Betty Lautner's MLT Valentine Celebration is filled with traditions and new opportunities

Betty Lautner’s vision for an exquisite Valentine celebration – An Evening of Eden, Drinking and Dancing – at Marblehead Little Theatre promises a festive and memorable evening of musical theater, dancing to a live band, and the delights of champagne, wine, pate, cheese, desserts and chocolate on Saturday, February 14.

The evening will begin at 7:30 p.m. at MLT’s Firehouse, 12 School Street, with a special performance of “The Diary of Adam and Eve,” the first act of The Apple Tree, the Broadway musical by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick.

The Apple Tree and the opportunity to work with Betty Lautner bring back special memories and present new opportunities for cast members Evan Tarmy who plays Adam, Jennifer Herrey who plays Eve, David Scannell who plays The Snake and Christopher Finn as The Voice of God.

The Apple Tree is one of Tarmy’s all-time favorite Broadway shows. “My dad started playing the show’s CD. I liked it. And I loved Kristin Chenoweth who played Eve. So when we were visiting family in New York, I said we have to go see this.” And they did. The show’s 2006 revival was the first Broadway show Tarmy ever saw and it solidified his commitment to theater.

But Tarmy’s relationship with The Apple Tree has even deeper roots. Thirty years ago, Lautner directed his father – Les Tarmy – in the role of Adam, the same role his son will be playing on Valentine’s Day. And there’s a Sheldon Harnick connection earlier than that. The younger Tarmy debuted with MLT when he was 8 years old standing at his father’s side as the Innkeeper’s Son in Sheldon Harnick’s Fiddler on the Roof. And talking about “tradition,” Evan is the fourth generation of his family to be involved in theater, dating back to his great-grandparents who were in Vaudeville.

Tarmy pursued theater in his own right, working at North Shore Music Theatre under its previous ownership in the education department and on the main stage. Lautner’s Valentine celebration marks his return to the stage after an eight-year hiatus and the first time he has worked with Lautner.

Herrey was in MLT’s Gershwin/Porter Who Could Ask For Anything More? under the musical direction of Lautner. After graduating from the University of Massachusetts - Amherst with a degree in psychology, she did the classic European tour and taught English in the Czech Republic. When she returned to Boston, she joined a financial firm, working most recently as a recruiter before deciding to stay home to be with her children.

Herrey says she and her husband consciously chose to live in Marblehead because of the town’s cultural richness. “This is a wonderful community for the arts,” she said. She began performing after meeting Lautner, who had been recommended to her as a voice teacher for her daughter. Soon thereafter Herrey joined Lautner’s “Shower Singers.” It was her first solo performance since she was 18 years old. Lautner then encouraged her to perform in MLT productions. Now that her children are old enough, Herrey is enjoying these opportunities to pursue anew her love of music.

Scannell is well-known to MLT audiences for a long list of roles including The King in The King and I, Daddy Warbucks in Annie (which he performed with Neverland Theater in Beverly, but would happily reprise with MLT), Bill Sykes in Oliver, Zebulun and Potiphar in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, as well as performing in a host of MLT musical reviews including Richard Rogers: The Sound of His Music, Side by Side by Sondheim, Cole/Gershwin Who Could Ask For Anything More? and Christmas Is…. He also lends his significant graphic design skills to the creation of posters and program book covers for MLT. Scannell is well-respected for his character roles. He has especially enjoyed developing a sibilant “S” for his role as The Snake.

Finn is lending his rich baso profundo voice to this production as The Voice of God. He has performed in MLT shows including playing Sykes in an earlier production of Oliver and has worked with Lautner on other MLT productions including costuming Annie Get Your Gun and The Fantasticks, and he was The Boatswain in Salem Theatre Company’s The Tempest. An accomplished artist and photographer, Finn is costuming this show and contributing to the set design.

An Evening of Eden, Drinking and Dancing is a one-show-only event. Tickets are $45 each and are available at mltlive.org or in person at Spirit of ’76 Bookstore in Marblehead. For more information, please call Andrew Barnett at 781-910-0222.