THE THREEPENNY OPERA by Brecht and Weil, Playhouse Smithville, May 24 - June 9, 2013

(Playhouse Smithville, 110 Main St., Smithville)

presents

The Three Penny Opera

a musical

directed by john daniels, jr.

starring Matthew Torrez as Mack the Knife

book by Bertolt Brecht/Music by Kurt Weill

May 24 - June 8, 2013

Join the Playhouse Smithville cast for this classic musical. This is a world in which capitalism fosters greed, love doesn’t last, and double dealing is the golden rule while celebrating sinners for their inextinguishable life-force and the pure energy that radiates from their misconduct. They are bad-bad-bad and they make the best of it. A romantic comedy that is fun like none other with music like none other directed by john daniels, jr. (sic) like none other.

All this and Mac the Knife too… “Oh, the shark bites with its tooth dear and he keeps them pearly white…”

Opens Friday, May 24, 7:30pm. Show runs May 24, 25, 30, 31, June 1, 7, 8 (7:30pm).

Tickets are $15.00 at http://www.playhousesmithville.com/ or call 512-360-7397 for reservations.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

The Threepenny Opera by Brecht & Weill, University of Texas, February 18 - 27

UT's The Threepenny Opera is an astonishing production, of such quality and depth that it deserved to run for months. But the Oscar Brockett Theatre seats only about 200 and there were only seven performances.

I organized a group of 16 to attend the first Saturday performance, and they walked away bedazzled. You can pity that one prospective group member who decided not to take up the offer because, he said, he's "allergic to opera."

A parenthetical rant: You can't buy this kind of performance on the open market, because it would have to go into a far larger hall to have even the remotest possibility of contributing to the overhead.

Never mind that this cast of 22 and musical ensemble of 7 are almost all students, performing for free and working with UT grad students and faculty. Instead, admire the fact that they're paying tuition so they can get up there and amaze you.

Given the size of the university and the theatre department, you can explain some of the quality by simple Darwinian selection. Plus the fact that UT, in fashion similar to Texas State, has ploughed resources into a new musical theatre program.

The back page of the program lists 180 names -- 180! -- of secondary-level crew members, in 70 specialties.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: The Threepenny Opera by Brecht and Weill, University of Texas, February 18 - 27

Found on-line:

The University of Texas Department of Drama and Dance presents

a play with music after John Gay's The Beggar Opera, in Three Acts
Music by Kurt Weill German translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann; adaptation and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
English translation of the dialog by Robert MacDonlad
English translation of the lyrics by Jeremy Sams
Directed by Halena Kays
Music Directed by Lyn Koenning

February 18,19, 24, 25, 26 at 8:00 p.m. - February 20, 27 at 2:00 p.m.

Oscar G. Brockett Theatre, Winship Drama bldg, near 23rd & San Jacinto
Tickets from UT performing arts: $20/$17/$15

A milestone of 20th century musical theater, The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) rolls on unstoppably into the 21st. In their opera “by and for beggars,“ composer Kurt Weill (1900–1950) and playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) transformed saccharine, old-fashioned opera and operetta forms, incorporating a sharp political perspective and the sound of 1920s Berlin dance bands and cabaret. Weill's acid harmonies and Brecht's biting texts created a revolutionary new musical theater that inspired such subsequent hits as Cabaret, Chicago, and Urinetown. The show's opening number, “Mack the Knife,” became one of the top popular songs of the century.

Upcoming: The Threepenny Opera by Brecht and Weill, University of Texas, February 18 - 27

Found on-line:

The University of Texas Department of Drama and Dance presents

a play with music after John Gay's The Beggar Opera, in Three Acts
Music by Kurt Weill German translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann; adaptation and lyrics by Bertolt Brecht
English translation of the dialog by Robert MacDonlad
English translation of the lyrics by Jeremy Sams
Directed by Halena Kays
Music Directed by Lyn Koenning

February 18,19, 24, 25, 26 at 8:00 p.m. - February 20, 27 at 2:00 p.m.

Oscar G. Brockett Theatre, Winship Drama bldg, near 23rd & San Jacinto
Tickets from UT performing arts: $20/$17/$15

A milestone of 20th century musical theater, The Threepenny Opera (Die Dreigroschenoper) rolls on unstoppably into the 21st. In their opera “by and for beggars,“ composer Kurt Weill (1900–1950) and playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956) transformed saccharine, old-fashioned opera and operetta forms, incorporating a sharp political perspective and the sound of 1920s Berlin dance bands and cabaret. Weill's acid harmonies and Brecht's biting texts created a revolutionary new musical theater that inspired such subsequent hits as Cabaret, Chicago, and Urinetown. The show's opening number, “Mack the Knife,” became one of the top popular songs of the century.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .