April 17, 2002

Rotary show full of jabs and jokes

60th annual variety show debuts tonight at Lars Hockstad Auditorium

By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
       Lampooning issues great and small, organizers of the 60th Annual Rotary Show are ready for another non-stop laugh fest.
      Debuting Wednesday evening at the Lars Hockstad Auditorium, the show will feature skits about political and social issues from the local, national and international scene. From the Enron scandal and airport security to city hiring controversies and the travails of local construction projects, anything is grist for the show's witty repartee and corny songs.
      "We read the paper to get our skit ideas," said Jerry Allard, a retired Coast Guard Commander who has helped write the shows for the past five years. "We put in a lot of local stuff and if anything bombs, we'll change it the next night."
      Traverse City's Very Important People are poking fun at themselves and others for a good cause: the Rotary Good Works Fund. The show consistently sells out all four nights, filling the 1,000-seat auditorium, and raises between $70,000-80,000 each year for this fund. A variety of organizations received grants from the proceeds of last year's show, including the Bay Hockey Association, Oak Park Elementary School, Michigan Legacy Art Park and the House of Hope.
      The Rotary Club began the show around 1940 as a way to raise money to purchase Camp Greilick as a Boy Scout Camp. While they skipped a year during World War II, it has been a consistent event ever since.
      "Virtually every Rotarian has a role somewhere," said Don Fraser, a longtime participant. "It is absolutely remarkable the stuff they come up with for the show, the creativity is amazing."
      Director Bryan Crough, by day the executive director of the Downtown Development Authority, has spent many hours with his crew to draw up 21 different sketches. Paul Morris is directing the 44-member chorus, which has been practicing a number of original songs in earnest since early March. Musician and composer Hal Johnson created original music for the show.
      The Rotary Club even stages a pre-show, which often draws families with picnic baskets to the Lars Hockstad Auditorium an hour before the real show begins.
      Crough and his team have been meeting in earnest since February to put the show together, mining current events for ideas. Each week's meeting is a rollicking good time, a preview of the stage show to come. The writers spent last Saturday morning ironing out the order of the program, last-minute production details and stage directions.
      "We get ideas and then people go off and work on them and bring them back to us," said Crough, former director of the Old Town Playhouse. "If we don't laugh, then they're out."
      Fraser has served as the show's interlocutor, or emcee, for many years and has participated in the annual show since he joined Rotary 25 years ago. He said the show, despite its freewheeling humor, is a triumph of planning.
      "The timing of the show does not vary more than three or four minutes from night to night," added Fraser, a physician working in end-of-life care.
      Fraser continues to help with the show because of the fun and camaraderie of the team working in advance - and the certainty that each evening will be an adventure into unpredictable territory.
      "The thing that is fascinating about the show is that you take people out of their usual lifestyle and crazy things happen," he said. "We make fun of everybody, poke fun at ourselves, community, country, city and the federal government. But we're careful to keep it a family show."
      The 60th Annual Rotary Show will be held April 17-20 at the Lars Hockstad Auditorium, each show starting at 7 p.m. Tickets are $7 and are available at the door or at American Spoon Foods and Petertyl Drugs downtown, the Terrace Shopper on Munson Avenue and Holiday Shopper in Acme. For more information, call the Rotary Club at 941-5421.