Racine Theatre Guild 2011-12 Season Kicks Off With "I Do! I Do!"

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The two-person show “I Do! I Do!” will carry audiences through 50 years of marriage and kick off the 2011-2012 season at the Racine Theatre Guild when it opens this weekend.

Playhouse members chose the tiny musical as a kind of bookend to the great big one (“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) that ended the theater’s last season.

“It’s just too hard to produce two 30-cast shows back to back,” said Doug Instenes, of Caledonia, the theater’s managing and artistic director.

In “I Do! I Do!,” the magic isn’t in the mammoth undertaking of a play like Scoundrels. Rather, it’s in watching a couple transform from newlyweds – the play opens on their wedding day – through five decades of marriage; the play ends with the elderly couple selling their house.

Director and choreographer Kara Ernst was drawn to the play because of its mix of music and storytelling.

“This show isn’t particularly a song-and-dance show. Most of the songs are dealt with as monologues and conversations,” said Ernst, who lives in Racine and has worked with the Racine Theatre Guild since 1993.

The tone of the play – part comedy, part drama – also was appealing, especially since the 40-year-old script went beyond the happy-go-lucky world of its television peers, like the Dick Van Dyke Show or Leave It To Beaver.

“There really are some honest moments in this play,” Ernst said. “They really take the gloves off.”

Instenes expects audiences to be wow-ed by how the play’s two actors put on the years as the show unfolds.

 “They change their make-up. They change their hairstyles,” Instenes said.

And they do it all on stage, which means a simple scene showing the couple going through their nighttime routine might also be multi-tasking as a way for the actors to instantly age themselves.

And it’s just the beginning for the playhouse’s 74th season, which includes eight plays chosen from among hundreds.

“We’re doing a small musical. We’re doing a large musical. We’re doing a kid’s musical. We’re doing a kind of science fiction comedy. We’re doing an award-winning drama. We’re doing a classic old comedy. And we’re doing a kind of thriller, adventure show,” Instenes said.