Take a trip to WWII England with the Sharon Playhouse’s ‘Swingtime Canteen’

FROM THE LAKEVILLE JOURNAL

By: D.H. Callahan

Dateline: 1944. A platoon of our boys are stationed in London, waiting to be sent to the mainland to fight the Axis powers and liberate Europe. While they wait, a group of glamorous gals from Hollywood are sent over to distract them with singing, dancing and a few memories of home.

That’s the scene at “Swingtime Canteen,” the new production now on stage at the Sharon Playhouse.

From the moment you enter the playhouse, the stage takes you right back to another time, with recruitment and War Bonds posters setting the tone alongside soldiers’ footlockers and blankets. When the lights go down, the smiles of the cast light up the room, and the audience is quickly recast as a troupe of American G.I.s.

What follows is a jukebox musical in the truest of sense, bouncing from one 1930s hit to more “contemporary” 1940s tunes and back again, all performed with the kind of polished finish audiences have come to expect from the Sharon Playhouse.