Climbing the Ladder

How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, opening at the Roxy Performing Arts Center, in collaboration with the Greater Miami Youth Symphony, is like if Mad Men were hit in the face with a musical. Thanks to a self-help book he picked up on a whim, young window washer J. Pierpont Finch now believes he can quit his squeegee-holding days and make some noise in the corporate world. He soon joins the Worldwide Wicket Corporation, a company housed in the very building whose windows he once washed, and after starting off as a mailroom clerk, he quickly climbs the corporate ladder using the cutthroat tactics described in the book. There he meets and begins to fall in love with plucky secretary Rosemary Pilkington, while having to deal with rival Bud Frump, the nephew of the company’s president, J.B. Biggley. Biggley, meanwhile, tries to bed the curvaceous Hedy LaRue, who has a somewhat dubious relationship with executive Mr. Ovington. All the while, Finch has to decide if all of this corporate backstabbing is worth the trouble, while his love for Rosemary keeps him grounded along the way. The cast and orchestra are made up of Miami-Dade high school and college students, ranging in age from 12 to 22.

Mon., Feb. 20, 8 p.m., 2012