EAST LANSING - Who doesn’t love a story about dreams coming true and escaping a life filled with drudgery? Every once in a while we may just want to put on a glass slipper and escape to where are dreams really do come true. Lansing area residents are in luck as those of us who wish to escape for a few moments and have our prince charming rescue us can do so next week at the Wharton Center.

Cinderella is putting on her glass slippers and coming to the Wharton Center with Opening Night on Tuesday, September 22nd. With music by Rogers + lyrics by Hammerstein II; anyone joining this magical performance will be swept away this Tony Award Winning and Nominated Broadway creative team. This contemporary fairytale combine’s classic elements with new surprising twists the whole family can enjoy. There is nothing like a fairytale classic to help introduce your little ones to Broadway performances. But the clock is ticking as the show is only here from Tuesday, September 22nd – Sunday September 27th.

Although Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella premiered on Broadway for the very first time in 2013, this Rodgers and Hammerstein musical has found success on the small screen and in productions around the world for the last 50 years.

Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella is the only musical of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s that was written for television. It was largely based on Charles Perrault’s version of the tale, entitled Cendrillon. Rodgers and Hammerstein wrote Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella for CBS, starring Julie Andrews in the title role. With Ralph Nelson as director, it premiered on CBS on March 31, 1957, and was seen by over 100 million people, or about 60% of the US population at the time.

Staged versions of the musical began with a premiere at the London Coliseum by Harold Fielding on December 18, 1958. Other versions of Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella continued to play in US theaters after 1961. CBS decided to take a stab at another television version, with Richard Rodgers as executive producer. Rodgers wanted to stay truer to Perrault’s classic, but for the most part, the music and story were retained from the original. It premiered on February 22, 1965. The New York City Opera produced the musical in 1993, 1995 and 2004 with such renowned performers as Eartha Kitt and Dick Van Patten. One of the most famous tours of Rodgers + Hammerstein’s Cinderella occurred in the US in 2000-2001.

You will be the bell of the ball when Cinderella comes to East Lansing next week.