Often called “America’s Main Street”, U.S. Route 66 is a retro-fantasyland of art deco motels, roadside attractions, Indian trading posts, novelty drive-ins and old-fashioned spit-and-polish service stations.

In its heyday, the highway boasted such landmarks as the Spooklight in Quapaw, Oklahoma, the giant Jackalope in Fort Worth, Texas, Meteor Crater in Leeup, Arizona, the Wigwam Village in Holbrook, Arizona, El Sombrero Restaurant in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the Regal Reptile Ranch in Alanreed, Texas, the Chain of the Rocks Bridge near St. Louis, Missouri, the giant Rocketman in Wilmington, Illinois and the Iceberg Café in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

In the 1940’s and ‘50’s, hundreds of fancifully-designed motels, motor lodges and motor courts sprung up along the great highway, many of which are still in operation today. One prominent feature of Route 66 was also the popular Burma Shave signs that dotted the landscape with their humorous poems from 1927 to 1963. Each phrase of a poem was on a different sign, sometimes miles apart.

One example:

Don’t stick
Your elbow
Out too far
It might
Go home
In another car
Burma Shave

The rambunctious new musical comedy, Route 66, leads the audience along the great “Mother Road” in a nostalgic celebration of music and whimsical highway fun. The show is one night only, Tuesday, Sept 15, 2009 in the main sanctuary of the Vineyard Church. The play is an encore performance from The Brooke Hills Playhouse, a summer stock theater, located in Brooke Hills Park about six miles east of Wellsburg, WV. The cast members are Kevin Dennis from Wintersville, and Russ Welch, Rick Taylor and Terry Stuck all from Wellsburg.

In Route 66, a gang of rowdy Chicago service station attendants strip off their snappy Texaco uniforms and head off on a westward-bound road-trip filled with music, dance and highway mischief. The talented quartet of singing grease monkeys leave Chicago and follows the Mother Road down through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and conclude their travels at the beach in Santa Monica, California. The show features rock and pop music from the 1950’s and ‘60’s including such hit tunes as King of the Road, Dead Man’s Curve, Six Days on the Road, Hot Rod Queen, I Get Around, Little Old Lady from Pasadena, GTO, Fun-Fun-Fun, Beep Beep, Long Tall Texan, The Texaco Star Song, Truck Stop Cutie, Truck Drivin' Man, The Long Red Line, Move Out Little Mustang and, of course, Route 66. Because of its comic antics and tight-harmony vocals, the show has been called a hybrid of Grease, Forever Plaid and Pump Boys and Dinettes. The show’s author, Roger Bean, first created Route 66 for the Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and then developed it further at the famous Oregon Cabaret Theatre. The nostalgic qualities of Route 66 are irresistible. After all, the simple, innocent pleasures of cruising on desolate two-lane roads through towns like Oklahoma City, Joplin, Amarillo, Winona, Flagstaff and Barstow are nearly forgotten now. The sheer romance of highway travel is something that has virtually disappeared from the American scene. Route 66 is a reminder of that romance – in all its gas-guzzling, tail-finned, gaudy neon, art deco glory.”