Why people never tire of classic musicals

They may not make ’em like that anymore.

But local audiences can still experience new productions of Broadway classics, thanks to Signature Productions.

Now in its 27th year, Signature specializes in the kind of family-friendly “book musicals” that dominated Broadway in the latter half of the 20th century.

Musicals such as “My Fair Lady,” which opens a 22-performance run Tuesday at the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center.

Although there’s no such thing as the Great American Musical, Signature has presented many of the short-list candidates, from “Guys and Dolls” to “Fiddler on the Roof.”

”My Fair Lady” (which Signature previously produced in 2004) has been on that short list of Broadway’s best since its 1956 debut, when critics proclaimed it “one of the best musicals of the century.”

When Signature surveyed its audiences to find out which shows they most wanted to see, “My Fair Lady” topped the list “overwhelmingly,” according to director Debora Boyd, who’s making her Signature return after an 11-year hiatus now that she’s “happily retired.”

Signature audiences “love the standards,” she notes. “I think they take you back to a better time.”

For Boyd, directing “My Fair Lady” — and some of the other classics she’s helmed, including “Guys and Dolls” and “The Music Man” — “takes me back to my childhood, when I was in fifth and sixth grade and had all the Broadway musicals memorized.”

Since Signature’s 1989 debut, the all-volunteer troupe has presented other types of shows, from melodramas to Disney favorites (“Beauty and the Beast,” “Mary Poppins”) to musical hits of more recent vintage, including “Hairspray,” “Once on This Island” and “Les Miserables.”

From the beginning, however, Signature Productions has had a singular focus: all-ages, family-friendly entertainment.

“There wasn’t a place in town that did family-friendly shows” when Signature debuted, according to company President Karl M. Larsen, an optometrist who founded the nonprofit troupe with attorney Victor J. Austin.

Signature’s first home was a 200-seat storefront theater, at Charleston and Decatur boulevards, where front-row audiences literally could put their feet up on the stage, Larsen recalls.

When the theater’s strip mall base shut down after three years, Signature started traveling, presenting productions at Eldorado and Cimarron-Memorial high schools and the Charleston Heights Library (now the Charleston Heights Arts Center).

Signature found another home when the Summerlin Library and Performing Arts Center opened in 1993 — at least until 2012, when Las Vegas-Clark County Library District officials increased rental fees 700 percent, Larsen recalls.

“Nobody used the theater,” he says. “Nobody could afford it.”

Signature officials organized petition drives and attended library board meetings to make their case, appealing to the Clark County Commission for help; library officials eventually scaled back the fee hikes and Signature returned to the Summerlin library.

“Our (audience) demographic is probably a little older than most,” Larsen says, explaining Signature’s affinity for vintage titles. “People want the musicals.”

Even after 60 years, “My Fair Lady” still reigns as a Broadway classic, with a classy literary pedigree not many musicals can match: playwright George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion.” (Not only the satirical 1913 stage original, but the 1938 movie version, which Shaw helped to script, winning an Oscar in the process.)

True to its source, “My Fair Lady” focuses on arrogant London phonetics professor Henry Higgins (Steve McMillan), who spots Cockney flower seller Eliza Doolittle (Lynsey Fullam) on the street and bets he can pass her off as a lady by teaching her to speak proper English.

Naturally, Higgins gets more than he bargained for when Eliza discovers her own innate strengths. As Boyd puts it, “She knew, deep down inside, she wanted to be more.”

Librettist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe (who had already written “Brigadoon” and would go on to create “Gigi” and “Camelot”) wrote a score that includes such soaring melodies as “I Could Have Danced All Night” — and witheringly witty patter songs suitable for the snooty Higgins.

Overall, “My Fair Lady” is “so cleverly written, you can’t help but love” the characters, says Boyd. And the musical’s “message of how you treat people is really relevant in today’s culture.”

Relevant yet timeless — a combination that remains Signature’s signature.

“We don’t do this to make any money,” Larsen acknowledges. “We run it like a family.”

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.