Interlakes Theatre's season kicks off like greased lightning

MEREDITH — Interlakes Theatre was supposed to close five years ago. That was the plan, anyway, after nine years of losing money. Instead, it’s kicking off its 15th season this week with Grease, the first of four well-loved musicals playing this summer.

Nancy Barry founded the theater company, producing professional Broadway titles in the Inter-Lakes High School auditorium, six months after leaving her position at the New London Barn Playhouse, taking over a space that had been dark, professionally, at least for a year.

Her timing couldn’t have been worse. She knew that she’d have to build a new reputation for her brand, but she couldn’t have known that, in the fall of that year, the stock market would crash, pulling the rug out from the final show of the season, which was supposed to rescue her inaugural run’s finances.

That first year set the stage for the next several to come, she said, and after the ninth, she was done. But who quits after nine? And, after all, the school district had just approved a renovation to include new seats in the auditorium.

“I said, alright, I’m going to do one more year,” she said about the 2018 season.

That year, something different happened — tickets started selling better than ever. Maybe the previous decade of work was finally paying off, or perhaps the old seats really were just that bad. Either way, Barry’s company had turned a corner. “Then I couldn’t quit.”

Despite turbulence in the economic forecast, Barry currently finds herself at the beginning of what could be her most successful year yet, if early ticket sales are any measure. Part of that success is due to her understanding of her patrons’ tastes.

“I do choose popular titles,” Barry said. Her shows are all “movie titles,” she said, meaning musicals that have been filmed for cinematic release at one point or another. “I know what my audience likes.”

It’s a balance each year to pick titles that will entice her regular ticket buyers, while also providing enough artistic merit to satisfy her own inner critic. This year, her indulgence is The King and I, a show she’s wanted to do for years but which costs a fortune in costumes and is challenging to cast. But it will finally satisfy a long-held wish for Barry.

“I’m in love with that show,” she said. “Everybody wants to see Grease, but I think it’s really going to be special for people to be able to see The King and I.”

The season continues with Sister Act in the first half of August, then concludes with Cats.

Grease, which runs through July 17, will be the Interlakes debut for director Tommy Ranieri, who is based in New York City and also provides direction for theme parks throughout the Northeast, including Santa’s Village in Jefferson.

The enduring appeal of Grease, said Ranieri, is how it manages to be both nostalgic of a certain era yet also speaks to a tension that relates to the current one. The characters represent the first generation of teenagers, a phenomenon born in post-World War II America, young people with time and freedom, but without clear direction of how to use it. “And having a lot of feelings, and not the tools to deal with it,” Ranieri said.

The teenagers in Grease were coming of age on the heels of a global horror, a war that killed millions. Likewise, the audiences who will see it are survivors of a pandemic that claimed a similarly unfathomable toll. Ranieri asked, “How are we supposed to know how to move forward after that incredible loss of life?”

Some audience members might wrestle with that question. Others might just enjoy the show, which, Ranieri noted, is about as fun as musicals get.

Ranieri is glad that Barry stuck it out for the 10th year — and the 15th, for that matter.

“I’m deeply humbled to have an opportunity to be invited by a community that feels so close-knit,” he said, “I feel so lucky to be invited to come in and create something for it.”