PETER PAN, THE MUSICAL, Georgetown Palace Theatre, November 15 - December 30, 2013

Peter Pan, The Musical, flies onto the Springer Memorial Stage of the Historic Palace Theatre in Georgetown from November 15 to December 30 for your holiday enjoyment! The charm of Sir J.M. Barrie’s 1904 play brings you that lovable creature, Peter Pan, along with Tinker Bell, the children (Wendy, Michael, and John), plus Indians and Pirates! Combine these delightful characters with show-stopping songs such as I Won’t Grow Up, I’m Flying, and Never Never Land, and you have a timeless classic that has become one of the world’s most celebrated musicals. (The music is mostly by Mark Charlap, with additional music by Jule Styne; and most of the lyrics were written by Carolyn Leigh, with additional lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green.) Seven weekends plus several December weeknight performances bring 25 opportunities to experience the joy of this musical adventure at Georgetown’s Historic Palace Theatre!

Ron Watson, on the Palace Staff as full-time Technical Director, brings his talent and experience to the table as Director of Peter Pan, The Musical, having directed (among many other successful musicals) The Wizard of Oz in 2011 and South Pacific in 2013. Jesee Smart, who also choreographed the great dance moves in the Palace’s South Pacific, brings her flair and expertise to the job of Choreographer for Peter Pan, The Musical. Vocal Director Michelle Hache excelled in the role of ‘Bloody Mary’ in South Pacific and is now a valued vocal instructor in the Palace’s Education Program. Rose Yurcina, most notably seen as ‘Dorothy’ in The Wizard of Oz at the Palace, is flying again as Peter Pan! Scott Shipman, ‘Mr. Trevor Graydon’ in the Palace’s Thoroughly Modern Millie, brings acting credits from Austin (Zach Theater and Austin Lyric Opera) as well as the Shakespeare Institute in England.

The Palace’s 2013-2014 All-Star Season has two very generous sponsors: HEB and the Texas Commission on the Arts. In addition, Landreth Construction, an experienced concrete contractor in Round Rock and the Austin area, is a significant sponsor of Peter Pan, The Musical.

All flying in the Palace production of Peter Pan, The Musical, is done with equipment and professional training from Hall Associates Flying Effects, whose standard is: “The primary principles of Safety, Innovation, and Collaboration are at the core of our mission. We provide whisper-quiet flying systems, which offer remarkable flexibility, the highest quality, and unparalleled safety at a reasonable cost.”

Peter Pan, The Musical plays at the Palace on weekends from November 15 to December 30, with some weeknight performances, as well. Actual production dates are November 15-17, 22-24, 29-December 1, December 6-8, 13-15, 19-23, and 26-30. Friday and Saturday shows, as well as weeknight performances, are at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday shows are at 2:00 p.m. Ticket prices are $26 General Admission, $24 Seniors (55+), $14 Students (10-22) and Active Military, and $10 Children (9 and younger). Rated for General Audiences

The Palace seats about 295, with reserved seating paid for in the ticket price. The Palace office in the lobby of the theatre is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. (except for some holiday dates). Purchase tickets and select seating on-line at www.georgetownpalace.com or by calling (512) 869-7469 or (512) 869-5081. (Please call ahead regarding special needs seating.) Visa, Master Card, and Discover Card are accepted. The Historic Palace Theatre is located at 810 South Austin Avenue in downtown Georgetown and is part of the most beautiful Town Square in Texas!

Tech Call: Georgetown Palace Crews, 2013-2014

Crew Call for the 2013-14 Palace Season 

We're looking for a bunch of awesome Ninjas to help crew the Palace shows this next season. We wanted to get the dates out there so everyone could plan ahead on which shows they'd like to work on. They're all going to be fun. Being a part of our ninja team is a blast. We hope you'll come join us. We backstage ninjas, Audio ninjas, Fly ninja, spot light wielding ninjas, Light board running Ninjas, and costume quick change specialist ninjas. The dates are listed below. Just let us know what shows you'd be interested in helping crew for by sending an email to ron@georgetownpalace.com, and we'll sign you up to reserve your spot.

Click to view complete list of all eight shows, tech dates, performances, stage managers and assistant stage managers

Cl

Seeking Stage Manager for 'The Music Man,' Georgetown Palace

From Ron Watson:

 






The Georgetown Palace Theatre is looking for a Non-Equity Stage Manager for its next production, The Music Man. There is compensation and you will have to complete a basic background check. Must have experience as a Stage Manager, running rehearsals and calling the show. Auditions are 7/27 through 7/30. Show opens Sept 27th, runs Thursday through Sunday for 5 weekends, 15 performances, closing October 27th. All rehearsals and performances are in Georgetown. Please let me know if you or anyone you know might be interested.

Opportunity: Tech Assistants and Scene Ninjas, Will Rogers Follies at Georgetown Palace Theatre

From Ron Watson at the Georgetown Palace:




We're looking for crew members for our production of Will Rogers Follies. This awesome show opens July 5th, and runs through August 4th, with 18 performances. We need a lots of help with lots of different positions, including a Spot smooth operator, and several Running Ninjas, light board operator, audio assistant (A2, who helps troubleshoot the wireless mics).

We also need a fly operator, for which we will pay a small stipend. We can work around conflicts, though it's important you attend as many of the tech rehearsals as possible, which begin on June 25th. This show will be amazing, and you will have lots of fun, and do some pretty cool stuff backstage. We can and will train you as well. So while experience is helpful, it isn't required. You'll also get 2 comp tickets as well.


Please contact Meredith, her email is mmconnely@gmail.com, if you are interested, or if you know friends or family who'd be interested. If you're interested in being the fly operator, please contact me, at ron@georgetownpalace.com.

Please forward to anyone you know who might be interested in helping.

Auditions in Georgetown for A Few Good Men by Aaron Sorkin, June 1 and 2, 2013

Announcing auditions June 1 and 2 at the Palace Theatre, 810 S. Austin Street, southwest of Georgetown Courthouse (click for map) for A Few Good Men by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Ron Watson. 

 Before it was a blockbuster movie with Cruise, Nicholson and Moore, this military courtroom drama, written by Academy Award Winner Aaron Sorkin, was a Broadway hit with Timothy Busfield in the role of Lt. Kaffee. Two Marines are on trial for the death of a third at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A young hot shot Navy lawyer can get a quick plea bargain with little jail time for his clients, but the case quickly becomes clouded with suicide, complicity and cover up leading all the way up the chain of command. The stakes are high and so are the courtroom fireworks.

All rehearsals and performances will be held at the Palace Theatre in Georgetown. The rehearsal schedule is likely to be Monday through Thursday from 7-10pm, and Saturdays, from 1-5pm. Rehearsals will probably not begin until 6/17, The show opens August 16th, and runs for 4 weekends, 12 performances. Friday and Saturday shows are at 7:30pm, and Sunday shows are at 2pm.

To audition, you will need to perform a memorized comedic or dramatic monologue, no more than 1-2 minutes in length. This can be from any play, musical, movie, book, or personal experience. Do not come unprepared or you will not be considered for a speaking role. Callbacks will be by invitation only, and consist of readings from the script.

To audition, please click the following link: Audition Times 
  The role breakdown is as follows:

Lt. j.g. Daniel A. Kaffee-(male 25-40). Young Navy lawyer with a reputation for a quick plea bargain. Very bright and well-educated; son of a legendary trial attorney and lawmaker.

Lt. Cmdr. Joanne Galloway: (female 24-40). Young Navy J.A.G. lawyer. Aggressive and assertive. By the book lawyer.

Lt. j.g. Sam Weinberg- (male 25-40). Defense Team. Kaffee's second chair for the murder trial, and a good friend. Much more of a straight shooter than Kaffee.

Lt. Col. Nathan Jessup: (male 30-45). USMC; a tough, bigoted Vietnam veteran. A career officer shaped by decades of cold-war politics. Stationed as Commanding Officer of the N. A.B. at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Youngest such C.O. in the Marines.

Lt. Jack Ross: (male 28-45). Marine prosecuting attorney. No nonsense lawyer with a keen political sense. Similar to Kaffee, he just doesn't have all the rule-breaking in him.

Lt. Jonathan James Kendrick- (male 28-45). Career marine. He only believes in 4 things: Unit, Corp, God, and Country. Cross Rev. Jim Baker or Billy Graham with an Army drill sergeant and you get Kendrick.

Pfc. Louden Downey: (male 21-30). Defendant. Not a real deep thinker. Downey usually follows Dawson's lead. He believes completely in the military ideals of honor and integrity. Follows orders.

Pfc. William T. Santiago: (male 21-30). Underachieving Marine that dies from the "Code Red" discipline applied by fellow Marines. Nice guy, buddies like him even though he's not cutting the mustard.

Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson: (male 21-35). Defendant. Downey's squad leader. Regular Marine, follows orders. Dawson is slightly faster on his feet than Downey, and tends to make decisions for both of them. The Corps is his life.

Capt. Matthew Markinson: (male 35-50). Career Marine. Solid officer, reports to a younger C.O. in Jessup and that rubs him a bit. Conscientious guy. Blames his own weakness for the loss of Santiago, and dishonoring himself and the Marine Corp publicly.

Cpl. Jeffrey Owen Howard: (male 24-45). Squad leader at Gitmo. Called as a witness in the trial.

Capt. Julius Alexander Randolph: (male 40-60). Judge for Downey and Dawson's trial.

Cmdr. (Dr.) Walter Stone: (male 35-60). Chief Medical Officer at Gitmo. Testifies at the trial.

Capt. Isaac Whittaker: (male 40-55). Kaffee and Sam's boss, heads up Navy Legal Department, and while he runs things by the book, he has a bit of an "old boy's club attitude". Career Navy lawyer.

Members of the Marine Corps Unit - These Marines form a tightly knit group who perform cadences between the scenes, demonstrating their precision in marching, and helping tell the story as it moves along. They will be a critical part of the production. Many of these will play other roles with lines as well.

South Pacific by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Georgetown Palace, February 22 - March 24, 2013

by Michael Meigs

The Georgetown Palace Theatre has done it again. The production of South Pacific playing weekends through March, 2013, is energetic, polished and entertaining, a celebration of the classic 1949 musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein. It’s a reminder that at mid-century American musical theatre pioneered new directions in entertainment for a public newly aware of the world beyond Main Street, USA.


With their first collaboration Oklahoma in 1943 Richard Rogers and Oscar Hammerstein II drew a symbolic picture of the home that Americans were then fighting a war for, including the banding together that excluded misfits such as poor Judd Fry. The post-World-War-II South Pacific, in contrast, is situated retrospectively at a low point in that conflict, showing sailors and Navy nurses sidelined in paradise, amusing themselves with shenanigans and camp entertainment while waiting to engage a distant and faceless enemy.

(photo: Andy Sharp)

It touches, although every so lightly, upon heartland Americans’ instinctive distrust of foreigners. The work conveys a message about bigotry and prejudice: “You've got to be taught/ Before it's too late/ Before you are six or seven or eight/ To hate all the people/your relatives hate;/ You've got to be carefully taught.” That thought is even more relevant seventy-plus years after it was first staged.


The musical numbers are stirring and delightful by turns. Many of them are still instantly recognizable from the opening chords of the live orchestra on an elevated platform hidden behind the backdrops: Some Enchanted Evening; I’m Going to Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair; Bali Hai; A Cockeyed Optimist; This Nearly Was Mine; and Younger than Springtime. The comic ensemble numbers are the carefree There Is Nothing Like A Dame and Honey Bun. Taken as a whole, the music of South Pacific constitutes in itself an extended chapter in the American songbook of popular music.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

ALT Video for Georgetown Palace's 'South Pacific': Interviews and Dress Rehearsal Scenes

AustinLiveTheatre interviews leads Christine O'Connor Jean-Jacques and Bob Beare and offers dress rehearsal scenes from the

 

presentation of

South Pacific

the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein

directed by Ron Watson with musical direction by Justin Langford and choreography by Jesse Smart

playing February 22 - March 24

Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.

Special Needs inclusion show on February 28; Saturday matinee at 2 p.m. on March 9

Georgetown Palace Theatre, 810 S. Austin Avenue, Georgetown, Texas

Ticket prices are $24 General Admission, $22 Seniors (55+), $14 Students (10-22) and Active Military, and $10 Children (9 and younger).  Select your tickets on-line at www.georgetownpalace.com.

Rated for General Audiences

SOUTH PACIFIC by Rodgers and Hammerstein, Georgetown Palace, February 22 - March 24, 2013

[810 S. Austin Street, Georgetown, Texas]

presents
South Pacific
the musical by Rodgers and Hammerstein
 directed by Ron Watson

February 22 - March 24
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.

Save the date for an enchanted evening (or afternoon) in Georgetown at The Historic Palace Theatre! South Pacific opens on February 22^nd for a five-weekend run on the Palace’s Springer Memorial Stage. The classic musical by Richard Rodgers, Oscar Hammerstein II, & Joshua Logan is set in an island paradise during World War II, with two parallel love stories threatened by the dangers of prejudice and war. Well-loved and remembered songs from the production include Some Enchanted Evening, There Is Nothing Like a Dame, Bali Ha’I, I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair, A Wonderful Guy, Younger Than Springtime, and You’ve Got to be Carefully Taught. Directed by Palace veteran Ron Watson, with music direction by the talented Justin Langford and choreography by Jesee Smart at her most creative, the stellar cast is in good hands.

South Pacific plays at the Palace on weekends from February 22 to March 24. Actual production dates are February 22-24 and March 1-3, 8-10, 15-17, and 22-24, with some added Saturday matinees a distinct possibility. Friday and Saturday shows are at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday shows are at 2:00 p.m. Ticket prices are $24 General Admission, $22 Seniors (55+), $14 Students (10-22) and Active Military, and $10 Children (9 and younger). 

 Rated for General Audiences 

The Palace seats about 295, with reserved seating paid for in the ticket price. The Palace office in the lobby of the theatre is open Monday through Friday from 10:00 a.m. until 4:00 p.m. (except for some holiday dates). Purchase tickets and select seating on-line at www.georgetownpalace.com or by calling (512) 869-7469 or (512) 869-5081. (Please call ahead regarding special needs seating.) Visa, Master Card, and Discover Card are accepted.

The Historic Palace Theatre is located at 810 South Austin Avenue in downtown Georgetown and is part of the most beautiful Town Square in Texas!


POSTER
(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Tech Crew Sought for 'South Pacific,' Georgetown Palace, February 22 - March 24, 2013

[810 S. Austin Street, Georgetown, Texas]

We're looking for crew members for our production of South Pacific. This amazing show opens February 22nd, and runs through March 24th, with 19 performances. We need a lots of help with lots of different positions. We can work around conflicts, though it's important you attend as many of the tech rehearsals as possible, which begin on February 6th. This show will be amazing, and you will have lots of fun. We can and will train you as well. So while experience is helpful, it isn't required. You'll also get 2 comp tickets as well.

Please contact Jessie, her email is jessie@georgetownpalace.com, if you are interested, or if you know friends or family who'd be interested.

Please forward to anyone you know who might be interested in helping. Thanks, Ron

Opportunity: Musical Director for Georgetown Palace Production of Miracle on 34th Street

Broadcast from Ron Watson:

The Georgetown Palace is looking for a Music Director for our Production of the Christmas musical, Miracle on 34th St. by Meredith Wilson. Based on the beloved classic movie, this show will be a lot of fun to work on. 

The Musical Director is primarily responsible for supporting and enhancing the Director's overall vision and concept of the Production by teaching the vocals to the cast . Being able to play the piano is a plus, but not required.

Auditions are September 22-24th, with callbacks on the 25th. Rehearsals begin shortly after that. It opens Dec 7th, and closes Dec 30th. All rehearsals and performances are in Georgetown. Must have experience teaching music to people of various ages and musical experience. This is a paid position. Please let me know if you or anyone you know might be interested.

Opportunity: Stage Manager (non-Equity) for Georgetown Palace Production of You Can't Do That, Dan Moody

A broadcast sent out by Ron Watson of the Georgetown Palace Theatre on July 23:

 

I'm looking for a Non-Equity Stage Manager for our Production of You can't Do that Dan Moody. Rehearsals start soon. It opens Sept 14th, and closes Sept 30th, 12 performances. All rehearsals and performances are in Georgetown. 

Must have experience as a Stage Manager. This is a paid position. 

Please let me know if you or anyone you know might be interested. 

Thanks, Ron

ron@georgetownpalace.com

[AustinLiveTheatre note: The production will be staged at the Williamson County Courthouse in Georgetown, in the courtroom where the events took place. This newest staging will feature video projections. Click for the ALT review of the 2009 staging in the same location, with images]

Singing in the Rain, Georgetown Palace Theatre, February 24 - March 25

by Michael Meigs

Gotta sing! Gotta dance!

Those could be the rallying cries for the Georgetown Palace Theatre. Under the years of Mary Ellen Butler's artistic direction, this community institution in the elegantly refurbished movie house off the courthouse square sees very little down time, given its eight-show season and its classes for adults and for young people. The staff and the unpaid actors and tech folk send familiar musicals and plays, down the chutes one after another to their loyal and enthusiastic weekend audiences.

Singing in the Rain, the 1952 musical film from MGM, has been an enduring success, a work that was one of the last and finest examples of the the American film studio tradition of musical cinema. That art form originated with Al Jolson's The Jazz Singer, the very first nationally distributed "talkie," flourished through the 1930's and 1940's with Arthur Freed, Vincente Minelli and others, and then died away in the mid-1950's. Just as the talkies had put an end to vaudeville, the new medium of television drained away much of the audience for studio musicals. The standardization of network broadcasting in full color was a factor in families' decisions to stay home in the living room almost every weekend rather than to attend movie houses such as the Georgetown Palace. Hollywood continued to produce musical films but they were expensive spectaculars such as West Side Story or adaptations of Broadway shows such as The Sound of Music. Almost none had the assembly line directness and simplicity of the Gene Kelly - Debbie Reynolds - Donald O'Connor vehicle.

In 1974 Tinseltown put together the nostalgic anthology film That's Entertainment, a low-cost assemblage from the MGM library directed by Jack Haley, Jr., featuring narration by recognizable ageing stars including Astaire, Kelly and Bing Crosby. It was such a success that the studio got Kelly to direct and narrate That's Entertainment II just two years later. By that time a more truthful title might have been That Was Entertainment.

So it's a special pleasure to see this accomplished live theatre production of Singing in the Rain take place at the re-glorified palace where it surely must have played 60 years ago. And to be entertained within it by Rich Simms' full-screen video re-creation of a 1920's swashbuckling black-and-white silent film in the best wild old style.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Cabaret, Georgetown Palace Theatre, May 13 - June 12

Received directly:

presents

Cabaret

the musical by John Kander and Fred Ebb

May 13 - June 12

Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.

The Georgetown Palace Theatre

810 South Austin Avenue, Georgetown (click for map)

Ticket prices are $24 General Admission, $22 Seniors (55+), $14 Students (13-22) and Active Military, and $10 Children (12 and younger). Contains Mild Profanity, Sexual Content, and Adult Themes

Welcome to the Kit Kat Klub! For this production only, Row AA has been removed and Row A has been fitted with special cabaret tables for two! For ticket price plus $10 per seat, this includes being seated by a cast member, complimentary refreshments to enhance your Kit Kat Klub experience. Only 6 tables per show. To order simply click on an open seat on Row A. We will seat only adults, 21 and over, in these special seats.

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Scrooge, The Musical, by Leslie Bricusse, Georgetown Palace Theatre, November 19 - December 30

The Palace has once again put a gigantic effort into the casting, preparation and playing of its holiday musical. As with Annie last year , Scrooge the Musical by Leslie Bricusse has a big cast -- 24 bio'd players plus 23 charmers in the three children's casts (designated Nickleby, Copperfield and Pickwick, recalling characters from Dickens). Except for six principals, the roles are double- or triple-cast, a policy of sharing out that must have made coordination of the 26 performances akin to writing up a railway timetable. Plus there's a live five-musician orchestra playing somewhere backstage.

Director Ron Watson cast some of my favorites -- the engaging and talented Joe Penrod as Scrooge; Justin Langford doubling as both young Ebenezer and as Scrooge's nephew; and Dale Schultz as the roundly epicurean Ghost of Christmas Past. These three played together in Watson's staging of Man of La Mancha on the same stage just over a year ago, and the most moving sequence in Scrooge the Musical features them. Penrod the baritone sings about Happiness and Langford the tenor replies; shortly afterward, Schultz the bass adds his reflections.

The audience had a fine time, and inevitably they rose to applaud when Penrod appeared at the curtain call.

From me, a couple of words for Leslie Bricusse, composer & librettist of this 1992 musicale, adapted from the 1970 Albert Finney film that Bricusse scored (and for which he won an Academy award):

Bah. Humbug.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Scrooge, The Musical by Leslie Bricusse, Georgetown Palace Theatre, November 19 - December 30

Found on-line:

The Georgetown Palace Theatre presents

Scrooge, the Musical

Music and lyrics by Leslie Bricusse

Directed by Ron Watson

Choreography by Jill Schneider

Musical Direction by Nissa Kahle

November 19 – December 30 at the Georgetown Palace Theatre

Scrooge: The Musical is a 1992 stage musical adapted from the 1970 film Scrooge starring Albert Finney. Bricusse won an Academy Award for the song score he wrote for the film, and most of those songs were carried over to the musical.

The musical and film are both adaptations of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol in which Ebenezer Scrooge undergoes a profound experience of redemption over the course of a Christmas Eve night by being visited by Jacob Marley and the other three ghosts.

Performances are Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30pm, and Sundays at 2pm, with weekday shows at 7:30 PM on Dec. 9, 15-16, 21-23 & 27-30 and a matinee on Saturday, Dec 18th at 2pm. There will be no performances on Dec 24th or 25th, but we will have a matinee on Dec 26th.

Man of La Mancha, Georgetown Palace, October 2 - November 1

The Georgetown Palace production of Man of La Mancha starts out moody, atmospheric and harsh, and it comes surging beautifully through that dark, difficult second act.

The Inquisition is awaiting in the darkness above, and Cervantes is storytelling to save his life and possessions from the thieves and murderers who surround him. In Cervantes' fantastical tale of the deranged Alonso Quijana, that Knight of the Woeful Countenance has lost it. The knight's beloved Dulcinea--Aldonza the prostitute and scullery maid--has been gang raped, and he doesn't know it.

Dulcinea curses Quijana for his foolishness and his misguided belief that life contains any hope at all.

Then, in the filth and stink both of the prison before us and of the misadventures of his quest, Joe Penrod as Cervantes/Quijana/Quijote replies with The Impossible Dream:

To dream the impossible dream;
To fight the unbeatable foe;
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go.

To right the unrightable wrong;
To be better far than you are;
To try when your arms are too weary
To reach the unreachable star . . . .

It's an exalting and inspired moment, one that squeezes the heart and puts into you the dizzy hope of beauty, meaning and peace.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

The Odd Couple, Georgetown Palace Theatre, June 12 - July 5

Touchstone themes for the Georgetown Palace Theatre are "fun" and "familiar." Probably the most affectionately remembered piece of Neil Simon's 40-year career, The Odd Couple fits both themes exactly.

Slobby Oscar Madison and meticulous Felix Ungar are seated firmly in the American consciousness. Simon's play opened on Broadway in 1965 and appeared as a film in 1968. It ran for five years as a television show, 1970-1975. ABC cancelled it at the end of every season but then brought it back because of the high Nielsen ratings for the summer reruns. Simon rewrote the play for a female cast in 1985 and in 2004 he produced an updated version, Oscar and Felix: A New Look at the Odd Couple.

The Georgetown version is the original script, set in the mid-60s. You can tell that immediately when the guys talk about prices. A New York cab ride is $1.30. A pack of cigarettes is 38 cents. The butcher's bill for London broil for four persons is $9.64. And Felix's half of the monthly rent for the eight-room apartment in metropolitan New York City is $120 (rent-controlled, for sure, but still!).

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Grease, Georgetown Palace Theatre, March 20 - April 19

The Georgetown Palace Theatre is back to doing what they do best -- a rollicking big musical comedy with lots of dance,sparkling with a glitzy coating of happy nostalgia. Grease is no trail breaker, but it's for sure an entertainment where the whole family can kick back and enjoy. With the bonus that they'll learn that live theatre is so much more than the talking pictures from the 1978 movie with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John.

Everybody's doing it. The Texas School for the Deaf puts on a version tonight and tomorrow, with the interesting twist that the the interpreters for the audience will be speaking, not signing. Tex-Arts is running a June theatre camp for youth that will culminate in performances of the show.



The Palace does the theatrical version of Grease, which originated in Chicago in 1971 and went on to Broadway. There's music not included in the movie version, but the story's generally the same: after a summer romance, sweet Sandy and greaser guy Danny encounter one another unexpectedly at their urban high school, with all sorts of social pressures from the Pink Girls clique and the guys' T-Birds gang (a pretty innocent group of gawkers, closer to the then-contemporary "Happy Days" TV show than to the gangs in West Side Story).

Scenes take place in the school cafeteria, at a slumber party, around a hot rod, in the burger palace, at the gym dance, at the drive-in movie, and at a party. No studying for these kids! Teachers are goofs and the class brain is, in today's terms, a nerd. But who cares? What's important is hormones, acting out, having a good time, and getting the chance to dance, dance, dance!

Read More at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .