Everybody cut loose!

The Pickwick Players are hard at work on their 2009 summer musical - FOOTLOOSE. Based on the 1980s hit musical starring Kevin Bacon and including many of the great songs from the movie, this musical is a great opportunity to showcase the tremendous talents of our youth performers. Director Bill Williams, Choreographer Judith Giebler and Musical Director Darryl Knapp have been working with the Pickwicks for the past five weeks, and the youth are adding lighting, scenery and costumes this weekend to perpare for their opening next Friday.

FOOTLOOSE public performances are on July 17, 18, 19 (matinee), 24 and 25. For tickets, contact the MCT Box Office at 570-4111 or visit our website

Below is a synopsis of the musical FOOTOOSE from the American Rose Theatre:

Chicago. A group of young people have gathered at their favorite dance club to unwind and say goodbye to Ren McCormack. Ren's father has walked out, so he and his mother are forced to move in with her sister's family in a small town nobody has ever heard of - Beaumont. Ren soon finds himself at odds with the repressive atmosphere in Beaumont, where the spiritual life of the community is overseen by the power local minister Reverend Moore. Ren is stunned to learn that dancing is not allowed anywhere within the town limits of Beaumont. His new friends explain that this law dates back five years to a car accident that claimed the lives of four Beaumont teenagers. In the flood of grief and guilt that followed that tragedy, Rev Moore managed to convince the town council to ban dancing. The only person seemingly unfazed by Rev Moore's iron-fisted control is his daughter Ariel. Following a bout with her boyfriend, Ren walks Ariel home and they find they have a lot in common. But Rev Moore forbids Ariel to see Ren again, citing him as a troublemaker, despite his wife's pleas. Annoyed, the minister walks away.

The next day, frustrated by his new stifling environment, Ren vows to "take on this town" and incites a revolution by his classmates to throw a dance. Ren drives Ariel and their friends 100 miles outside Beaumont to a dance hall where they party into the night and teach Willard how to dance. When Ariel finally arrives home, her defiance infuriates Rev Moore, who denies that he has become too severe since the death of his son - one of the teenagers killed in the fateful car accident. Angered, he walks away again.

At the long awaited town council meeting, Ren makes his case for a dance with Ariel's help. When the motion is defeated, he is devastated, but his mother convinces him that Rev Moore "fixed" the vote, and urges him to try again by speaking privately with the minister.Ren goes to the church, but after a brief discussion in which Rev Moore is unable to share his fears and motivation for continuing the ban, he asks Ren to leave and turns away. Appalled by his own actions, it is only then that the minister realizes how musch the pain of his son's death has overshadowed his life, and the lives of everyone in Beaumont. After a struggle with his conscience, he announces to his parishioners that he has had a change of heart - that in fact a dance might be a good idea. And so, for the first time in years, the young people of Beaumont are able to dance freely, and as everyone joins in, the evening becomes not only a celebration, but finally as ecstatic expression of healing. They dared to dance and "Everybody Cut Footloose!"