Fall 2010 Shows

College Majors Musical Theater Major
1

<p>Here’s a quick preview of the fall 2010 shows:</p>

<p>Polaroid Stories</p>

<p>Adding Machine - Congrats to sonlovesmt’s son</p>

<p>The Seagull</p>

<p>Marriage of Figaro</p>

<p>Under Milkwood</p>

<p>What Would You Do? - A film directed by Ernie Losso, whose resuming includes casting director and director for mainstream movies and a number of very successful mainstream t.v. series. Should be quite an experience.</p>

<p>Nine - Directed by Patty Raine, Director of the MT program. Congrats to Mainstage’s D, shellypearl’s D, bktheater’s D (hope I didn’t miss any CCer’s kid)!</p>

2

<p>Wow! Hope we can get down there for some of these productions! Thanks for the info!</p>

3

<p>So I am thinking that incoming freshman are not able to audition for the Fall shows???</p>

4

<p>A week or so before the end of a semester, auditions occur for the next semester’s shows. Cast lists are released just before grades are posted. Those who are not cast must audition for student 1 acts or scenes at the beginning of the next semester. Occasionally, there are also auditions at the beginning of the semester for vacancies that have occurred between semesters, usually for the fall shows after the summer break. Incoming freshmen may participate in the fall auditions for vacancies and student 1 acts and scenes but are not required to. Freshmen must audition for the spring shows and occasionally are cast but typically priority is given to upperclassmen over freshmen. Short answer to your question - incoming freshmen do not appear in the fall shows.</p>

5

<p>Purple9: My D is a sophomore, incoming junior and she was in her first show the second semester of her sophomore year, but she got to perform in the fall of her sophomore year in a student run show, and had lots of fun. She also got into 2 summer shows between her freshman and sophomore years in a theater in New Jersey, and had a blast. A few of her friends were called back in the 2nd semester of her Freshman year, but none of the girls got into the fall productions, only 2 guys did. So, the likelihood of girls getting cast in their freshman year is probably nil, but for guys, there are possibilities.</p>

<p>That being said, when they start getting callbacks, no matter how many, they are only allowed to be in one show (mainstage, platform series and I forget the others), but they can do student production shows, which everyone also enjoys alot.</p>

<p>My D also crewed for a show, so she was very busy with that as well, and along with her studies, she was glad to be in just one show this past semester.</p>

<p>Thanks Michael. My D is thrilled to be in a mainstage production, and to be in “Nine” is a major thrill. She was grateful just to be cast, as some others invariably did not. I haven’t heard about who else has been cast. Is your D in Nine as well? You don’t say.</p>

6

<p>Yes, she and 7 other seniors were cast in Nine. My daughter is Saraghina and is very much looking forward to the role and the show.</p>

7

<p>Michael - Thanks for the congrats. My S is very excited to be cast in a musical. Congratulations to your D on her role which is a great one. I can’t wait to see two AHS grads in Nine!</p>

8

<p>Here’s the schedule for the full 2010-2011 season as described on the UArts wesite:</p>

<p>Mainstage Shows-
THE SEAGULL
by Anton Chekhov
in a new English version by Tom Stoppard
Directed by Rosey Hay
October 8-10, 14-16, 2010
Arts Bank</p>

<p>A famous actress and her entourage gather at her brother’s Russian country estate. Her son Konstantine is a writer who longs to create “new forms,” while Nina, a girl from a neighboring estate, pines for him and for a life on the stage, but the pursuit of their dreams will lead them to desperate extremes. Chekhov’s tragi-comic masterpiece is a passionate investigation of the role of love and art in our lives.</p>

<p>NINE
book by Arthur Kopit, music and lyrics by Maury Yeston
Directed by Dr. Patricia Raine
November 12-14, 18-20, 2010
Arts Bank</p>

<p>Guido Contini is a charismatic but self-absorbed Italian film director struggling to make a new movie that will live up to his reputation. As he chases his elusive muse, Guido must learn from the women in his life - his wife, his mistress, his mother, his producer and the whore who initiated him in the mysteries of sex. Based on Fellini’s iconic film 8½.</p>

<p>THE CRUCIBLE
by Arthur Miller
Directed by Gene Terruso
March 23-27, 2011
Merriam Theater</p>

<p>The Devil has come to Puritan New England, and Elizabeth Proctor is accused of being a witch by her husband’s secret lover. Jealousy and hysteria polarize a close-knit community, and the consequences are grim. Arthur Miller’s dramatic re-enactment of the 17th century Salem Witch Trials, originally intended as an allegory for the anti-Communist “witch hunts” of the 1950s, continues to resonate today wherever fear infects political discourse.</p>

<p>DESSA ROSE
by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty
Directed by Johnnie Hobbs, Jr.
April 15-17, 21-23, 2011
Arts Bank</p>

<p>A white woman abandoned by her husband and living on a rural Alabama farm in 1847 gives refuge to an escaped slave on the run from a bloody rebellion. Their unlikely friendship is the beginning of a journey to freedom and self-realization. Based on Sherley Anne Williams’ 1968 novel, the musical Dessa Rose defines the true measure of friendship and celebrates the value of difference.</p>

<p>Studio Series -
POLAROID STORIES
by Naomi Iizuka
Directed by Amy Feinberg
September 1-5, 2010
Caplan Studio Theater
Presented as part of the Philadelphia Live Arts/Fringe Festival</p>

<p>Inspired in part by Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Polaroid Stories is a story slam at the fringe of a heartless city, home to an invisible population of punks, freaks and runaways. Caught in a labyrinth of city streets, these desperate young dreamers bare their shattered souls in language as hard and rough as the pavements they prowl.</p>

<p>BFF (“Best Friends Forever”)
Original screenplay by Sean Spencer and Emily Nye
Produced and directed by Ernie Losso
Associate producer Diane Walsh
Principal photography Fall 2010, premiere screening in Spring 2011</p>

<p>How far would you go to be a success? In this original screenplay, a group of college seniors struggle with the pressures of graduation, but their blind ambition to succeed as actors will tear their friendship apart. The Brind School’s maiden voyage into film production is helmed by veteran television director Ernie Losso.</p>

<p>ANTON IN SHOW BUSINESS
by Jane Martin
Directed by Rick Stoppleworth
February 16-20, 2011
Caplan Studio Theater</p>

<p>Three actresses travel to the hinterlands of American theater to appear in Chekhov’s The Three Sisters. On the way to opening night, the production suffers every pitfall known to regional theater: egocentric actresses, maniacal directors, soulless corporate sponsors and self-important critics. Playwright Martin pulls no punches in this hysterical, acerbic and revealing back-stage comedy.</p>

<p>A LYRICAL OPERA MADE BY TWO
libretto by Gertrude Stein, music by William Turner
Directed by Charles Gilbert
April 13-17, 2011
Caplan Studio Theater
Presented as part of the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts</p>

<p>It’s just your typical cubist lesbian love story: the poet Gertrude Stein and her lifelong companion Alice Toklas making love and making art in Paris, birthplace of modernism in the Twenties. Turner’s imaginative musical setting of Stein’s distinctive poetic libretto was last seen in 2005 at the International Festival of Musical Theater in Cardiff, Wales.</p>

<p>Platform Series
THE ADDING MACHINE by Joshua Schmidt and Jason Loewith
Directed by Megan Nicole O’Brien
September 23-26, 2010
Caplan Studio Theater</p>

<p>After 25 years of faithful service as a clerk, Mr. Zero learns he is being replaced by an adding machine. His violent revenge has devastating consequences, but Mr. Zero is offered an unexpected chance for redemption after his death. This inventive musical adaptation of Elmer Rice’s groundbreaking 1923 play, a landmark of Expressionist theater, was hailed as “the best new musical of 2008.” </p>

<p>THE MARRIAGE OF FIGARO by Beaumarchais
Translated, adapted and directed by Albert Innaurato
October 21-24, 2010
Caplan Studio Theater</p>

<p>One of America’s leading comic playwrights brings his distinctive sensibility to a “classic” that is ferocious, fun and frankly over-sexed. A wily servant takes on a powerful aristocrat in a battle involving two beautiful women, a horny 16-year-old boy and an aging doyenne with powerful carnal appetities. See what made “Figaro” one of the popular tales in theater history!</p>

<p>UNDER MILK WOOD by Dylan Thomas
Directed by Darin J Dunston
November 4-7, 2010
Caplan Studio Theater (with live webcast)</p>

<p>Written as “a play for voices,” Dylan Thomas’s lyrical masterpiece is an intimate portrait of the inhabitants of a fictional Welsh seaside village. “See behind the eyes of the sleepers” and discover the wishes and flight and fall and despairs and the big seas of their dreams. This landmark radio drama will be performed with original music and live sound effects and broadcast via the internet.</p>

<p>LA TEMPESTAD by Larry Loebell
Directed by David Howey
February 3-6, 2010
Caplan Studio Theater</p>

<p>UArts faculty playwright Larry Loebell reimagines Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” as set on the island of Vieques, off the Atlantic coast of Puerto Rico, during hurricane season. The U.S. Military is using the island to prepare for the invasion of Iraq while lovers cavort on the beaches and Don Prospero, owner of the local hotel and museum, fights to protect his island’s heritage.</p>

<p>Student Created and Directed Works -
CAHOOTS STUDENT THEATER FESTIVAL
January 20-23, 2011
Caplan Studio Theater</p>

<p>Formerly known as “Equinox,” this festival of original student work is one of the highlights of the year in the Brind School. Student producers, playwrights, directors, designers and actors let their creative freak flag fly, testing their mettle as theater artists with results that are inevitably provocative and intriguing.</p>

<p>TWO STUDENT-DIRECTED ONE-ACTS
February 24-27, 2011
Caplan Studio Theater</p>

<p>BUTTERFLY by Trish Cole
Directed by Jessica Rodriguez</p>

<p>In the West Virginia State Penitentiary, Barb watches her cellmate Ruby’s sanity unravel as she recounts the story of her little girl’s transformation into an adult transgender male. When pushed to confront the chilling memories of her relationship with her child, the mother escapes her harsh reality into an imaginary field of wildflowers where she finds refuge from a horrific crime.</p>

<p>KEELY AND DU by Jane Martin
Directed by Karina Benjamin</p>

<p>A pregnant rape victim is held captive by a right-to-life activist and the two women find their innate human compassion at odds with their ideological views. What are a rape victim’s rights? What are the rights of the unborn? Faith and freedom clash in this thoughtful and probing drama.</p>

<p>IN THIS HOUSE
Music by Mike Reid, Lyrics by Sarah Schlesinger
Book by Sarah Schlesinger, Mike Reid and Jonathan Bernstein
Directed by Danielle Melendez
March 30-April 3, 2011
Caplan Studio Theater</p>

<p>A chance encounter between two couples on New Year’s Eve leads to a night of unexpected humor and heartbreak. In this moving, contemporary musical, the challenges of marriage and child-rearing and the joys and fears of intimacy are confronted by two different generations, leaving four individuals forever changed.</p>

<p>Special Events -
CHEKHOV IN HELL
featuring Charles Conwell as Anton Chekhov
Arts Bank Theater
October 12-13, 2010</p>

<p>Consigned to Hell after an early tubercular death, Anton Chekhov sips champagne and talks about life and art. Between Chekhovian pauses, he reflects on his life as a playwright, doctor, gardener, fisherman and Russian Don Juan. No friend of The Method, Chekhov complains about Stanislavsky’s acting and directing! Charles Conwell explores the relationship between Chekhov’s biography and his four great plays.</p>

<p>SHEDDING LIGHT
by Rich Orloff
directed by Amy Feinberg
featuring Johnnie Hobbs, Jr. and Drucie McDaniels
Gershman Black Box Theater
December 1-5, 2010</p>

<p>Two beloved Brind School faculty members appear in this comedy that brings together a lonely Jewish apartment dweller and an African-American cable repairman during the holiday season. Their awkward banter builds into a revealing dialog about race and religion. “Shedding Light” is a holiday play for adults, both Christian and Jewish, and for anyone who is still looking for answers. </p>

<p>THE HOBO GRUNT CYCLE
created by Kevin Augustine’s Lone Wolf Tribe
Arts Bank Theater
May 4-15, 2011</p>

<p>Brind School alum Kevin Augustine’s work is an award-winning blend of life-sized puppets and human performers. This tale of human frailty and resilience in the face of war features pit bull warriors, circus clowns and disabled veterans from past American wars, over 25 characters animated by three puppeteers. Having developed and performed this work in Brooklyn, the Netherlands, Brazil and San Francisco, Augustine brings it home to Philly for the first time!</p>