Royal City Musical Theatre is set to bring revenge comedy 9 to 5 to the stage at New Westminster's Massey Theatre from April 25 to May 11.
The fast-paced feminist adventure echoes the hit 1980 movie, which starred Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as office secretaries who get revenge on their tyrannical, sexist boss by abducting him and running the business themselves.
Surrey-based actor Sarah Houghton is happy to play in the musical production as an ensemble member, a new employee of Consolidated Industries and in understudying roles.
"This cast is just crazy good, incredible, and I feel very lucky to be among them," Houghton raved.
The musical stars Royal City vets Irene Karas Loeper (Violet), Maia Beresford (Doralee) and Madeleine Suddaby (Judy) as secretaries for office boss Franklin Hart Jr., played by Dustin Freeland.
"It's coming together really well," Houghton said of rehearsals. "The cast immediately felt right, and this show is just so funny. With everything going on in the world right now, it seems more topical than ever. Even though it was supposed to be written about an office in 1979, it very well could have been written about an office in 2025."
In addition to the iconic song "9 to 5," the show features numbers written by Parton.
For the Royal City company, the spring musical signals a changing of the guard, as outgoing artistic director Valerie Easton co-directs with Chris Adams, interim artistic director.
鈥淭his bold and fresh production offers the perfect blend of hilarious hi-jinks and heartfelt camaraderie," Adams says of 9 to 5 The Musical, which debuted on Broadway in 2009.
"Audiences will be rooting for these fearless women to stick it to the man with this story of female empowerment.鈥�
Annually, Royal City Musical Theatre welcomes more than 10,000 audience members to shows in New West. Tickets are sold on on .
Houghton, graduated from North Delta's Seaquam Secondary and now studying history at KPU, saw her first Royal City show, Mary Poppins, last year.
"I was completely in awe, just the sets, the cast, costumes, everything," she recalled. "It was like, 'How is this a community theatre?' kind of moment. So I was thrilled to even just audition for their next spring show."
To date, Houghton has acted on screen (), has done character work for and starred as Anya in Theatre in the Country鈥檚 , in 91原创.
Of note for history buffs, Houghton is a granddaughter of , a Whalley-based photographer who chronicled life and landmark events in Surrey from the 1950s to 1970s. Many of his images are stored by Surrey Archives.
On her mother's side, Houghton's grandparents are , whose Newton home was a giant 鈥淲inter Wonderland鈥� of Christmas lights decades ago. Local firefighters eventually helped put up the display, and donations were collected for the burn unit at Vancouver General Hospital. In 1997 all the lights were brought to Stanley Park for use in a new Bright Nights event, still going strong today.
