Just Do It

State Fair

by Mark Cofta

Dave Kapler (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Sept. 2-Oct. 19, $10-$70, Walnut Street Theatre, 825 Walnut St., 215-574-3550, walnutstreettheatre.org

Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote only one movie musical — but after the phenomenal success of Oklahoma!, South Pacific and The King and I, staging the beloved State Fair was inevitable. It took a damn long time, though: Fifty-one years after their 1945 film (based on Phil Stong's novel, made into the 1933 Academy Award-winning film) and 34 years after the 1962 remake, State Fair finally reached Broadway in 1996. Louis Mattioli and Tom Briggs expanded on the film's score with unused Rodgers & Hammerstein songs written for other shows, earning the composers a Tony Award for Best Original Score.

Now State Fair opens the Walnut Street Theatre's season, the building's 200th continuous year of operation, with Barrymore Award-winning director Bruce Lumpkin leading Broadway veterans Mark Jacoby and Dee Hoty as Abel and Melissa Frake, who leave their Iowa farm for three days at the — you guessed it. They want blue ribbons, but their three kids are ripe for romance. Small-town America never looked (or sounded) so innocent and inviting — it charmed beleaguered audiences during the Great Depression and after World War II; during George II's last days and the omnipresent presidential campaign, we, too, deserve to escape to State Fair.