The Coachella Valley’s rich history has been honored and showcased via many mediums over the years—and now our theater-heavy area is the subject of a new musical.
Palm Springs Getaway is a theatrical history lesson of sights, sounds and songs that have been notable in Palm Springs throughout the decades. Being produced at the Palm Canyon Theatre, the show is a collaborative effort, featuring writing by Cara Van Dijk, direction and choreography from Se Layne, and additional material Eric Stein-Steele. The musical returns this year after debuting last season, running at the Palm Canyon Theatre from Dec. 2-18 and Jan. 20-29.
“For several years, Se Layne had been telling me about this idea that she had, that she wanted to bring an original show to the Palm Canyon Theatre that was centered around telling people about some of the fun highlights and history of Palm Springs, while making it entertaining and fun,” Van Dijk said during a recent phone interview. “She had been working with a writer outside of the valley for a few months, and in January 2020, she said the story he was putting together just kind of wasn’t working for what she had in mind. She said, ‘What do you think? Do you think maybe you could write a musical? Could you write this story?’”
Van Dijk has specialized in PR and journalism for a long time, so tackling a creative piece such as Palm Springs Getaway required some long nights—and some help from script-writing legends.
“I was actually looking for a creative project, so I was super-excited to just take it on,” Van Dijk said. “I had taken some screenwriting classes and creative-writing classes in college.
“I worked, like, 12 hours a day, three days in a row, and another day was eight hours or something, and I came up with what I thought was a pretty solid outline of a jukebox musical, (with) songs that already existed, because we thought that people would want to come see songs that were somehow associated with the community and/or the times. Of course, the pandemic put a little bit of a halt on it, and in October 2020, when things kind of seemed like maybe they were coming back, I got back into it again.”
Van Dijk said she was helped out by a writing class she took via Zoom, taught by Del Shores.
“It was a great opportunity to share my work with other writers, and we did various read-throughs on the Zooms, and I just continued to fine-tune it,” she said. “When the theater opened back up for the 2021-2022 season, Se said she wanted to run it.”
Then came the omicron variant.
“It was so touch-and-go when we were starting the theater back up that we didn’t have any other read-throughs, or we didn’t have a whole lot of extra time, so to speak, to put together an original show,” Van Dijk said. “We said last season that we were opening in preview, essentially, because it had never been tested.”
Thankfully, the show was well-received.
“People seem to really love it, and it resonated with audiences,” Van Dijk said. “I think people loved it because it was nostalgic, and it felt good. It had a lot of things that audiences were looking for coming back out of the pandemic. I think that even going into this season, people will still love it for those same reasons.
“We’ve enhanced it a bit. We found what was working, and maybe what jokes were falling flat. We have made improvements to the script and the story, and we’ve changed some of the music out. We’re really excited to share this with both audiences that came last season, and new audiences. We think that no matter what people’s ages are, they will absolutely leave that theater singing, tapping their toes and having a real good moment enjoying what makes Palm Springs so great.”
Creating a true depiction of Palm Springs through the years required tons of research—a perfect task for the journalist-turned-playwright.
“In the beginning, Se was doing research and attending various lectures in the community, mostly put on by the (Palm Springs) Historical Society,” Van Dijk said. “We went to some lectures that were hosted by local Palm Springs historians, and then I did my own research. As a journalist, I felt like this was the perfect piece for me to create, because I have training and have done extensive research, and then (have knowledge about) disseminating the information and paring it down to what is essential for people to know. That’s what I did with this show. There’s so much history, but I found what I thought were some of the highlights, and interesting tidbits, and then pieced it all together. That’s how the story evolved; it’s similar to how a news story evolves.”
Palm Springs Getaway combines fun and history through its use of historical fiction—with a dash of science fiction—transporting a group of characters through the changes in Palm Springs via time travel.
And more research is still to be done! Van Dijk said Palm Springs Getaway will be an ever-changing production that will include different history about the city each time it is staged.
“There’s actually so much more that can be shared,” she said. “The idea of this musical is that each year, it evolves a bit, and we add something that we didn’t have the last season. We pull something, and we continue to tell the story of Palm Springs. I think the parts of the show currently are a lot of the highlights about Palm Springs that many residents already know, and many visitors probably already know. There are definitely things that people won’t know or that will be new to them, and we share it in a very fun way.
Palm Springs Getaway combines fun and history through its use of historical fiction—with a dash of science fiction—transporting a group of characters through the changes in Palm Springs via time travel.
“We’re taking people from the 1800s to today,” Van Dijk said. “It had to have a creative, fun and inventive way to help people travel through time. … Part of the musical even says, ‘It’s a fun time-space continuum musical thing that is hard to explain, but just go with us on it.’ To make it fun, we do break the fourth wall, and we try to include the audience in the show.”
A great selection of local-themed music leads the story along.
“We have songs from Elvis Presley and (Dean Martin and Marilyn Monroe),” said Van Dijk. “… Both Christmas and Hanukkah songs will be included in the December shows … and then we’ll still have these kinds of fun songs that relate to Palm Springs. There’s a fun song that’s called ‘It’s 1,200 Miles from Palm Springs to Texas,’ and it was performed by Dean Martin. That’s fun, because it’s an actual song that talks about the desert circus parade in the community. It’s a real song that was published.”
Palm Springs Getaway will be performed at 7 p.m., Thursday; 8 p.m., Friday and Saturday; and 2 p.m., Sunday, from Dec. 2-18 and Jan. 20-29, at the Palm Canyon Theatre, 538 N. Palm Canyon Drive, in Palm Springs. Tickets are $20 to $41. For tickets or more information, visit palmcanyontheatre.net.
