Video: Director Norman Blumensaadt on Emlyn Williams's Night Must Fall, Different Stages, June 21 - July 13, 2013

In Tom Chamberlain's three-minute video director Norman Blumensaadt outlines the origins and the tensions of the 1930's mystery by Emlyn Williams, presented by

 

Night Must Fall

directed by Norman Blumensaadt

June 21 – July 13

The Vortex, 2307 Manor Rd - click for map

Thursdays - Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m.

No performance on Thursday July 4; added performance on Wednesday July 10.

“Pick your Price: $15, $20, $25, $30

For reservations call 478-5282

Different Stages continues its 2012-2013 season with Emlyn William’s classic mystery Night Must Fall. In a bungalow in a forest in Essex lives Mrs. Bramson, a fussy hypochondriac. She pays her niece Olivia a small salary to act as her companion and the household also includes her cook, Mrs. Terence, and her maid Dora.


When Dora gets pregnant, Mrs. Bramson is determined to get the boyfriend to marry her. At the same time, a woman disappears from a nearby hotel. The police begin investigations and, when Dora brings home her boyfriend Dan, Olivia immediately notices that his behavior is not quite normal. He is perpetually putting on an act and soon he worms his way into the affections of Mrs. Bramson, leaves his job as pageboy at the hotel and moves in. Then the woman’s body is found – headless.....


Directed by Norman Blumensaadt, Night Must Fall features Ben McLemore as Dan, Mary Kennelly as Mrs. Bramson and Bethany Harbaugh as Olivia. The cook is Played by Paula Gilbert and the maid by Laura Artesi . Daniel Norton plays the police inspector and Jonathon Urso plays Olivia’s boyfriend

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Upcoming: Who's Got Your Back?, VSA Arts, April 30 - May 2

Found on-line:

VSA arts of Texas & Actual Lives Austin present

Who’s Got Your Back?

An all new show by Actual Lives Austin.

Friday, April 30 and Saturday, May 1 at 8 p.m.

Sunday, May 2 at 3 p.m.

ASL Interpreted, real time captioning, audio description

Dougherty Arts Center, 1110 Barton Springs Road

Tickets: Friday - $15 and $10 (Good Cripples Discount)

Saturday - $15 and $10 (Good Cripples Discount)

Sunday - Pay What You Wish

Whether you’re falling down, working, flirting, charting your spiritual journey or just plain trying to live your life, everybody needs someone who’ll be there. Don’t miss Actual Lives Austin’s latest creative collaboration between local guest director Paula Gilbert, script developer Chris Strickling, producer Celia Hughes, and a cast of 11 ordinary folks as they work hard to make you laugh and shake up worn out conceptions of disability without being inspirational.

Produced by Co-founder, Celia Hughes, VSA arts of Texas Executive Director.

Dr. Chris Strickling, Actual Lives Austin co-founder, joins guest director Paula Gilbert and a motley crew of adults with disability to give you a quick trip through the raw material of everyday life as we know it.

Actual Lives Austin: Creating theater from the raw material of everyday life.

Actual Lives Austin, as a flexible tool for developing autobiographical performance in a community theatre context, was the brainstorm of deaf performance artist Terry Galloway, who had used the page-to-stage format in various contexts since 1993. The Austin version of Actual Lives, which focused Galloway's model on disabled performers who created work about their lives, came to life through a tight collaboration between Galloway, writer and disability scholar Chris Strickling, and Celia Hughes, executive director of Access Arts Austin, a local non-profit organization dedicated to making arts accessible to people with disability (which later affiliated with VSA to become VSA arts of Texas).

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

An Inspector Calls, Different Stages at Vortex Repertory, July 3 - 25

Under the artistic direction of Norman Blumensaadt, Different Stages and its predecessor the Small Potatoes Theatre Company have furnished Austin Theatre with a considerable library of stage work. The back page of the program for An Inspector Calls lists 109 productions the company has brought to the boards since 1981.

Different Stages has given the city a good dose of the classics and a wide array of works from the British and European stages. The company has often reached back decades in the English-speaking repertoire to present twentieth century works unlikely to be offered by other enterprises in town. For example, their production last year of Shaw's Getting Married was a fine example of Blumensaadt's taste, dedication and success as a curator.

J.B. Priestly's An Inspector Calls was first performed in 1945. It recounts a story set in 1912 urban Britain. It's a moral fable with an intrigue that inexorably and progressively reveals the hypocrisy of each member and associate of a wealthy capitalist family. Priestly gives the story a twist of the supernatural, but it' essentially a piece preaching to the British middle class about the wickedness of earlier capitalist generations' exploitation of the poor.

The first two productions of An Inspector Calls were in Moscow. The 1946 London production featured Ralph Richardson as the ominous Inspector Goole, Margaret Leighton as ingenue Sheila Birling, and Alec Guiness as her brother Eric. Goole's berating of the non-aristocratic capitalists touched sensibilities in post-war Britain.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: An Inspector Calls, Different Stages at the Vortex, July 3 - 25

UPDATE: Click for ALT review



Received June 18:

Different Stages closes its 2008–2009 season with J.B. Priestley's haunting thriller

An Inspector Calls

Set in 1912 in Edwardian England, the story begins when a mysterious police Inspector calls unexpectedly on a prosperous family. Their peaceful dinner party is shattered by his investigation into the death of a young woman. Under the Inspector's relentless interrogation, secret after secret is revealed, leading to an unexpected and eerie conclusion.

Directed by Norman Blumensaadt (Getting Married), An Inspector Calls features Garry Peters (Molly Sweeney), as the inspector.

Sam Z. Damon (The Tempest) and Paula Gilbert (Suddenly Last Summer) play the industrialist and his wife. Nicole Swahn (Amadeus) and Andy Smith (Red Cans) play their daughter and son. Trey Deason (Faster than the Speed of Light) plays the daughter's fiancé.

Join us on July 4 for an ice and fire special – ice cream and sparklers!

EXTRA

Click here or on image below to view photos by Bret Brookshire