, that was close. Yeah. In about two weeks here, it will open on April 10th
through the 19th. So we have 25 people in that show that are getting ready to be hobbits,
to be elves, little people, all kinds of people, people all sizes. I think we've got people from
like age 14 to about 70ish or something. So it's quite quite the range. And they're having a lot
of fun with it. I saw them with their weapons to practice their fight choreography last week. And
they maybe I'll just seem to be having a ball. And here's the one I've been waiting for. Pippin.
And I told you the story. Why? Yes. And I'll tell the story when next time you're in Pippin.
Pippin opens up on May 15th. The big finale musical goes through the 31st. So that's the end of
this season. We'll be Pippin. The story of Pippin and his journey of self-discovery and whether or
not he falls the path that people expect him to follow or if he follows his heart. And that is cast
and they're in music rehearsals and gives our choreography. Great songs. Oh, wonderful songs.
Wonderful songs. Even a hit song for the Jackson fun. Right. Right. Yeah. So that will be a great
way to tap off this season. So our ABA season is coming to a close. And our evening night is right
around the corner. We have season tickets available. We have flex passes for people who maybe
don't want to commit like you to every, you know, second Saturday or what have you. They want to be.
I commit to the third or third Saturday. Oh goodness. They maybe want a third time. They know
their lines. Yeah. They want a Thursday here. They want to, you know, Saturday there. They want
four people here or two people there. Flex passes are also a great option. And a great time to get
them right now. So thank you for coming in. Of course. Thanks, John. That was a pleasure. We'll see
you when the hobbit opens up. When is the hobbit open up? Uh, in two weeks April 10th. So we should talk
dates. Yeah. So we'll look at the data in just a second. I could Jocelyn, uh, I was just
going to say Jocelyn Fuchs again. She's handles one of my high school pages on the Jocelyn Fish
who's director of marketing and development at the Receding Theater Guild and say hi to Doug. I see
it was a grandchildren running around all around. Yes. He went down to, uh, the undoubtedly visit his
grandson last week. I know. I know. I know. All right. Thank you.
