Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre gets a little ‘Footloose’ and fancy free

First things first.

Those expecting a blast of 1980s nostalgia when Coeur d’Alene Summer Theatre opens its production of “Footloose,” a musical based on the hit 1984 Kevin Bacon film, on Friday night, could be in for a surprise.

This production, director and choreographer Megan Ruth Smith said, is set now.

“The script actually says in the front of it that the time is set now, so I made the decision to set our production in 2023,” she said. “I think there’s no way for us to compete with people’s memories of that iconic movie that is so well beloved, so our best strategy is to pivot and see what new things we can do with the material.

“It’s actually been a really fun process.”

Bringing the show to a contemporary setting has had some interesting consequences.

The song “Somebody’s Eyes,” performed by Karla Bonoff for the film, takes on added weight in the age of cellphone cameras and social media.

“That really takes on a new context of ‘somebody’s eyes are always watching,’ Smith said. “That’s one example.”

Still, there will be some nostalgia. The musical, which opened on Broadway in 1998, will feature several of the movie’s iconic songs, including the Mike Reno and Ann Wilson power ballad “Almost Paradise” and “Holding Out for a Hero” by Bonnie Tyler.

Oh, and Kenny Loggins’ No. 1 hit title track.

“That starts and ends the show. You’ll get plenty of ‘Footloose,’ don’t you worry,” Smith said.

There are some new songs, too, she added.

“It’s interesting the way the book writers and composers chose songs from the original movie and incorporate it into the show.”

And no, there’s no “angry dance” from Ren in the warehouse.

“Ren does plenty of dancing, but we don’t get him flipping around and doing a lot of parkour,” she said.

The show follows the beats of the movie: Ren McCormack (Casey Weeks, seen last season as Skye in “Mamma Mia!”) and his mom move from Chicago to the small town of Bomont, where a grieving pastor, Rev. Shaw Moore (Daniel Bell, Sam in last year’s “Mamma Mia!”), has persuaded the town leaders to ban dancing after a deadly accident. The pastor’s daughter, Ariel (Mia Goodman, from last year’s “Nunsense”), chaffs the most at the restrictions and she teams with Ren and Ren’s pal Willard (David Eldridge) to change people’s minds.

Smith has been with Coeur d’Alene Summer Theater as a actor, choreographer and director since 2018. As a dancer, she’s drawn to the show.

“One of the dance captains mentioned on the first day rehearsal, ‘I know it’s “Footloose,” but I didn’t realize there was quite this much dancing,’ ” Smith said, “because I was really looking for opportunities to add more and more and more, because why not?”

It also connects with her on a personal level.

“I grew up in a small town, Ridgefield, Washington,” she said. Ridgefield is in Clark County, just north of Vancouver, and it’s where she went to high school.

“There was a car accident when I was in high school that was pretty devastating to our community.

“It wasn’t quite as extreme as it was in ‘Footloose,’ where dancing was outlawed or anything like that, but I do relate to a car accident in a small town, four kids died, I lived all of those things.”

While the show features a strong ensemble of veteran performers, a lot is resting on Weeks as Ren. Weeks, who is from Coeur d’Alene but is based in New York, seems to have a “seemingly never-pending bag of tricks” to enhance the show and his performance.

“Casey, can you roller skate? Yep, comes in and does everything and more than I could ask for. Casey can you do a flip off of this platform? Yep, no problem. He just has this wonderful attitude, and great energy that he brings to the rehearsal room,” Smith said. “It’s been really fun to explore together with him this Ren in 2023 and how that might be different than the Kevin Bacon Ren from the 1984 movie.”