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For The San Pedro Playhouse, The Show Must Go On
Posted on August 9th, 2013
By Leezia Dhalla
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| (Photo: Gregg Eckhardt) |
In San Antonio, theater is thriving. With more than a dozen venues dedicated to the performing arts, the city is steadily becoming known as one of Texas’s most colorful havens for the premier theatrical experience.
Responsibility for boosting the local arts reputation belongs in part to The San Pedro Playhouse, the oldest municipally built theater in the United States.
Situated in picturesque San Pedro Springs Park, The Playhouse opened its doors just 90 days after the 1929 crash of the stock market with a performance of Ferenc Molnar’s “The Swan.” It continues to be an important piece of the performing arts puzzle in San Antonio more than 90 years later, with a slew of educational programs that offer hands-on internships and on-site training classes in auditioning, stage combat, choreography and improv, among others.
The theater has grown to serve more than 50,000 people through various educational outreach programs, performances, events and classes.
In her first year as president and CEO, Asia Ciaravino has breathed new life into the venue. In addition to updating the theater’s social media and branding efforts, Ciaravino retooled the education programming into the likes of a conservatory, where students can learn the practicalities of equity, contracts and cattle-call auditions as professional actors in the working world.
The Playhouse also continues to donate production tickets to thousands of students each year, especially at schools where theater programs are being eliminated due to budget constraints.
“Our thrust is in building communities and education. I feel like we’re at the point of exploding because there’s so much happening and so many good things going on in the community,” Ciaravino said. “(I’m glad) we’re able to do so much outreach. On a community level we really impact children and adults, and that’s what theater, in my mind, is supposed to do.”
Read more at The Rivard Report . . . .
Auditions February 25 and 26, 2013 for Ragtime and for Les Misérables
Ragtime - Book by Terrence McNally, Music by Stephen Flaherty, Lyrics by Lynn Ahrens
Directed by Molly Cox. Performances July 26-August 18, 2013
All roles available. Click here to enter the MTI website for character, casting, and show details.
Ragtime musically weaves together the stories of three extraordinary families, who confront history's timeless contradictions of wealth and poverty, freedom and prejudice, hope and despair and what it means to live in America.
Les Misérables - Book by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, Music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer
Directed by Tim Hedgepeth
All roles available. Performances October 3 - November 2, 2013 (tentative)
Click here to enter the MTI website for character, casting, and show details.
Victor Hugo’s epic tale of redemption is masterfully told through the robust and moving score of one of the world’s most notorious musicals.
Auditions BY APPOINTMENT ONLY at the Russell Hill Rogers Theater, 5:30 p.m. - 10:00 p.m. For appointment: call 210-733-7258 or email auditions@theplayhousesa.org. Arrive 15 minutes prior to appointment to check in. Provide headshot and resume.
Please prepare:
- 16-32 bars of a dramatic, expressive ballad from a post-1980 musical, something that shows range (Please do not prepare songs from Les Miserables or Ragtime)
- A one-minute monologue of actor's choice
In The Playhouse's second video episode of 'Backstage Magic,' posted on Youtube, December 17, actress Molly Cox is surrounded by the orphan chorus for Annie, playing until December 23 in San Antonio (click for additional information):
In what looks to be the first of a series, Playhouse San Antonio posts its first episode of 'Backstage Magic':
Meet Jimmy Moore, currently in "The Santaland Diaries" in The Cellar Theater, interviewed by Molly Cox (in "Season's Greetings" [the other half of the double bill). HELD OVER 'til December 23 - only 3 more chances to see it! Get your tickets here.
