Shirley Jones to Be in Beggar's Opera

"In show business you can hardly take time out to get married," says Shirley Jones. The 22-year-old actress who starred in the movie versions of Oklahoma! and Carousel is now in Cambridge rehearsing for next week's production of The Beggar's Opera.

Shirley would seem to know what she's talking about. About two weeks from now she herself is getting married to Jack Cassidy, who will be playing opposite her in the Cambridge Drama Festival production that opens next Wednesday. Since the wedding will take place right in the middle of the show's run--a press agent's dream but a bride-to-be's headache--Shirley is currently rehearsing ten hours a day at Sanders and spending her evenings buying a trousseau.

When The Beggar's Opera ends its run, the new Mrs. Cassidy will have exactly two days to get down to Dallas, Texas, and begin rehearsals there for a production of Showboat. Her husband, meanwhile, will have a week of freedom before reporting for work on Kiss Me Kate in Boston. Shirley and Jack think that they may be able to get together for a while in September before Shirley goes to Hollywood, but they're not at all sure.

Shirley seems quite sure of herself in all other respects, however. Intelligent, mature, and serious-minded, she apparently takes completely in her stride the fact that she is now a nationally-known musical comedy star, whereas three years ago this summer she was just finishing her first year of drama school in Pittsburgh. That summer Shirley went to New York on a visit, was persuaded to audition for a theatrical agent, and within a week had a seven-year contract with Rodgers and Hammerstein. She never went back to drama school.

If Shirley's feat of conquering New York in one audition seems incredible, her story of meeting and falling in love with Jack has even more of a fairy-tale quality. Seems that they met last summer when playing opposite each other in a European version of Oklahoma! and proceeded to tour the Continent with both their on-stage and their real courtship. Judging from that show and from The Beggar's Opera, Shirley claims that both she and Jack perform better when they are cast together.

Shirley likes Cambridge and especially likes the Opera, which is about the furthest departure from modern musical comedy that she has attempted professionally. In the future she plans to do both musical and straight dramatic roles, and to keep dividing her time between movies and the stage. She also plans to have a family, "but not yet."