Columbia College Chicago Theatre Department alum Eion Meldrum ’23, a graduate of the Theatre Department’s BFA Program in Musical Theatre Performance, is featured in the cast of the rock musical Million Dollar Quartet at Peninsula Players in Fish Creek, Wisconsin. For tickets, click here.

Meldrum, who plays guitar in addition to his acting and singing skills, plays country-music legend Johnny Cash in the show, which re-creates a landmark event in rock ‘n’ roll history: a 1956 session at Memphis’ Sun Records recording studio by Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. Here’s a promotional video of the production.

Peninsula Players in Door County, Wisconsin, is America’s oldest resident summer theatre; its artistic director, Linda Fortunato, is a former teacher of Musical Theatre Dance in the Columbia College Theatre Department’s Musical Theatre Program.

Million Dollar Quartet premiered in 2008 at Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, then transferred to Chicago’s Apollo Theatre. The original Chicago run played nearly 3,000 performances. The show has also been produced on Broadway as well as at theatres around the U.S. and overseas.

“It has been a dream come true working on this production,” Meldrum wrote in a Facebook post. “The first musical I ever saw was Million Dollar Quartet at the Apollo Theatre in Chicago on a middle school band and choir field trip. It feels very full circle to now be playing Johnny Cash in this story that has meant so much to me since then.”

Following the run of Million Dollar Quartet at Peninsula Players, Meldrum will join the company of a different production of the musical running through the end of the year at Paramount Theatre’s Stolp Island Theatre in Aurora, Illinois, where he will understudy the roles of Johnny Cash and Sun Records producer Sam Phillips. Paramount Theatre’s artistic director, Jim Corti, is a former Musical Theatre Dance instructor in the Columbia College Theatre Department’s Musical Theatre Program.