Ongoing: Always, Patsy Cline with Selena Rosanbalm, Tex-Arts, Lakeway, October 15 - 31

Received directly from Tex-Arts, Lakeway:

"ALWAYS... PATSY CLINE"

IS BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND - OCT. 15 - OCT. 31
KAM and JAMES MORRIS THEATER, Lakeway

ONE OF THE GREAT VOICES OF AMERICAN MUSIC COMES TO LIFE in Ted Swindley's celebrated musical, "Always... Patsy Cline" at the Kam and James Morris Theater at TexARTS' Studios in Lakeway! Performances: October 15-17, Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm; Sunday at 2:00pm. October 21-24 and 28-31, Thursday – Saturday at 7:30pm; Sunday at 2:00pm and 7:00pm.

The story recounts the friendship that formed between Patsy and one of her greatest fans, Louise Seger - a true Texas housewife whose memory of their meeting and letters exchanged rekindles an era and a voice that changed country music forever. TexARTS first presented the show in October, 2008 to sold-out houses, garnering critical acclaim. Due to overwhelming interest, audiences will have another chance to catch a performance during its upcoming three-week run.

A TRULY TALENTED DISCOVERY IS TEXARTS "PATSY" STAR SELENA ROSANBALM, who will sing much of the music that made Patsy Cline the legend that she was, and which is entwined throughout the show. Rosanbalm, originally of the Capital Lakes Region, studied vocal performance at Oklahoma City University and has performed on several stages throughout the Austin region, including the role of "Mary Jane Wilkes" in TexARTS' Paramount Theater production of "Big River," as well as productions for Zachary Scott Theatre and Zilker Productions. "There is an aching, real quality to her voice that is hauntingly reminiscent - nearly dead-on - with the legendary Cline." states TexARTS’ Co-Founder, Todd Dellinger.

AUSTIN VETERAN ACTRESS & SINGER EDIE ELKJER stars as Louise Seger, the real-life friend and pen-pal of Patsy, whose recollections and letters form the basis of this stage piece. Elkjer has performed on several stages in Austin, including Arts on Real, in their production of "Sordid Lives" and as a founding member of "Take Five".

TEXARTS PRODUCES TOP QUALITY PROFESSIONAL THEATRE using union performers from New York, Los Angeles and throughout the region to give audiences inspiring, entertaining and memorable theatrical experiences. Prior productions have included “The Music Man” with three-time Tony nominee Rebecca Luker and “Carousel” with Patrick Cassidy. The acclaimed “Off Broadway Series” at TexARTS’ Kam & James Morris Theater in Lakeway has delighted audiences and drawn critical acclaim, establishing the Capital Lakes Region as a center for great professional theater. In addition to its professional series, TexARTS also produces student performances ranging from the "Great Shakes" classical teen repertory theatre to the Youth Ballet production of "The Nutcracker" and hosts a multitude of classes for ages two through adult, from acting to ballet to ballroom and visual art at its Lakeway location.

For ticket reservations, please visit the TexARTS website at www.tex-arts.org or call 512-852-9079 x101.

In Case You Missed Her: ALT's 2008 Review of Selena Rosanbalm as Patsy Cline, Tex-Arts, brought back October 15 - 31

ALT is pleased to recommend Tex-Arts' revival of Always, Patsy Cline, bringing back Selena Rosanbalm and Edie Elkjer. Here's the 2008 review published by AustinLiveTheatre:

Selena Rosanbalm is a great big bundle of vocal talent.

She delivered again and again in the TexArts’ production of Always, Patsy Cline, blending with our memories of Patsy’s joy, melancholy, honky-tonk and hokum from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

That was the time when that plucky little singer with the vibrant voice traveled from town to dusty town, earning her coins with a different band every night instead of staying in Nashville and watching the royalties roll in.

I recognized almost every one of the 27 numbers done by Rosanbalm in this two-hour compendium. They were part of the sound track of growing up in the South at that time. Patsy and Loretta and Brenda Lee and, soon after, Dolly came through the WGN/Nashville/Grand Ole Opery circuit and their catchy melodies and simple lyrics of their hits were anthems of a simpler time. That happy nostalgia is part of the reason this show works so well.

Click to read the rest of the review at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Review: I'll Be Seeing You, Tex-Arts, December 5 - 21

From Barry Pineo's review in the Austin Chronicle of December 12:

". . . the show is about the music, not the narrative, and in this, the production almost always excels. Leslie Hollingsworth, Kelly Khun, and Selena Rosanbalm take the roof off right at the beginning, performing multiple Andrews Sisters songs, and each contributes worthy solos later on. And Andrew Cannata sings "I'll Be Home for Christmas" as if it were written just for him. But as impressive as the music is, the single most impressive part of the show is when four couples dance to "In the Mood" on the tiny stage of the Kam and James Morris Theatre. Swooping and twirling and tossing each other with abandon, Lewis and Alison Spell create as thrilling and entertaining a dance as I've ever seen in a theatre."

Click for full review.

Click for Tex-Arts' ticket form (tickets are $22 - $48)

Upcoming: I'll Be Seeing You, TexArts Lakeway, December 5 - 13

Received on October 13:

"I'LL BE SEEING YOU... A 1940's Christmas Musical Revue" will delight audiences by intertwining actual letters to & from the homefront during WWII with popular holiday and other tunes of the era, sparkley dance numbers & songs including "Santa Baby;" "I'll Be Home for Christmas;" "White Christmas;" "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" and more.

A show that will warm the heart this holiday season! Don't miss this all singing all dancing production. Featuring Selena Rosanbalm from TexARTS' production of Always... Patsy Cline and Robin Lewis from Broadway's Fosse and The Producers.

Great fun for the whole family - sure to become a new family tradition!

"I'll Be Seeing You" comes to TexARTS' new Kam and James Morris Theater at TexARTS Keller Williams Studios - 2300 Lohman's Spur.

Choreography from Broadway professional Robin Lewis, professional direction, musical direction and performances, as well as participation by TexARTS youth add to the holiday warmth and wonder of this wonderful, heartwarming show!

Always, Patsy Cline, TexArts, Lakeway September 26 - October 12

Selena Rosanbalm is a great big bundle of vocal talent.

She delivered again and again in the TexArts’ production of Always, Patsy Cline, blending with our memories of Patsy’s joy, melancholy, honky-tonk and hokum from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

That was the time when that plucky little singer with the vibrant voice traveled from town to dusty town, earning her coins with a different band every night instead of staying in Nashville and watching the royalties roll in.

I recognized almost every one of the 27 numbers done by Rosanbalm in this two-hour compendium. They were part of the sound track of growing up in the South at that time. Patsy and Loretta and Brenda Lee and, soon after, Dolly came through the WGN/Nashville/Grand Ole Opery circuit and their catchy melodies and simple lyrics of their hits were anthems of a simpler time. That happy nostalgia is part of the reason this show works so well.

Tex-Arts co-founder Todd Dellinger was visibly delighted last Thursday night to see that positive reviews and word-of-mouth had filled the house. The show was closing its three-weekend run on Sunday; the Friday performance was already sold out. Few tickets were left for the last performances.

So if you missed it, well, you missed it. But now at least we know that TexArts is for real and this is homegrown talent. Both Selena Rosanbalm as Patsy and Edie Elkjer as the star-bedazzled Louise are from Austin, as are the sidemen, most of whom have been working in Austin music for 20 to 30 years.

I had delayed on this one because TexArts had labeled it as the first of the “TexARTS Off Broadway Series.” I’d thought that meant a touring company, come to perch out in Lakeway before moving on.


The mostly middle-aged crowd had a terrific time and gave themselves entirely to the calculated crowd-pleasing antics of country music. We clapped along in time to the lively numbers and admired Patsy’s cowgirl schtik and her glitter dress. We reached out to her in her pink cotton two-piece traveling suit and smiled when she put an apron over it to hang out late night in Louise’s kitchen. We giggled when hoedown-loving Louise pulled senior gentlemen out into the playing space to accompany her in awkward or accomplished Western swing. And we ate it up when they teased us at the curtain call, to spin out another rousing farewell encore.

That’s the message: I really enjoyed this entertainment. I would happily go again to hear Selena Rosanbalm front the fictitious “Bodacious Bobs.” I would go to see Edie Elkjer charm the bourgeois again with her energetically hokey dumb-country-broad-with-a-heart-of-gold number.

But what an odd structure this entertainment had. It is based, however tenuously, on a real relationship.

Cornpone Louise in this show is an embellished version of Mississippi native Louise Seger, who met Cline in Houston in 1961. She tells us about hearing Cline on Arthur Godfrey’s televised talent competition and falling so hard for that voice and music that her daily, even hourly requests to the local radio station for Cline music made her a familiar pest. When Cline comes to Houston for one night of singing at a honky tonk, brazen Louise drags hubby and boss to the locale hours ahead of time, befriends the unpretentious Patsy and has the equivalent of a one-night-stand that becomes a long-running correspondence.

In all innocence and with not a bit of sexuality – but the story presented here is part romantic attachment, part hagiography.

As we all know – or if not, learn in the second act – Patsy Cline died in the 1963 crash near Nashville of a small plane.

Always, Patsy Cline is not a biography. That’s not for lack of material. Cline was a spunky, feisty pioneer in country music and cross-over pop, as is made clear by the lengthy biography at Wikipedia.

She had romances, infidelities and broken hearts; she had two near-fatal accidents and premonitions of death. At first she absolutely hated Willy Nelson’s “Crazy,” which in a modified version became her breakthrough and huge cross-over hit.

She called her friends “hoss” and referred to herself as “the Cline.” She battled with promoters and won. She was generous to a fault (her friend and honky tonk accompanist Del Wood commented, "Even when she didn't have it, she'd spend it — and not always on herself. She'd give anyone the skirt off her backside if they needed it.").

Patsy Cline broke the mold for country stardom and her career was slowed up only temporarily by her death. She was the first woman singer inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame (in 1973); post-mortem releases and recompilations of her music over decades were highly successful. In 1992 she appeared on a U.S. postage stamp. She got her own star on Hollywood Boulevard in 1998. Every poll or survey puts her among the top country singers of all time.

But we get very little of that, other than a passing reference to her rural Virginia origins and her desire to get back to her young children.

Instead, playwright Ted Swindley weaves two very different strands for this presentation. The manic Louise provides the narrative and the jokes. She is a clown of little insight, one who evokes hilarity by making fun of herself, her hubby, and her boss, but never of Patsy. Edie Elkjer has great fun with the role.

And Patsy sings. She walks through a few scenes, interacting minimally with Louise, and during her number she carries on patter with her public or the band.

Rosanbalm is perky, confident and attractive, but doesn’t really have to act.

After all, who would require an angel to act?

Jeanne Claire van Ryzin's review in the Statesman, October 1

Barry Pineo's review in the Austin Chronicle, October 10

Robert Faires’ backgrounder on TexArts, Austin Chronicle of September 28


PATSY CLINE ON YOUTUBE

Walking After Midnight (bw from TV, Patsy in spotlight)


Walking After Midnight (with slideshow)

Crazy (bw from TV)

Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray, intro by Red Foley, bw from TV in a studio set for a café

k.d. lang doing Three Cigarettes in an Ashtray, bootleg video, June 2007