Wrapping up the 2024 – 2025 Parkland College theatre season with director Jacob Deters’ stage adaptation of a beloved Adam Sandler movie
“The Wedding Singer” aims to be a lighthearted yet meaningful romance that engrosses the audience with its song and dance numbers. Here, director Jacob Deters provides exclusive character depth and a tease of his favorite songs in the highly anticipated musical.
Deters is deeply rooted in the local theatre community, utilizing his past directing experiences, such as the recently produced “Double Creature Feature: Zombie Prom”, and involvement in “Sweeney Todd” and “White Christmas.”
“The Wedding Singer” will be held at the Harold and Jean Miner Theatre. As for showtimes, the 7:30 p.m. performances are generously held April 17-19, 25, 26, and into May 2 and 3. Additionally, the 3 p.m. performances are April 27 and May 4. The runtime for the musical is 2.3 hours with an intermission.
On opening night exclusively, all tickets will be $12.50. For the rest of the showings, adult tickets will be $25, and tickets for students, youth, seniors and veterans will be $18. Click here for tickets.
As with any production, casting matters, specifically for this production, Deter emphasized vocal ability. He discusses his casting process when it came to rocking with the ‘80s, saying:
“We wanted people’s voices to emulate the traditional rock and pop sounds of 1980. Vocal quality was a big key for us to make sure that we cast people able to sing the roles really well, because it’s a very vocally demanding show with lots of high notes, lots of loud, belting singing.”
Ultimately, there were 19 selected cast members with leads Jacob Fava as rockstar Robbie Hart and Kirby Toalson as waitress Julia. Deters and his team ensured that the leads had chemistry. “During the casting process, we [had] different people together to see who had the best chemistry, and they really brought out a nice, sweet relationship between Robbie and Julie.”
According to Deters, the production team went above and beyond to write in-depth dynamics between other couples in the show. “They gave a couple of the characters already in the movie – Sammy and Holly – another couple, a little more background. It’s kind of cool to see a different couple and the antics that happen with them. So, that’s a big part of it – some character reshuffling, changing some relationships, and making them a little bit more fleshed out.”
For casting, there are also recurring familiar faces from Deters’ past production “Double Creature Feature: Zombie Prom.” He elaborates, “Tina Radi was in ‘Zombie Prom’ with us, Russell Zillman was also in ‘Zombie Prom,’ and Erin Kaufman, who plays Linda, was in ‘Zombie Prom’ as well.”
With familiar faces and sizzling chemistry, there are plenty of aspects to anticipate for this musical romcom. According to Deters, his personal favorite songs in this production are the humorous “Come Out of the Dumpster” and the grand “Saturday Night in the City.”
Regarding “Saturday Night in the City,” Deters gives a sneak peek of the musical number, “It’s a big production number, lots of dances, the lights are going to be flashing a lot, and stuff like that. So, I think production-wise, I’m really excited about ‘Saturday Night in the City.’”
From the carefully selected casting to the stage-exclusive storylines, Deters and his team strive to spread values of different relationships, whether it is friendship or romance. For tickets, click here.
