If there is anything more dangerous than a "method" actor, it's a "method" costume designer. Put the two together and the public can be easily fooled.
Ian McKellen was taking a break during rehearsals for Waiting for Godot which he and Roger Rees (former Williamstown Theatre Festival Artistic Dirextor) first did in London and are now performing in Australia.
As fate would have it, Sir Ian is sitting a short distance from the stage door, Estragon's bowler in hand when a passerby takes one look at the aging, threadbare actor and drops a dollar in the hat.
Of course, that prompted the publicist to set up some photographs which we most happily reprint here.
After Waiting For Godot finishes its run in Melbourne, it will continue on to Sydney, Adelaide and Perth. The Samuel Beckett play was a huge success in London's West End, with Sir Ian starring as Estragon opposite Patrick Stewart's and then Roger Rees's Vladimir.
They begin as any chamber concert does, with a pensive pianissimo passage of a Bach Brandenburg or the Pachebel Canon in d. Their playing is superb. The audience is rapt. Then...cleverly choreographed chaos erupts. The Pagagnini Quartet is off and running and the evening erupts in hilarity. It's about as entertaining as classical music ever gets.
Descended from a squiggly line of classical clowns, from Spike Jones (Carmen Ghia) to Anna Russell to PDQ Bach, the Pagagnini foursome is clearly out to have a good time. Their audiences respond with endless cheering and laughter. The group, from Spain, is about to appear in New York City and we want to be sure you know about them.
Their high voltage show makes quite a racket, and the choreography requires their playing to be almost acrobatic as they pluck, bow and abuse their instruments in the name of art. This video will give you a good idea of what they are up to.
They play the New Victory Theatre in Manhattan from May 7 - 23. Performances are Fridays at 7pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 7pm, and Sundays at 12pm and 5pm.
Regular ticket prices are $35, $25, $12.50. With our code your discount price is only $29.75, $21.25, $10.50.
When you call for tickets, (646-223-3010) be sure to mention code GAG1915.
You can also order on line directly from the New Victory Theatre. Again, when prompted, enter the code GAG1915 for your special pricing. Or bring a copy of this advance story to the box office at 209 West 42nd Street.
OvO is the most jaw dropping spectacle yet from the Cirque du Soleil, and it is creating significant buzz as the best touring show this company has ever put on the road. Currently playing in New York City (Randall's Island Park) to June 6, the company will pack up its tent and move to Hartford June 17 to July 4 and then Boston from July 22 to August 15.
In Hartford it is conveniently located at the intersection of I-84 and I-91 (Northwest corner). In Boston the blue and yellow tent will be found at Fan Pier and Pier 4 instead of Suffolk Downs.
All About OvO
OvO is a headlong rush into a colorful ecosystem teeming with life, where insects work, eat, crawl, flutter, play, fight and look for love in a non-stop riot of energy and movement. The insects’ home is a world of biodiversity and beauty filled with noisy action and moments of quiet emotion.
When a mysterious egg appears in their midst, the insects are awestruck and intensely curious about this iconic object that represents the enigma and cycles of their lives. It’s love at first sight when a gawky, quirky insect arrives in this bustling community and a fabulous ladybug catches his eye – and the feeling is mutual.
As anyone who has seen a Cirque show knows, their sows are overflowing with contrasts. The hidden, secret world at our feet is revealed as tender and torrid, noisy and quiet, peaceful and chaotic. And as the sun rises on a bright new day the vibrant cycle of insect life begins anew.
The cast of OvO comprises 54 performing artists from 16 countries and director Deborah Colker, a renowned choreographer, has integrated dance movements into many of the acts in the show. Colker is the first female Director at Cirque du Soleil.
OvO features many acrobatic acts including a stunning flying trapeze act: Six flyers soar 40 feet in the air, making this act the biggest of its kind ever presented under a big top by Cirque du Soleil. It combines many circus disciplines: banquine, Russian swing and swinging chair. The finale features 20 artists running, jumping and leaping up a 24-foot vertical wall.
The Creative Team behind the world of OvO is: Artistic Guides Guy Laliberté and Gilles Ste-Croix; Writer, Director and Choreographer Deborah Colker; Director of Creation Chantal Tremblay; Set and props Designer Gringo Cardia; Costume Designer Liz Vandal; Composer and Musical Director Berna Ceppas; Lighting Designer Éric Champoux; Sound Designer Jonathan Deans; Acrobatic Equipment and Rigging Designer Fred Gérard; Acrobatic Performance Designer Philippe Aubertin; and Makeup Designer Julie Bégin.
iShares is the presenting sponsor of the 2010 U.S. tour of OvO. Sun Life Financial, CGI, Wyndham Hotels and Resorts and American Express are the official sponsors.
"WHAT A SHOW! To say audiences are wowed is an understatement." "It's not just great family fun; it's breathtaking." - The Huffington Post.com
Ticket Information
The performances are Tuesdays thru Thursdays at 8:00 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays at 4:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. and Sundays at 1:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. No performances on Mondays. Tickets will be available as of this Sunday, April 11 at 9 a.m. via www.cirquedusoleil.com/ovo or at 1-800-450-1480. Tickets for adults are from $45 to $125 and tickets for children are from $31.50 to $87.50. A VIP Tapis Rouge™ package is also available. It includes one of the best seats in the house, as well as access to the VIP suite one hour before the show and during intermission. The adult package is available for $250 and the child package for $175 (aged 2 to 12 years old). Prices include taxes.
Thank goodness for Damn Yankees. It's probably the best sports musical ever written, and for those of us in the Northeast, we will be able to enjoy it again August 5-21 at the Weston, VT Playhouse.
(For a rundown on the Berkshire's Summer of 2010 Schedules, visit Berkshire on Stage which lists all the major companies.)
I first saw it in its original Broadway outing back in the late fifties, and have never stopped loving it. "You've Gotta Have Heart" and "Whatever Lola Wants" are so eminently hummable while "Steam Heat" can be a great dance number.
Instead, lately it seems the jukebox musicals are becoming the new form for musicals, from Mamma Mia! and Jersey Boys to Rock of Ages and American Idiot, that last one recycling a Green Day 2004 album. Now, there is no question that the music in question is good, even great, but the underpinnings, the book, the plot, the depth is pretty shallow. In Damn Yankees we have the issue of selling one's soul to the Devil while in Mamma Mia! we have a pastiche.
Here in the Berkshires we have the additional curse of the "tribute" shows, including one which I attended that supposedly saluted ABBA. In the middle of the show they scrapped ABBA and started playing anti-Disco music which clearly showed they hated playing ABBA in the first place. It was insulting to those who paid to enjoy the songs of the Swedish pop group. The venues who book these scandalous second rate shows are shortchanging their audiences and endangering their "brand" by diluting it with pap.
Audiences love these pop music revues, and there is no shortage of ticket buyers, so what is a commercial producer to do?
The lack of substance in musicals has always been a problem. But would you swap Sweet Charity for say, Footloose?
Sports musicals are rare, and plays about the subject are few and far between. Here we can count our blessings that Kate Maguire (Artistic Director of the Berkshire Theatre Festival) is a fan, a BIG fan of baseball. WIthout her, we would never have gotten to see the nostalgic and impressive Red Remembers last fall.
But isn't it about time someone did a credible job on Take Me Out, also about baseball players? Roy Williams new play about boxing, Sucker Punch is also intriguing. In the UK there are lots of plays about rugby, cricket and their version of football, but where is the American basketball or football tale to keep audiences riveted to the stage.
Don't think there aren't sports fans in the audience, and theatre lovers at the stadium cheering on the local team. Audiences cross over all the time. Indeed I contend that a someone at the baseball stadium is more likely to buy a ticket to a stage show than some television viewer watching Survivor.
The world is divided into those who sit at home and those that go out. People who are always out and about will eventually discover local theatre and music. The couch potatoes only leave the nest to scoop up more junk at WalMart.
To expand audiences for the arts, it is possible that sports could be a better magnet to draw new people in than the jukebox.
When Irving Berlin wrote Annie Get Your Gun, he wrote a classic. It's the show that introduced "There's No Business Like Show Business" to the world which has become an anthem. In just a matter of weeks we will have two versions of this great musical within striking distance of the Berkshires.
But like the other famous song in the show, "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better," it will be easy to pick which show you want to see. You see there is the scaled down MacHaydn version in Chatham, NY which runs from May 27 to June 6 or the Goodspeed Opera House full bore production in East Haddam, CT which runs from April 16 to June 27. If you are a WalMart shopper you will love the MacHaydn version where tickets are only $26-28. It's done in the round, with some pretty fine singers, but there are problems. Certainly having to look at the back of an actor's head is no fun, and doing musicals on a stage that is barely larger than a pizza platter doesn't leave room for much for scenery or choreography.
Then there is the matter of the sound. At the Mac it seems limited to a piano and synthesizer to emulate what a band or orchestra should rightly be playing.
The MacHaydn has scores of loyal fans who will no doubt throw their walkers and canes at me for writing such harsh words, but bad music clearly does not seem to bother the geriatric set which predominates, especially at matinees. I apoloigize in advance for the snark attack, but don't you think that when you can't hear very well anyway, it likely doesn't matter much?
I have friends who don't mind. But it is their achilles heel. You can certainly see for yourself and come back and comment here. Tickets and information is available at http://www.machaydntheatre.org/
Kevin Earley (above) will play marksman Frank Butler opposite the sharp-shooting Annie Oakley played by Jenn Gabatese (below).
This Annie Get Your Gun will be directed by Rob Ruggiero whose work has been seen frequently in the Berkshires, as well as in award-winning regional theatres around the country. Mr. Ruggiero returns to Goodspeed where he directed 1776, Big River and last year’s sensation Camelot. His off-Broadway and tour credits include All Under Heaven and the world premieres of Ella and Make Me A Song, all of which he both conceived and directed. His newest production, Looped starring Valerie Harper, is currently running on Broadway.
Annie Get Your Gun was first staged on Broadway at the Imperial Theater on May 16, 1946 and ran for 1,147 performances. It was directed by Joshua Logan; Ethel Merman starred as Annie Oakley, and Ray Middleton played Frank Butler. Mary Martin starred as Annie Oakley in a U.S. national tour that started on October 3, 1947 in Dallas, Texas. Martin also did the television version back in the 1950's about the same time Merman was doing Happy Hunting on Broadway.
I saw the most recent Broadway revival in 1999 that starred Tom Wopat and Bernadette Peters, an unlikely combination if ever there was one. It was not a success, and having seen it, I think both leads were miscast.
There is a good reason to see both versions: in the past some of the songs have been cut or revised due to the changing political climate and increasing respect for Native Americans. Musicals, often show their age, and this one does, though for those of us who lived through the period in which the original was written (1946) don't seem to notice the disconnect nearly as much as young people who are surprised by the subtle and overt racism. Still, it is a show that has all the classic ingredients including a wonderful score. Don't miss it.
Performances: April 16- June 27, Wednesday at 2:00 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., Thursday at 7:30 p.m., (with select performances at 2:00 p.m.), Friday at 8:00 p.m., Saturday at 3:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m., and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. (with select performances at 6:30 p.m.).
Tickets:$27.50 - $71.00, Goodspeed Box Office (860.873.8668) or on-line at goodspeed.org
Pharmaceutical Marketing Explored in Orgasm, Inc. Film at Mass MoCA
The final film in MASS MoCA's Lie, Cheat, Steal and Fake It documentary series is Orgasm, Inc., a feature-length documentary exploring the depths of female pleasure and the distances pharmaceutical companies will go just to make a buck. Orgasm Inc. will be screened on Thursday, April 29, at 7:30 PM in MASS MoCA's Club B-10. A full bar and snacks and Herrell's ice cream from Lickety Split will be available.
Filmmaker Liz Canner had been making documentaries on human rights issues such as genocide, police brutality, and world poverty for years when she decided to take a break and pursue something more pleasurable, no pun intended. When offered a job editing erotic videos for a pharmaceutical company that was developing an orgasm cream for women, she accepted. Excited about the opportunity to explore the mixture of science and female pleasure, she gained permission to document the work of her employers. She did not intend to create an exposé of the pharmaceutical world but, as she uncovered more about the process and goals of her employers, she felt compelled to dig deeper. She says, "[my] insider perspective allows the film to scrutinize the everyday patterns of pharmaceutical company work in order to explore a culture that has been perverted to place the drive for profit above our health."
In the film, Canner uncovers a company, Vivus, who lost the race for a drug to aid erectile dysfunction when Pfizer beat it to the market with a much larger advertising budget. Vivus executives believe that their product will work just as well on wome, and the company forges ahead with development of a drug that has no particular "disease" that it is intended to cure. In an expert sleight of hand Vivus creates a new syndrome which its drug will treat: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). The reason why thousands of women fail to enjoy intimacy is because they suffer from FSD, and Vivus becomes the largest advertiser and advocate for a cure.
Aside from meeting and interviewing drug company CEOs, field-testers, and number-crunchers, Canner films doctors, scientists, and psychiatrists who are resisting the pharmaceutical industry's notion that sexual dissatisfaction is a "disease" that needs to be treated with a drug. Additionally, she profiles a sex shop owner who crashes pharmaceutical conferences to educate the doctors in attendance, a vintage vibrator collector who provides insight into the history of female sexuality, and a professor whose monkeys have taught him to pay more attention to women. They all profess that the key to sexual satisfaction is to change not just our sex lives but also our society. Canner has stated that her disagreement is not about the idea of a drug to help women achieve satisfaction but rather the assumptions these drug-mongers make about who and what women are.
The film (and all the films in the Lie, Cheat, Steal and Fake It series) will be introduced by Williams College professor Shawn Rosenheim who will also lead a post-screening discussion with other scholars and activists.
Canner earned a BA with honors in both Visual Arts and Anthropology from Brown University. Her subsequent work has received more than 40 awards, honors, and grants. Her projects have been supported by foundations such as The National Endowment for the Arts and the Paul Robeson Fund for Independent Media. A number of her films have been broadcast on PBS and on public television around the world. She has screened films at the New York Film Festival and the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival, among others. Her film, Deadly Embrace: Nicaragua, The World Bank and the IMF, on the effects of IMF and World Bank policy, was one of the first documentaries to look critically at globalization. Canner was also recently named one of the "top 10 independent filmmakers to watch" by The Independent Magazine.
Tickets for the screening of Orgasm, Inc. are $8 for adults and $5 for students. MASS MoCA members receive a 10% discount. Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office located off Marshall Street in North Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during Box Office hours or purchased on line at www.massmoca.org. Snacks and Herrell's ice cream from Lickety Split and full bar are available before and during the film.
Opera in the Berkshires and Western Massachusetts has become a rare treat, and fully staged operas are to be cherished.
So it comes as great news that Commonwealth Opera, a professional opera company in residence in Northampton, Massachusetts, will be presenting two performances of Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor on Friday May 7 at 7:00 PM and Sunday May 9 at 2:00 PM at The Academy of Music Theatre in Northampton. Best of all, it is happening at a time that there is in the "shoulder" season, before the hectic summer.
For those who might not be familiar with Donizetti's masterpiece, the opera Lucia follows a tragic heroine caught between family obligations, a forceful brother’s will, and her true love - her family’s sworn enemy! This star-crossed love affair takes place in 17 century Scotland.
Enrico has promised his sister, Lucia, to Arturo, but Lucia loves Edgardo. Fearing her brother's rage, Lucia and Edgardo agree to keep their love a secret. Edgardo leaves on a diplomatic mission, but Enrico learns of his sister's relationship. In Edgardo's absence, Enrico gives Lucia a letter he forged to make her think that Edgardo has been unfaithful.
Devastated, Lucia consents to marry Arturo. Edgardo bursts into the wedding celebration to claim her, but seeing her infidelity he curses Lucia and leaves. Enrico follows Edgardo and challenges him to a duel, meanwhile Lucia and Arturo retire to their bridal chamber where Lucia stabs him to death and goes mad.
In the most famous scene of the opera, she wanders into the ongoing wedding festivities, crazed and covered in blood, imagining she is married to Edgardo, and then falls down dead. Awaiting Enrico's arrival for their duel, Edgardo learns of Lucia's death and, distraught, he stabs himself and dies, hoping to join his beloved in heaven.
This "Mad Scene, "Il dolce suono...Spargi d'amaro pianto," has historically been a vehicle for several coloratura sopranos (providing a breakthrough for Dame Joan Sutherland) and is a technically and expressively demanding piece as the video clip below demonstrates. It features Sumi Jo in a concert version of the aria. I can hardly wait to see it fully staged in Northampton.
Some sopranos, most notably Maria Callas, have performed the scene in a come scritto ("as written") fashion, adding minimal ornamentation to their interpretations. Most sopranos, however, add ornamentation to demonstrate their technical ability, as was the tradition in the bel canto period. This involves the addition and interpolation of trills, mordents, turns, runs and cadenzas. Almost all sopranos append cadenzas to the end of the "Mad Scene", sometimes ending them on a high E-flat.
Donizetti’s lush dramatic masterpiece comes to beautiful life in this new, fully staged period production directed by Eve Summer under the baton of Commonwealth Opera music director Ian Watson. This three act opera boasts stunning bel canto arias, magnificent choruses, and a passionate love story for the ages. The opera will be sung in its original Italian with a simultaneous projected English translation.
The scenic design is by Julia Noulin-Merat, costume design by Toni Elliott, and lighting design by Ben Pilat.
Tickets are priced from $10 - $50, and may be purchased directly through Commonwealth Opera (all box office fees will be waived) by calling 508-847-0517. The Academy of Music Theatre's box office begins sales April 16th at http://academyofmusictheatre.tix.com or at 413-584-9032 x105. Box office fees may apply. Some tickets will be available for students the day of performance at $8.00.
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Jenn Gambatese as Annie Oakley with Jessie, Nellie & Little Jake (Joy Rachel Del Valle, Griffin Birney, Marissa Smoker) Photo by Diane Sobolewski
