Connecticut
Connecticut's been alive with musicals. With a book by Chad Hardin and pedestrian music and lyrics by Hardin and Dan Schillaci, Two Cities (the other tuner based on Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities) at Stamford's Rich Forum (closed Aug. 29) was a sincere page-to-stage transfer. But hitting all the plot marks is not equal to engaging the emotions.
Lenore Shapiro's direction was of the hey-we-got-it-on-didn't-we school and the performers were dutiful. Matt Bogart stood out as the hard-drinking, self-loathing, self-sacrificing Sydney Carton. His "Here I am, folks" bearing brought some excitement to a sprawling show.
Also impressive is Noah Racey as the cross-dressing Charley Wykeham in Where's Charley at Goodspeed Musicals (through Sept. 25). He doesn't erase the memory of the iconic Ray Bolger in the original 1948 production, yet he gives it the old Oxford try and turns out to be an ingratiating comedian, attractive leading man, and whirlwind dancer.
Designer-director Tony Walton nearly smothers the proceedings with too many flowers, too many pratfalls, and too many added songs from Frank Loesser's trunk. But the ride is funny and furious.
Say the same for the touring version of Mel Brooks' The Producers (at Hartford's Bushnell through Sept 5 and Wallingford's Oakdale, Sept. 7-12). This is a first-class production, although, at least in the cavernous Bushnell, it also seemed coarse and frantic. As Max Bialystock, Lewis J. Stadlen channels Groucho Marx, but Alan Ruck is an endearing Leo Bloom while Charley Izabella King wraps her legs around the burlesque-inspired Ulla and nearly walks away with the show.
Hartford Stage offered a loverly two-piano version of My Fair Lady (closed Aug.1) with Rachael Warren a triumphant Eliza. Next up was George Gershwin Alone (closed Aug. 26), Hershey Felder's shallow one-piano race through the great composer's short life. It ended with a sing-along that had a nostalgia-seeking audience kvelling in their seats.
More nostalgia: New Haven's Long Wharf Theatre begins its season with an intimate production of Guys and Dolls (Sept. 29-Oct. 31), featuring an onstage jazz band. Helping sell the show is new public relations manager Rob Finn, once of Barlow-Hartman.
David A. Rosenberg
Cleveland
One thing Cleveland's two LORT theatres share in common is change. At the 89-year-old Cleveland Play House, that change is in the form of leadership; at the 43-year-old Great Lakes Theater Festival, it's a return to its grass roots as a summer repertory company.
Michael Bloom is the eighth artistic director at the Play House. He replaces Peter Hackett, who has returned to academics as a tenured professor of theatre at Dartmouth College.
Bloom, 54, had served as head of directing at the University of Austin for the past eight years. As a freelance director, Bloom has worked at leading theatres throughout the country, including South Coast Repertory, American Repertory Theatre, and Long Wharf Theatre. Bloom directed the world premiere of Donald Margulies' Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Dinner With Friends, at the Humana Festival, Actors Theatre of Louisville, and the award-winning Off-Broadway production of Margulies' Sight Unseen. He is also the author of the 2001 handbook Thinking Like a Director.
While Bloom has never run a theatre, he remains confident that his experience as an administrator and director has prepared him for the job. His work is cut out for him at the financially strapped Play House.
Starting with the summer of 2004, Great Lakes Theater Festival is now a summer-fall repertory theatre. A company of 18 actors recently finished performing in repertory (closed Aug. 22) Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Drew Barr, and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield and directed by Charles Fee, GLTF producing artistic director. Both productions overdosed on slapstick.
In the fall, the company increases to 21 actors, who will perform Julius Caesar and The Importance of Being Earnest in repertory (Sept. 10-Oct. 16). Both plays were already presented earlier this summer at the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, where Fee also serves as producing artistic director.
While Fee says it is too soon to measure the financial success of the new format, he reports that single-ticket sales are increasing. His broad, populist, farcical approach is also attracting a new and younger audience. The downside is that the company has lost 20% of its subscribers since the switch.
Fran Heller
Washington, D.C.
The fall theatre season in Washington is starting to heat up, as numerous companies have announced their seasons and casting for the entire year has mostly concluded. Several shows jump to mind as being great opportunities for September viewing.
Olney Theatre Center is presenting Suzan-Lori Parks' Venus, the story of an African woman brought to 19th-century London to be put on display as Venus Hottentot, a circus sideshow—based on her oversized derriere. The cast is headed by Chinasa Ogbuagu in the title role and KenYatta Rogers. Directed by Eve Muson, the play runs through Sept. 26.
At Signature Theatre, the premiere production of the musical One Red Flower by Paris Barclay continues through Oct. 3. The play is compiled from letters from soldiers in Vietnam and sees the war through their thoughts and reflections. Based on the rock 'n' roll rhythms of the day, the music underscores the pointed experiences of men in a hellish setting. Directed by Signature Artistic Director Eric Schaeffer, the production includes Kurt Boehm, Joshua Davis, Clifton Duncan, Charles Hagerty, Josh Lefkowitz, and Stephen Gregory Smith.
The Studio Theatre will present the U.S. premiere of The Russian National Postal Service as the initial offering of its Russian Winter season, a four-play miniseason within the entire year of offerings. The play, which stars the ever-popular Floyd King, is the bittersweet tale of a former postal clerk who writes letters to himself from famous world luminaries, including Lenin and Queen Elizabeth II. Also in the cast are Catherine Flye and Tobin Atkinson, and Paul Mullins directs. The play runs through Oct. 24 and hails the grand opening of the Studio's new $12 million expansion.
On another Russian note, two companies based in Russian theatre styles have joined forces. Classika Theatre and Synetic Theatre have merged to become Classika-Synetic Productions. The powerful production team of Synetic Theatre—Paata Tsikurishvili and his wife, Irina, of the former Soviet republic of Georgia—will team with Classika Theatre's artistic director, Inna Shapiro, an actress who founded the theatre after emigrating from St. Petersburg. The stunning visual creations of Synetic's productions of their silent Hamlet and Host and Guest were the darlings of the Helen Hayes Awards last year. That style, melded with the strict Stanislavsky approach of Classika, should create very exciting theatre.
Michael Willis
Westchester/Rockland
Melissa Stern Lourie returned to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival at Boscobel Restoration this summer to direct The Merry Wives of Windsor (closed Sept. 5), which followed Terrence O'Brien's lean production of Macbeth (closed Aug. 7). Lourie co-founded the festival in 1987 with O'Brien and served as its producing director until 1992, when she moved to Vermont.
The first thing longtime patrons of this company want to see is how Lourie's style differs from that of O'Brien, and the answer is broadly. Whereas O'Brien's productions are noted for their consistently straightforward yet vivid acting style, Lourie's Merry Wives was hyperbolically cartoonlike by contrast. Carl Palmer's Shallow and James Garver's Slender were all affectation, and these characters grew tedious. Wesley Mann's Sir Hugh Evans and Kurt Rhoads' Doctor Caius were more grounded, even though both actors relished their hard accents.
On the other hand, Charles H. Hyman rather underplayed Sir John Falstaff. Hyman is a tall actor and with his padded costume (designed by Sara Jean Tosetti), he displayed an imposing figure. He shined brightest when escaping Ford's house dressed as a wretched, bearded hag.
Stephen Paul Johnson mastered the role of Ford, who's passionately jealous most of the time but convincingly contrite at others. (His ridiculous disguise as Master Brook was one example of Lourie's tendency towards overkill.) Festival veterans Nance Williamson as Mistress Quickly, Chris Edwards as the Host, Michael Borrelli as Bardolph, Neil Hellegers as Pistol, and Julie Fain Lawrence as Mistress Page played it straight and were very funny.
O'Brien used only eight actors to pull off a captivating Macbeth. Rhoads' title character and Williamson's Lady Macbeth anchored the solid ensemble with their clarity and intensity. Mann showed his range by playing Duncan and the Porter, as did Edwards (Macduff and others), Joe Plummer (Malcolm and others), Johnson (Banquo and others), and Richard Ercole (Witch and others).
Westchester Broadway Theatre completed a brief production of the Kander-Ebb revue And the World Goes 'Round (July 29-Aug. 14), directed by Donald Birely and featuring Terri White, Rachel Cohen, Danette Holden, Stacia Fernandez, Ian Knauer, Kilty Reidy, and Tom Sellwood. Cabaret (Aug. 19-Nov. 13) returns the theatre to its regular subscriber season.
E. Kyle Minor
Chicago
The closing weeks of summer have brought four resignations among Chicago's theatre-industry leadership.
Court Theatre Executive Director Diane Claussen is leaving the post she's held for six years to become managing director at the Paper Mill Playhouse in Milburn, N.J. She'll report to President and CEO Michael Gennaro, who mentored Claussen early in her career when both worked at the George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick, N.J. Their friendship continued in Chicago, where Gennaro was executive director of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company prior to taking the Paper Mill post in June 2003. Court is a 50-year-old LORT company devoted to the classics, with a fiscal 2005 budget of $2.5 million. At Paper Mill, Claussen will oversee a $19 million budget. Claussen has no firm start date at Paper Mill. She officially leaves Court Oct. 2, the opening day of Court's 50th anniversary season, but will continue to serve part-time until her successor is in place. Claussen also is completing her third year as president of the League of Chicago Theatres Foundation.
Song-and-dance man Lara Teeter has stepped down after five years as artistic director of Light Opera Works. The Broadway veteran (1983 Tony Award nominee for On Your Toes) leaves Light Opera Works (LOW) to accept the Charles T. Lipitin Endowed Chair at the Shenandoah Conservatory at Shenandoah University (Winchester, Va.). Since arriving in Chicago in 1999, Teeter has overseen three major productions and a second stage production each year for LOW, created LOW's Musical Theatre Summer Workshop for kids 8-16, and taught musical theatre at Northwestern University. His final project for LOW was Candide, which Teeter directed and choreographed in a co-production with Pegasus Players. Candide opened Aug. 14; Teeter's resignation took effect Aug. 22.
Lookingglass Theatre Company has announced that Jacqueline Russell will step down as executive director Nov. 30 after seven years with the troupe. Under Russell, the Lookingglass annual budget grew from $700,000 to $2.7 million, and the company successfully raised $8.5 million to develop the troupe's first permanent home in Chicago's historic Water Tower Pumping Station. The 16-year-old company has enjoyed explosive growth under Russell, benefiting from the prominence of ensemble members David Schwimmer and Mary Zimmerman. Russell will pursue her first interest, arts education for children through theatre.
Finally, Bill Pacholski left the League of Chicago Theatres Aug. 31, where he's been the popular director of membership services since 2001. He takes the brand-new post of operations director for the Vittum Theatre, affiliated with Northwestern University Settlement House. Previously only a presenter, Vittum will produce Theatre for Young Audiences shows and expand its arts education programs in keeping with the Settlement House social services mission. Pacholski will report to Producing Artistic Director Tom Arvetis.
Jonathan Abarbanel
Atlanta
An eye-opening opening is Tracy Letts' Killer Joe at Actor's Express (Sept. 12-Oct. 16). The Express' Gabriel Dean says, "Everybody else is scared to do this subject matter," and the combo of sex and slaughter does daunt most other houses in town. Director Jasson Minadakis brings out the best in underperforming players, so the eccentricities kooky actors Nick Rhoton and Jill Perry have only indicated until now should spew forth fully in Joe.
Demure nudity is showcased in Naked Boys Singing!, in an open-ended run at the Armory Cabaret Room, a Drop Your Pants production that thrusts its profits back into the Express. The show is as lightweight as its concept of happy nudists harmonizing. Boys director Robert Schrock mounts entertaining vignettes featuring gifted comedians Christopher Skinner and Benjamin Hammer, while Dan Barron unleashes a lush baritone that injects depth into the cotton-candy cutting up.
Hot playwright Kia Corthron regionally premieres her Slide Glide the Slippery Slope at Synchronicity Performance Group at Seven Stages through Sept. 12. Dramatizing cloning and genetic engineering, Slope dispatches all that confusing science to focus on a family tortured by malnourishment, embodied in a maternal meltdown from stellar actress Carol Mitchell-Leon. Prosaically directed by Michele Pearce, Slope showcases subtly affecting acting from Minka Wiltz, yearning to become a mother again, even to a clone.
A dream cast of players headlines Theatre in the Square's Much Ado About Nothing (through Sept. 26), lead by local stars Rosemary Newcott and John Ammerman. It's refreshing to see artistes Newcott and Ammerman mugging among strategically placed orange trees and falling to the floor in a hysterical heap, under Jessica Phelps West's hot and cold direction. It's magic too as character actors David Milford, Bart Hansard, and Scott DePoy make comic hay with throwaway lines.
Premiering on Theatre in the Square's Alley Stage Sept. 8-Oct. 3 is Urban Fairytale, a modern dating nightmare penned by successful author Phillip DePoy and his wife, Lee Nowell, an accomplished actor and director in her own right.
Broadway bound is the musical adaptation of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, having its world premiere at the Alliance Theatre Sept. 17-Oct. 17.
Dave Hayward
Southern California
It's the 100th anniversary of J.M. Barrie's endearing Peter Pan, and two-time Olympian Cathy Rigby is ready to fly the dangerous, dastardly, delightful skies of Neverland one last time. First performed in London in 1904 and made famous by Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard in the 1954 musical, Peter Pan still packs a punch in 2004. "One of the greatest gifts of my theatrical career," explains Ms. Rigby, "[is] the thrill of seeing the faces of children as I fly over their heads sprinkling fairy dust and having the chance (eight times a week) to relive the adventure of a perfect 'make believe' childhood." In an interview this week at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts (the producing home that she and her husband, producer Tom McCoy, have rejuvenated over the past decade), Rigby noted, "Playing Peter Pan is wearing your heart on your sleeve—just like a kid! The best part of doing this show isn't the flying—it's that the role allows you to relive the spontaneous, optimistic, and mischievous moments that remind us of our children—if only they could be like this forever."
The all-new production will be staged by Glenn Casale with choreography by Patti Colombo, a team that producer McCoy calls "the best producing team in the country." Flying illusions are by ZFX Inc. and Emmy Award-winning set designer John Iacovelli is teaming with costume designer Shigeru Yaji and lighting designer Tom Ruzika to create the Darling's nursery and the Neverland adventure. The McCoy Rigby Entertainment team is strongly committed to its California community. "We rarely hire outside of the Los Angeles area," explains McCoy. "We have the talent in Southern California to be as good as or better than anybody in America."
Rigby's name is synonymous with Peter Pan, having played the title role on Broadway (Tony Award nomination), on a major national tour in 1990-91, in the revival in 1998, and in the Emmy Award-winning A&E special. More recently, she brought a special spark to Seussical on Broadway (and on tour) and over the years has starred in national tours of Annie Get Your Gun, Meet Me in St. Louis, Paint Your Wagon, and They're Playing Our Song.
Peter Pan begins at the La Mirada Theatre (Sept. 24-Oct. 10) and hits the road for a national tour before settling back onto Broadway. The producers are McCoy Rigby Entertainment, the Nederlander Organization, and the La Mirada Theatre in association with Albert Nocciolino, Larry Payton, J. Lynn Singleton, and Craig Barna.
The cast includes Tony nominee Howard McGillin as Hook/Mr. Darling, Elisa Sagardia as Wendy, and Patrick Richwood as Smee.
Jim Volz
Seattle
One year after the demise of the Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival, it's still oddly difficult for most local artists and audiences to determine what impact the loss of the oldest fringe festival in the U.S. has had on this community.
Only a few years ago, Seattle's major theatres, such as Seattle Repertory Theatre, were proudly pointing to figures that showed that we were a major player on the national theatre scene in terms of audiences and productions. But a major contributor to these figures was the festival, where over 90 companies would offer hundreds of performances over the festival's 10 days, drawing audiences in the tens of thousands.
The festival went into bankruptcy, owing money not only to local businesses but also to participating artists, resulting in a lot of anger from Seattle's theatre community. But one year later, the mood has shifted to thoughtful reflection. Director Aimee Bruneau, a past participant and artistic panelist, believes that trying to build a larger audience for the festival was what did it in. And while she continues to work around town, she says it's with more constraints: "It was the most freedom I've ever had to stretch my artistic wings—to take on some nitty-gritty stuff that a theatre might not want to support, either because it was too mundane, or too offensive, or too preachy, or too unique."
Another past participant, Michelle Lockhart, also praised the festival's nonjuried nature. "Had we been expected to present our work or even try and describe it in an application, we would have surely been denied the chance," she admits, but the resulting show, "Progression," was an artistic pick that year. For Lockhart, the end came because the festival wasn't able realistically to evolve into its next form, and it tried to grow too quickly. But when asked if the festival's demise has had a major impact on Seattle's theatre scene, she instead turns the question to audiences, and why the larger community let the festival die: "To me, the work wasn't done to get our community involved, to work with the public, to make Seattle feel like there is worth in theatre."
In recent months, a small group of former Seattle Fringe Theatre Festival artists has begun discussing what a resurrected festival might look like. Hopefully, it will be smaller, savvier, and more in tune with what not just local artists but audiences want.
John Longenbaugh