The staging will run July 11-29, 2007, in The Playhouse at the Overture Center for the Arts.

The Madison Rep production will feature 25 actors, including professionals from Chicago and locals from the university and the Madison community. The fully-staged production will boast an orchestra, "elaborate scenery and period costumes."

"I'm thrilled to bring this masterpiece to The Playhouse stage," stated Madison Rep artistic director Richard Corley, who will also direct the production. "Carousel is one of the greatest plays of the 20th century. Producing it in our intimate theatre will allow the audience to focus on the beauty of the music, the complexity of the characters and the power of the story."

Corley said Madison Repertory Theatre's mission should have included "great American musicals" long ago, "and we hope this will be the first of many productions of the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Sondheim, Lerner and Lowe, Gershwin, and other great American composers and lyricists."

Carousel, with book and lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II and music by Richard Rodgers, features such beloved songs as "If I Loved You," "You'll Never Walk Alone," and, of course, "June Is Bustin' Out All Over." Artistic personnel for Carousel include longtime Madison favorites Jack Magaw (set design) and Jaymi Smith (lighting design). Scott Foss, who recently served as choral director for Our Town, will be musical director, and University of Wisconsin faculty member Maureen Janson will choreograph.

Carousel is a special off-season production separate from the fall-to-spring Rep subscription season.

Tickets go on sale Jan. 2, 2007, to the general public, but current Madison Repertory Theatre subscribers can purchase them right now, in-person, at the Overture Center Box Office, 201 State Street, Madison, or by calling (608) 258-4141.

Visit www.madisonrep.org.