BY KAREN BOSSICK
How do I love you? Let me sing the ways.
That’s behind the premise of Love It!
The evening of song and dance celebrating Valentine’s Day features an all-star cast of 10 valley favorites. And it will run at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Feb. 14 and 15, at the Argyros Center for the Performing Arts.
Courtney Loving has been pushing the idea of a cabaret show for five years—ever since she and her husband Ward Loving moved to the Wood River Valley. John Mauldin and Melodie Taylor-Mauldin decided the perfect occasion would be Valentine’s Day.
With a last name like Loving, Courtney and Ward were all-in.
“People definitely get a kick out of our name. They say, ‘How fabulous,’ ” said Courtney Loving, who studied theater, music and dance at William and Mary College in Virginia.
The show will feature a variety of love songs addressing every aspect of love from the touching love of family to songs of loss and matters of the heart.
Courtney and her husband, both of whom performed professionally in New York before moving to Georgia and later Sun Valley, will sing Irving Berlin’s competitive, “Anything You Can Do (I Can Do, Better).” Courtney Loving will also sing Nat King Cole’s “Almost Like Being in Love.”
The show will open with the full cast singing Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes.” They guys will do a number and the gals will do their thing, all in between classics from the likes of George Gershwin.
There’ll be a little poetry and monologues, and the show will pay tribute to the history of cabaret from the musical styles of jazz to opera.
“There’s a lot of song and dance, a little toe tapping. Melodie’s killing us with our dance moves. Not really,” Courtney Loving quipped.
Melodie Taylor-Mauldin, who studied music dance and theater at Weber State University, is providing the artistic direction, including the choreography, for the show. She has performed and choreographed such shows as “The Glenn Miller Big Band Show,” Opera Idaho’s “Jacques Brel,” Sun Valley Resort’s Classic Christmas concerts and such plays as “My Fair Lady” and “The King and I” for St. Thomas Playhouse.
R.L. Rowsey, who is providing the musical direction, studied voice and piano at Virginia Commonwealth University. He taught at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts among other things. Since moving to the Wood River Valley nearly two decades ago, he has worked with Company of Fools, as the education artistic director for the Sun Valley Music Festival, conducted the Caritas Choral and served as musical director for Light on the Mountains Center for Spiritual Living.
Cast members are John Mauldin, David Janeski, Aly Wepplo, Chris Carwithen, Andrew Alburger, Teddy Cunningham, Terresa Shreve and Melodie Taylor-Mauldin.
Tickets range from $20 to $60, available at www.theargyros.org. Special table seating is available in front of the stage.
The event is being presented in association with Sawtooth Productions.