Unbeknownst to the campers, the camp staff is engaging in lascivious dancing and bed-hopping in their after-hours activities. The story takes place in the summer of 1963. Baby and her affluent family come to Camp Kellerman, an upscale resort loosely based on summer camps in the Catskills, where they settle in for a vacation of white bread games like Simon Says, watermelon eating contests, and singing folk songs around the ol’ campfire. Theater League’s North American tour of the show (be careful calling it a musical, because it really isn’t one), which plays at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza through Sunday, February 6, has much of the charm of the film thanks to its lead characters, hunky summer camp dance teacher Johnny Castle and rich kid teenager Frances “Baby” Houseman. When you boil it down, its chief attractions were the lusty title, the impressive dancing, and its penultimate super-hit, “(I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.” The recording of the latter, by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes became one of the signature hits of the soundtrack mad eighties. Looking at the film from today’s perspective, 30 years later, one wonders why it was so big. Though many remember the film as a charming coming-of-age story, critics called it “schmaltzy,” citing the formulaic portrayal of its stock characters spouting trite dialog.ĭirty Dancing is probably all of the above. The soundtrack LP, featuring a combination of original songs and vintage hits from the early 1960s, sold 32 million copies and spent four months on top of the best-selling album charts. The low-budget film became a surprise hit, earning $214 million at the box office and becoming the first film to sell more than a million copies on home video. For the uninitiated or those who steered clear of the film, Dirty Dancing was one of the most successful motion pictures of the 1980s. It’s easy to say this since the stage version is nearly identical to the film, and in many ways works better as a live production. The success of the awkwardly titled Dirty Dancing: The Classic Story on Stage depends primarily on whether or not you were a fan of the motion picture it was closely modeled after.
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