Jump and jive with ‘Hollywood Canteen’

Hey hey, Hollywood hotshot! Fetch me a shot and a beer, will ya? And how about a tune soon? Let's get that band to boogie.

"For you're the lover I have waited for, the mate that fate had me created for, and every time your lips meet mine, darling down and down I go, 'round and 'round I go, in a spin, lovin' that spin I'm in, under that old black magic called love."

Cool, daddy-o! Hey, this may not be 1943, but this re-creation of the place where stars served servicemen and entertained for free during The Big War, this original musical, "I'll Be Seeing You: Hollywood Canteen 1943" starting this weekend at Summerlin's Starbright Theatre, it'll do fine. Have you heard about it from this dame, Betty Sullivan-Cleary, who's directing it for SFS Entertainment? Let her tell ya:

"It's a musical revue," she says. "The cast represents people who would have been the entertainers, like Bette Davis, who was the first president of the Hollywood Canteen, Jack Carson, Kitty Carlisle, Bert Lahr, Nat King Cole, Josephine Baker, Edie Adams and Rita Hayworth. There will be an opening production number of 'Sing, Sing, Sing' and then the introduction of the Andrew Sisters."

Swing it, guys and gals, c'mon!

"It makes no difference if it's sweet or hot, just give that rhythm everything you've got! It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing -- doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-ah, doo-aaaaah!"

What else ya got cookin' at this barnburner, Betty baby? "Rita Hayworth will go down into the audience singing to some of the gentlemen, and we'll have a cigarette girl giving out boxes of candy cigarettes."

Ya got style, crocodile! Hey, who's next at the bandstand, baby cakes?

"He was a famous trumpet man from old Chicago way, he had a boogie style no one else could play, he was the top man at his craft, but then his number came up and he was gone with the draft, he's in the army now, a-blowin' reveille, he's the boogie-woogie bugle boy of Company B!"

So why ya throwin' this clambake, Cookie? "It has to do with the servicemen serving now and the correlation of what's happening now in the United States. In the 1940s when we went to war, it seemed like a time when the U.S. was very cohesive, everybody was proud to be an American, the nation came together as one. It doesn't seem that way in our country now. In the audience there might be one or two vets from World War II left, but a lot from the Korean and Vietnam wars, the Gulf War, the Iraq war, too. We want to pay tribute to the people who kept us free."

Yeah, slip me some skin, sweetie! Hey, why'd the band stop?

"Missed the Saturday dance, heard they crowded the floor. Couldn't bear it without you, don't get around much anymore."

Gonna pack the joint with hepcats, honey-bunny? "We're hoping people will get up, dance in the aisles and become part of us."

That's jake with us, doll-face! ... Hey, where's that shot and a beer?

Contact reporter Steve Bornfeld at sbornfeld@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0256.