New Jersey Stage 2017: Issue 4 | Page 70

On Stage: Theatre Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Carousel Algonquin Arts Theatre, 173 Main Street, Manasquan In a Maine coastal village to- ward the end of the 19th cen- tury, the swaggering, carefree carnival barker, Billy Bigelow, captivates and marries the naive millworker, Julie Jordan. Billy loses his job just as he learns that Julie is pregnant and, des- perately intent upon providing a decent life for his family, he is NJ STAGE 2017 - Vol. 4 No. 4 coerced into being an accom- plice to a robbery. Caught in the act and facing the certainty of prison, he takes his own life and is sent ‘up there.’ Billy is allowed to return to earth for one day fif- teen years later, and he encoun- ters the daughter he never knew. Carousel runs May 12 - May 21 at the Algonquin Arts Theatre. INDEX NEXT ARTICLE 70