Chicago Cubs stage musical in the works

Lifelong Cubs fans and Chicago notables Sen. Bill Marovitz, comedian Tom Dreesen, and Tony Award-winning producer Arny Granat, are realizing their longstanding dream: a stage musical tribute to their beloved baseball team. Titled “Miracles Do Happen,” the show, which has been in the works since the baseball season opened last April, will include original music and detail the story of the Cubs franchise and the World Series championship team.

According to the official statement Monday, the trio of producers hope to include cameos by current and former Cubs players, coaches and celebrity fans spotted at Wrigley Field over the years.

“This is a play about one of the most heart-stopping season’s in Chicago baseball history,” said Marovitz. “The musical captures, in song and story, everything this wonderful Cubs team and World Series Championship represents. The play centers on a local family, from grandpa to grandson, and encompasses tradition, overcoming adversity and alleged curses. It captures the pursuit of this special team, as carefully and shrewdly molded together by Tom Ricketts and Theo Epstein. It truly proves, as the title song says, “Sometimes, Miracles Do Happen”!”

The last time Dreesen was in Chicago, Marovitz and Granat invited him to come to a meeting “to discuss an idea they had about a play concerning the Cubs.”

As a lifelong Cubs fan — “even though I grew up in a White Sox neighborhood — hostile territory,” Dreesen explained he “liked the idea [for the play proposal] before I heard the pitch — and really liked it after hearing the pitch. It would be great for Chicago, so I said, ‘Count me in!”

Dreesen proudly noted that he and Joe Mantegna are tied for singing the 7th inning stretch a record 15 times. Dreesen says, “I am not only interested on the financial side, but also on the performing side as well. … I would gladly come home for a month in the summer, and would encourage my celebrity friends in Hollywood to be in it as well.”

As for his young obsession with the North Side Cubs, Harvey native Dreesen quipped, “By the time I was 8-years-old I could take a punch,” from those Sox diehards.

The producers are tentatively looking at a 2017 opening night for the musical, to coincide with the start of next year’s baseball season. The venue has yet to be determined.