"Cabaret" at the Colonial Theatre Gets the Basics Right

Oakley Boycott - an ascending Broadway star to watch.
The temperature barely rose above the zero mark this past Saturday, but inside the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield, it was hot, even torrid, on stage as the famous musical, Cabaret, was brought to life once again. The famous Kander-Ebb work is evergreen, audiences never seem to tire of it. Though only in the Berkshires for the day, with a matinee and evening performance, this was no bare pipe production.

Windwood Productions, which specializes in what are called "bus and truck" shows threw up a wonderful set to recreate the Kit Kat Klub, and had a full complement of stage lighting and sound that made it feel that this was a show that was settling in for a long run. And they filled the Colonial stage with a cast of two dozen plus an eight piece band that moved on a platform from backstage to front at several points in the show.

As the Emcee, Zac Mordechai skipped the usual heavy makeup and went for a more naturalistic look and his performance was not as over the top as many I have seen. Perhaps more suitable for conservative rural audiences, but I think the lack of zing is one reason the matinee audience seemed to sit on its hands.

Oakley Boycott as Sally Bowles delivered a very workmanlike performance, finding the sweet spot between Sally's impulsive nature and her humanity. This was no spoiled brat, but rather a frightened young woman who sought the shelter of friends and lovers rather than independence. It seemed that she and the company hit their stride in Act Two, where we saw flashes of a real talent at work. Her rendition of the title song was very touching. Given more seasoning and a maturing of her vocal and movement skills, she's on her way to becoming a Broadway triple threat.

The brief fight scene was very well choreographed, even if the dance numbers themselves needed more polish. The difference between a good performance and a great performance is attention to detail, and only directors and choreographers with sufficient rehearsal time can reach the stars.

Most of you probably missed this show. Admittedly, the publicity focused far too much on the Broadway and Hollywood versions, and gave precious little detail as to the Windwood production. In fact, it was not even clear if there would be live music, and casting information and good photographs were virtually nonexistent. This is the fault of the producers, not the Colonial. Some good photos of that Kit Kat Klub set with the large band and cast prominently visible would have gone a long way to helping potential ticket buyers know what their dollars were buying. Most theatre-goers I know are still watching their dollars, and you have to work extra hard to convince them to part with them.

Nevertheless, in the quiet off-season the Colonial, Mahaiwe and Mass MoCA all do us proud by finding and presenting theatrical attractions to keep theatre alive when the lakes freeze and life moves indoors. This coming weekend will see a staged reading of ART at the Clark, and the opening of Les Liaisons Dangereuses at Shakespeare and Company. There is even a much anticipated premiere of The Waypoint from the Berkshire Fringe at Mass MoCA on February 6. Then on February 12, the Acting Company-Guthrie Theatre production of Romeo and Juliet brings theatre to the Colonial again.

Also worth noting, is Frank LaFrazio in Living With It coming to the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center on March 13.

Many of our area community and resident theatres are hard at work keeping theatre seats warm and their stages full as well. Check out Gail Sez for a complete calendar.

Publicity, audience development and the art of selling tickets

Photos: The WSJ's Terry Teachout saw and reviewed both Ghosts in Stockbridge, MA and Heartbreak House in Peterborough, NH last summer. (L) Mia Dillon and Randy Harrison in Ghosts, Jaime Davidson photo and (R) George Morfogan and Ellie Dunn in Heartbreak House.

The WSJ Covers Berkshire Theatre Companies

Here in the Berkshires, many of our professional resident companies do exceptional work, and as a result, have attracted national attention. It doesn't happen nearly often enough, but when this sort of publicity lightning strikes, large audiences usually follow. All four of our resident professional companies - Barrington Stage Company, Berkshire Theatre Festival, Shakespeare & Company and Williamstown Theatre Festival - have often been reviewed by the Wall Street Journal's traveling critic, Terry Teachout. Critics from the New York Times and Boston Globe are also often seen in the local audiences.

When the Guthrie Theatre's Joe Dowlling put their "Everything Kushner" Festival together last Spring, he created the perfect storm of publicity. Not only did he undertake the Pulitzer Prize winning Angels in America but the Guthrie also commissioned a new play, The Intelligent Homosexual's Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures. They also did an evening of Tiny Plays in which five of Kushner's lesser known short works were performed.

They did this with panache, offering terrific photos and news releases with real news and interesting facts. Their incredibly helpful public relations attracted interest from across the country, including this blog. The critics from the national media flocked to Minneapolis, and the out of town audiences were so large the theatre company hired a concierge to help with hotel arrangements. Selling almost every ticket they could print, the festival's revenues covered a healthy portion of the expenses involved. It was both an artistic and financial success.

Berkshire theatres often note that tickets only cover half of their operating expenses. But that is because they only sell 50-60% of their tickets. Imagine what consistent sell-outs would do. When I was at the Boston Ballet, we managed to get that figure up to 92% of all tickets sold, and that greatly reduced the need for panic fundraising.

Marketing and PR is often handled by people with little real expertise in the art of developing audiences, and so tickets go wanting. Part of the problem is that many companies don't take the task seriously as evidenced by the majority of recent college graduates and actor wannabes in that role in some American companies. With more attention to these staff positions, it is possible that for each additional $10,000 budgeted to hire a real professional in the field, you can expect an increase of $100,000 in ticket revenues. This is not a job for an intern or novice. Nor is it a job to be lumped with sixteen other responsibilities.

Teachout wrote that Elizabeth Aspenlieder is "a splendid stage comedienne whose zany acting is part of what makes Shakespeare & Company the best theater troupe in the Berkshires." She is also a very adroit publicist.

Of course, trying to find audiences when there have been a series of poor choices in production can also have a devastating effect. Audiences know when they are getting a cheap, under-rehearsed product, or an artistic director's vanity project instead of something worth paying for. There is also the important matter of audience comfort. How can it be that we pay ten times the price of a comfortable stadium movie theatre seat for perches barely able to contain a midget? That's a topic that will get analysis from me this spring.

But I digress from the main point of this entry. Which is to recommend a wonderful guide written today by Terry Teachout from the Wall Street Journal. If you have wondered what it takes to get someone from a major publication like the WSJ to cover your "hot" production, this is the ultimate guide. Teachout reveals his agenda and actually lists the playwrights and plays he will consider, and those he avoids like the plague.

He also takes on the common practice of sending out press releases for every minor event, and how it important it is to keep a theatre's website up to date and functional. Here's a sample:

Terry Teachout

"You probably know that I'm the only drama critic in America who routinely covers theatrical productions from coast to coast. As I wrote in my "Sightings" column a few years ago:

"The time has come for American playgoers--and, no less important, arts editors--to start treating regional theater not as a minor-league branch of Broadway but as an artistically significant entity in and of itself. Take it from a critic who now spends much of his time living out of a suitcase: If you don't know what's hot in "the stix," you don't know the first thing about theater in 21st-century America.

"I also have a select list of older shows I'd like to review that haven't been revived in New York lately (or ever). If you're doing The Beauty Part, The Cocktail Party, The Entertainer, Hotel Paradiso, The Iceman Cometh, Loot, Man and Superman, Rhinoceros, The Skin of Our Teeth, The Visit (the play, not the musical), or anything by Jean Anouilh, Bertolt Brecht, Horton Foote, William Inge, Terence Rattigan, or John Van Druten, kindly drop me a line."

You can find his email address and the rest of his thoughts at the Arts Journal's About Last Night
blog which he writes with Laura Demanski (Our Girl in Chicago) and Carrie Frye.

Romeo and Juliet too "Impure" for Nashville, Shakespeare Censored

Tennessee, home of great ribs and backward thinking, is in the news again. This time its citizens demanding that Shakespeare's classic Romeo and Juliet be censored. Seems the 400 year old play is too racy for its high school students. This was the claim of a group of self-appointed censors who found the Bard of Avon a bit too bawdy for Music City, U.S.A. They requested a number of cuts to Shakespeare's text in order to tone down the play he wrote. The theatre company refused and went with what the Bard wrote instead of a watered down version to please the nabobs.

Most of the upset is was about some of the bawdier scenes with Mercutio and the Nurse. But Romeo and Juliet also shows two teenagers disobeying their parents, and this gets some of the Nashville fundamentalists in a tizzy. A woman who identified herself as Val, a home-school teacher complained that she "struggled being here with my son. The sexuality was too much. Our children need to be more pure." The full story is in The Toronto Star.

If you want to see what all the fuss is about, you can enjoy The Acting company's splendid production of the classic at the Colonial Theatre on February 12.

Meantime, chalk up another one for Tennessee where the Butler Act was passed by fundamentalist Christians in 1925 banning the teaching of the theory of evolution in all public schools and colleges. This of course led to the famous Scopes (Monkey) Trial which made the state a laughingstock, and the anti-evolutionists haven't stopped trying to turn the clock back to the dark ages since.

Guthrie Family and Friends Stage February 14 Haiti Benefit at the Colonial

When the Guthrie family gathers together with a few friends, it can be quite impressive.
After the wonderfully successful James Taylor benefit for Haiti which raised over $500,000 - and had ticket prices from $100-1000, there is second major Berkshire event, this time at popular prices at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield.

Artists from the Berkshires and surrounding cities will come together to show solidarity and help bring money and more awareness to the devastation from the earthquake in Haiti. This once-in-a-lifetime event will feature performances by Sarah Lee Guthrie & Johnny Irion, The Mammals, Bobby Sweet, Vetiver, Tift Merritt, Meg Hutchinson, Kris Delmhorst, The Guthrie Family and special guests.

“The momentous tragedy in Haiti generated subsequent shockwaves throughout the entertainment industry in the United States. Artists and venues have been searching for ways to help the victims by tapping the generosity of our friends and neighbors. We are grateful to the Taylors for their very generous leadership earlier this week. We are pleased to help our dear friends the Guthrie family whose concert at The Colonial Theatre on Valentine’s Day will make it possible for concerned citizens, at every economic level, to participate in a musical event to raise funds to assist in the rescue of the people of Haiti.”

Tickets for the Sunday, February 14 performance at 7 PM are $25 and $15 and can be purchased in person at the Colonial Ticket Office at 111 South Street Monday-Friday 10AM-5PM, performance Saturdays 10AM-2PM, by calling (413) 997-4444 or online at www.TheColonialTheatre.org

Romeo and Juliet Berkshire Bound February 12 at the Colonial

Hamish Linklater and Heather Robison in The Acting Company's production of Romeo and Juliet at the Colonial February 12. Photo by Susan Johnson.
The Acting Company, a highly praised American touring repertory company and the renowned Guthrie Theater proudly present Romeo & Juliet. It's been some time since we saw a professional production of this masterpiece in the Berkshires. Young love has never been so delightful, or as dangerous, as in this stirring, full-length production.

Since its founding in 1972 by the legendary John Houseman and Margot Harley, The Acting Company has performed 133 productions touring to 48 states and ten foreign countries. Slated for Friday, February 12 at 8 PM, tickets are $45 and $25 and can be purchased in person at the Colonial Ticket Office at 111 South Street Monday-Friday 10AM-5PM, performance Saturdays 10AM-2PM, by calling (413) 997-4444 or online at www.TheColonialTheatre.org 

There will also be a performance at 9:30AM for students as part of the Performing Arts for Schools Education Program.

Mike Dugan says "Men Fake Foreplay" - February 6 at the Colonial in Pittsfield

Mike Dugan is in Pittsfield February 6 at the Colonial.
“It was never about finding the right woman. It was about becoming the right man,” quips Mike Dugan in his show, Men Fake Foreplay. His appearances are hilariously funny, offering pointed commentary on relationships and the battle of the sexes, in an evening's entertainment that is both written and performed by the Emmy-winning writer and Tonight Show comedian and world traveller.

Dugan spent two years touring throughout Europe and the UK while developing Men Fake Foreplay, and has performed the show in London, Paris, Amsterdam, and the Edinburgh Festival in Scotland.

Tickets for the Saturday, February 6 performance at 8 PM are $65 (includes VIP preferred seating with post-show Artist meet & greet), $35 and $25 and can be purchased in person at the Colonial Ticket Office at 111 South Street Monday-Friday 10AM-5PM, performance Saturdays 10AM-2PM, by calling (413) 997-4444 or online at www.TheColonialTheatre.org

30 Years of Shear Madness - Will it Never End?

Cheers for 30 Years of Shear Madness! (l to r and back to front) Boston cast members Christopher Robin Cook, Patrick Shea, Jennifer Ellis, Ellen Colton, Michael Fennimore and Richard Snee. Paul Lyden photo.
Shear Madness, the comedy whodunit that holds the Guinness record as the longest-running play in the history of the American theater, will celebrate its 30th Anniversary at The Charles Playhouse Stage II on Friday, January 29, 2009 (the show’s 12,580th performance). I have seen and totally enjoyed it a half dozen times, and for those of us in the hill country, there is an interesting fact: This show began not far away, in Lake George, and its creators, Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan, live in Latham, New York. And you can bet that lots of the actors appearing in it have trod the boards in Williamstown, Lenox, Pittsfield and Stockbridge. How's that for a local connection!

Marilyn Abrams and Bruce Jordan modesetly accept full responsibility for three decades of madness.
Twenty years before shows like Tony and Tina's Wedding, Bruce Jordan discovered how much fun it is to involve the audience in the production. That's what sets Shear Madness apart from all the other long running plays - it varies each night, as the plot changes with audience input. Back in Lake George, where it began, they started experimenting with the formula. " When the audience got to question the suspects, the suspects would try to defer having to answer some of those questions through humor -- so that is where the little egg of humor began," says Jordan.

The show soon was playing in Boston on Warrenton Street, and word of mouth was sensational. It became a favorite (and still is) with groups and lots of folks who normally don't attend theatre. Millions have seen it not only in Boston, but in more than 40 cities and 85 international productions. Still an impressive 1.8 million have bought tickets at the little Charles Playhouse alone.

(pictured l to r) Nick Rossetti (Michael Fennimore) and Tony Whitcomb (Patrick Shea) in Shear Madness, the hilarious interactive whodunit. Paul Lyden photo.
The legendary Boston production is set in a Newbury Street salon, and engages locals and visitors alike as armchair detectives to help solve the scissor-stabbing murder of a famed concert pianist who lives above the unisex hairstyling salon. The show combines up-to-the-minute improvisational humor and a mixture of audience sleuthing. To keep it fresh it also incorporates frequent references to the latest media scandals and local news items.

“We love to be on the cutting edge,” said director Michael Fennimore. “Our goal is to have 30 new jokes and clues in the show for the 30th Anniversary night. Our actors are such talented improvisers they love to create something fresh and funny at every show.”

"Mrs. Shubert on the phone." Seen here are Nick Rossetti (Michael Fennimore), Tony Whitcomb (Patrick Shea), Mrs Shubert (Ellen Colton), Mike Thomas (Christopher Robin Cook), Barbara DeMarco (Jennifer Ellis), and Edward Lawrence (Richard Snee). Paul Lyden photo.
The Stats: The Boston production has employed over 150 Equity actors (14,800 weeks of work) in its 30-year history. The show has gone through nine barber chairs, 96 blow dryers, 270 bottles of stage blood, 198 hairbrushes, 1320 cans of hairspray, 1560 bottles of nail polish, and more than 13,000 cans of shaving cream.

Shear Madness returned to its Lake George Dinner Theatre roots in 2007 with a fresh producton.
The History: In 1978, Abrams and Jordan - the show’s creators, producers and original cast members - first performed a serious version of the play based on Scherenschnitt, written by German writer and psychologist Paul Portner, in Lake George, New York. Jordan, the original director, sensed the comic possibilities of the piece and turned it into the topical spoof, Shear Madness. Because they were on stage each night, Abrams says they experienced the “magical chemistry” between the actors and the audience.

The audience response to Shear Madness was so enthusiastic that Jordan and Abrams decided to purchase the world stage, screen and television rights to the play. Cranberry Productions (as in, they are quick to explain, ”What else goes with a turkey?”) was created to nurture the hit that they had cultivated.

With complete financial and artistic control over the show, they now had an enormous project on their hands. Based on the encouragement they received from New England visitors to Lake George, they decided that Shear Madness just might work well in Boston. So after more than two years honing the comedy, Abrams and Jordan moved their little show to The Charles Playhouse. The rest, as they say, is history.

Entrance to the Fun House where Shear Madness plays.

Boston Performance and ticket information
Performance schedule is Tuesday through Friday at 8PM, Saturday at 6:00PM and 9:00PM and Sunday at 3PM and 7:00PM at The Charles Playhouse, 74 Warrenton Street, in the heart of Boston's theatre district. The Friday, January 29th gala performance will be at 7:00 PM Single tickets are $42. For tickets and information call the Shear Madness box office at 617-426-5225. Great discounts for groups of 15 or more. Visit www.shearmadness.com for more information.

All proceeds from the special anniversary performance of Shear Madness on January 29 (7pm) will be donated to the Actors Fund of America.