The Glee Club Show of 1959
CONTINENTAL CAPER
On March 19 the Josephinum Glee Club presented, in the new Josephinum Auditorium, the premiere of Continental Caper, a musical comedy written and produced by Lawrence Brandt and John Fritscher and directed by the Reverend Joseph James. The musical score was performed by pianist John Dighton.
The curtain rises in Moscow where Commissar Miklos Petronov (Dan Mosca) is being commissioned by the Minister of the Interior (John Bresch) to “terminate the membership” of three Russian secret agents (John Romero, Dave Roesch, Tony Curran) stationed in celebrated Vienna.
The next day the Commissar has arrived in Vienna at the “one and only” Liechtenstein Hotel, hotly in pursuit of the three dubious spies. Also residing in the hotel run by the inimitable Herr Liechtenstein (Terry Gatlin) are three American singers (Joe Dominic, John Springer, Mark White) who are stranded in the international city. They would like to solve their “problems” by getting a job in an American motion picture now being filmed in Vienna. The star, Robert Scott (Ken Ludden), and his press agent (Bob Margrett) are also living in the same hotel.
The spies pose as producers for Scott’s movie and tell the three singers that Petronov is the casting director. Scott, they say, wants them to audition as three Russian spies—the part he has in mind for them.
They do so; naturally, Petronov, thinking he has made his contact, plans to carry out his orders—but the singers escape. Scott determines to help them when they explain how they were duped.
The fireworks begin at Herr Liechtenstein’s “Once a Year Day” when Scott’s plan backfires and the singers are once more in the clutches of the sinister Commissar. As he prepares to make good his escape with them, the gendarmes enter and arrest everyone who looks suspicious. The spies had confessed to the strains of “Tom Dooley” because they would “only be safe in jail, for the Party is in every country.”
The Buergermeister of Vienna (Bob Pearson) diplomatically pieced together the scraps of evidence and came up with a winner—a captured spy ring.
And the befuddled Herr Liechtenstein? What with the publicity, his “Once a Year Day” was better than ever!
THE JOSEPHINUM REVIEW