"Take me out to the ballgame" is being heard all over the world as major league baseball starts another season. The same familiar tune will be heard at SUNY Fredonia from the Rockefeller Arts Center as the Department of Theatre and Dance wraps up another successful season with its rendition of the popular musical about baseball, Damn Yankees.
 
Damn Yankees, with a score by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and a book by George Abbott and Douglas Wallop, will perform in the Marvel Theatre the last two weekends of April. Performances are April 23, 24, 29, 30 and May 1 at 8 p.m. and April 25 at 2 p.m. A talk-back with the cast, designers and crew will be held following the Sunday matinee. Tickets are on sale at the Central Box Office in the Williams Center at 673-3501.
 
The show's plot has been taken from two popular stories. The first is the Faust legend about an aging man who is so drawn to a young girl that he sells his soul to the devil in return for renewed youth. In the legend, the bargain works out poorly and everybody ends up dead, except for the devil. Roughly the same situation occurs-but more happily this time-in a novel by Douglass Wallop called The Year the Yankees Lost the Pennant, on which the plot of Damn Yankees is based. Wallop's story tells about a middle-aged real estate man so devoted to the Washington Senators that he grieves dramatically whenever they lose a game. As anyone knows baseball history, the Washington Senators lost most of the time and came to be recognized as one of the worst teams in baseball before becoming the Minnesota Twins. When, as in the old legend, Mr. Applegate (the devil) offers Joe Boyd, the aging fellow, a chance to become a young man again-not for romantic purposes, but so he can lead the Senators to a pennant over the hated Yankees-he takes up the offer, at the cost of his soul. Joe Boyd leaves his wife and job to join his beloved team as quickly as he can run the bases of the infield.
 
Mr. Applegate (played by graduating musical theatre senior Ryan Acker from Waterville) keeps his end of the bargain, and from then on it's the Faustian story housed in an All-American musical. It's never a question of "Who's on Faust?" because the diabolically gifted ballplayer, Joe Hardy (played by senior vocal performance major, Christopher Wiettig of Amherst) always cleans up the bases whenever he comes to bat. Joe Hardy's unprecedented batting transforms the last-place Senators into a team on the verge of winning the pennant.
 
Three women play vital parts in the story also. Lauren Basler (a junior BFA musical theatre major from Binghamton), plays Meg, the loyal wife of Joe, whom he keeps longing for after he's been transformed into a miraculous home-run hitter. Another is the fascinating temptress, Lola (played by graduating musical theatre senior Erin Carter of Williston Park), whom Mr. Applegate has summoned to his aid in foreclosing on the ballplayer's soul. And the third is Gloria Thorpe, an alert feminine sports-writer, played by junior musical theatre major Anne McAlexander of Nashville, Tenn., who, suspecting something supernatural about the sudden appearance of so mighty a hitter, exposes him as not being all that he seems.
 
Damn Yankees is about baseball, but it is also about so much more when considering Joe Hardy's unwavering fidelity to his wife.
 
Popular songs from the musical theatre are sung in Damn Yankees with the ball team's rendition of "You've Gotta Have Heart," Lola's seductive siren song, "Whatever Lola Wants" and the show-stopping dance number "Shoeless Joe from Hannibal, MO."
 
James Ivey, chairperson of theatre and dance, will make his Fredonia stage debut playing Benny Van Buren, the coach of the Senators. Ivey gets the opportunity to motivate the ball team to victory with the audience favorite, "You've Gotta Have Heart." Past roles of Ivey's include Don Quixote in Man of La Mancha, Harold Hill in The Music Man, Fredrik Egerman in A Little Night Music and Cornelius Hackl in Hello, Dolly!
 
The creative team behind Damn Yankees includes professor Tom Loughlin as stage director who will also be playing Joe Boyd, the aging Senators fan. The School of Music's Benjamin Schneider assumes musical direction and conducting duties for Damn Yankees, as he will lead the 36-piece pit orchestra and the large student cast of 35 for all performances. Ms. McAlexander takes on the additional duties of choreographer besides playing the role of Gloria Thorpe.
 
The scene design by Curtis Phillips, professor of theatre design, will evoke the ballparks of yesteryear before domed stadiums. Paula Trimpey, visiting professor of theatre, will design costumes while John Rooney of Hamburg, a senior in the BFA production design program, will execute lighting design.
 
Midtown Realty is sponsoring the production of Damn Yankees. Midtown Realty has been supporting SUNY Fredonia theatrical productions for four years and its annual musical for the past three.