MAN OF LA MANCHA, Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, September 6 - October 6, 2013

[Austin Playhouse, temporary facility at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd - click for map]

presents

 

by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion and Mitch Leigh
directed by Don Toner musical direction by Michael McKelvey

September 6 – October 6, 2013, Thursdays–Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 5 p.m.

Austin Playhouse at Highland Mall, 6001 Airport Blvd., Austin, TX 78752 - click for map
WEB: www.austinplayhouse.com

TICKETS: $34 Thursday/Friday, $36 Saturday/Sunday, $38 Opening Night with champagne reception: Friday, September 6, 2013 All student tickets are half-price. $3 discount for Seniors 65 and up.

BOX OFFICE: 512.476.0084 or online www.austinplayhouse.com
Winner of five Tony Awards including that for Best Musical, Man of La Mancha has enchanted audiences for decades with the lyrical adventure of Don Quixote de la Mancha. Set during the Spanish Inquisition, Miguel Cervantes, writer and tax collector, is imprisoned for foreclosing on a church. In order to win favor with his fellow prisoners he tells the tale of Don Quixote, a would-be knight who sees only goodness in a world of darkness and despair. The musical shifts from the prison’s bleak reality to Quixote’s idealized world with prisoners becoming characters in Quixote’s story. Featuring a breathtaking score including “The Impossible Dream,” “Dulcinea,” and the title song, Man of La Mancha is powerful American musical theatre at its best.

Starring Rick Roemer as Cervantes/Quixote, Jacob Trussell as his manservant/Sancho Panza, Boni Hester as Aldonza (Dulcinea), Huck Huckaby as the Governor/Innkeeper, Ben Wolfe as the Duke/Dr. Carrasco, Josh Wechsler as the Padre, Wendy Zavaleta as the Housekeeper, Claire Grasso as Antonia, Brian Coughlin as Pedro, and Leslie Hethcox as the Barber, with Kimberly Barrow, Ann Richards, Stephen Mercantel, Paul Koudouris, Glenn DeVar, Brian Losoya, and Patrick Crowley.

Direction by Don Toner, musical direction by Michael McKelvey, choreography by Lisa del Rosario, costume design by Jessica Colley-Mitchell, set design by Don Toner and Patrick Crowley, lighting design by Don Day, and sound design by Joel Mercado-See.

Man of La Mancha will be produced in Austin Playhouse's temporary space at Highland Mall. The South Entrance (by the IBC bank) is closest to the theatre. Proceed down the escalator and turn right. Austin Playhouse will be on your right by the water feature. Detailed directions are available on our website: http://austinplayhouse.com/season/tempfac.html


Austin Playhouse 2013-2014 Season
Our Season opens with Man of La Mancha by Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion, & Mitch Leigh, running September 6 - October 6, 2013, followed by the murder-mystery And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie, November 22 - December 22, 2013, a new adaptation of Corneille’s 17th century farce The Liar by David Ives, February 7 - March 9, 2014, the world premiere of Roaring by Cyndi Williams, April 4 - May 4, 2014, and a TBA, May 23 - June 22, 2014.

In addition to our five-play season, Austin Playhouse will produce the popular comedy The Dead Presidents’ Club by Larry L. King, October 18 – November 3, 2013, and the provocative recent Broadway hit Venus in Fur by David Ives, January 3 – 26, 2013.

Austin Playhouse is a professional theatre currently performing its 13th season. Under the leadership of Producing Artistic Director Don Toner and Artistic Director Lara Toner Haddock, Austin Playhouse has grown from a three-play season on the campus of Concordia University, to a year-round operation producing an average of eight plays a year. Austin Playhouse is currently building its own two-performance venue space in the heart of the new Mueller Redevelopment Town Center, adjacent to the new Austin Children’s Museum.

(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

Rumors by Neil Simon, City Theatre, September 29 - October 23

The greater Austin area hasn't lacked for productions of this 1988 farce by Neil Simon. A search of AustinLiveTheatre brings back announcements of stagings by the Wimberley Players in September, 2009, by the Renaissance Guild in San Antonio in July, 2010, by Leander's Way Off Broadway Community Players in January of this year and even by UT's student-run Broccoli Project last March. That sequence resembles the systematic trial-and-error of artillery ranging, back and forth, close and far, until once all the coordinates are set, BAM! the shot goes home. Home, in this case, being the City Theatre, one of Austin's liveliest and most entertaining theatre venues.

Simon was one of the twentieth century's most prolific writers for stage, big screen and small screen. The Internet Movie Data Base lists 83 titles associated with him and its short title for his entry tabs him as the writer of The Odd Couple (1968). Rumors is nowhere in that list, probably because its premise, timing and humor are pure stagecraft. The audience witnesses the arrival of various couples in evening dress, one after another, all invited to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their friend and associate, Charlie Brock, Deputy Mayor of New York, and his wife Myra. Problem: the kitchen staff is missing, the food hasn't been prepared, Myra has disappeared, and their friend Charlie is in a daze, having fired a pistol shot that took off his own earlobe.

They're trapped in a situation that surpasses their understanding. Equally baffled by these circumstances and equally confined in this box set, we watch each couple squirm, panic, bicker and try to cover up as others arrive. Simon paces the arrivals and discoveries, and all we learn of Charlie is third hand -- he's confused, he's crying, he's taking Valium, he's sleeping, he's unavailable to answer when the police come calling to inquire about a car accident, a car theft, and the reports of two shots in the night.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Early Girl by Carolyn Kava, Paladin Theatre at Salvage Vanguard Theatre, July 29 - August 22

Charlie Stites is a big guy with a big heart whose most recent stage outings have been as braggarts and sexual boasters. He counters that image somewhat with his intent to right the acting balance between the sexes by staging this drama by actress Carolyn Kava, done to respectful New York reviews in the mid-1980s.

Stites writes in the program that he was struck "by the dearth of interesting parts available for [women]," making "the ladies of Austin theatre. . . an underused resource."

Without judging that declaration, I can confirm that he and his Paladin Theatre did recruit a houseful of sensitive and impressive female actors for Early Girl. Some I had seen before -- Wendy Zavaleta in striking roles in musical theatre, Molly Karrasch at the Austin Playhouse in several roles, including a superb turn as Rita in Educating Rita, and Karen Alvarado in well defined, deft portrayals with Teatro Vivo. Lindsley Howard is new to me but will become much more familiar to our Austin audiences next month when she plays Miranda, the romantic lead in Austin Shakespeare's The Tempest. Keylee Paige Koop, Ashley Rae Spillers (with that striking red flower in her hair) and Rose Fredson also absorbed their characters and interpreted them decisively. Maybe Charlie has a point; with wealth of femininity such as this, we may be missing something on the feminine side in Austin theatre.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Images by Kimberley Mead: Early Girl, Paladin Theatre at Salvage Vanguard, July 29 - August 22

Images by Kimberley Mead for

Early Girl

A drama by Caroline Kava

Paladin Theatre Company

directed by Charles P. Stites

July 29 to August 22, Thursdays through Sundays
8:00 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays, and 5:30 p.m. on Sundays
Tickets: $15.00 on Thursdays and $20.00 on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays
Performances will be held at Salvage Vanguard Theater, 2803 Manor Rd.

E-mail: info@paladintheatrecompany.comThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Website: www.paladintheatrecompany.com

For Tickets and Information: AusTIX at 474-TIXS (8497) or online at www.NowPlayingAustin.com/Austix

Early Girl features the talents of WENDY ZAVALETA and KEYLEE PAIGE KOOP, as well as KAREN ALVARADO, ROSE FREDSON, ASHLEY SPILLERS, LINDSLEY HOWARD, with special guest MOLLY KARRASCH as "SALLY."

"Early Girl is a fascinating look behind the scenes at a brothel - the passions, the rivalries, the jealousies, and the frustrated ambitions. Each woman has a unique story to tell: one is looking for her future; one is burying her past; one woman is looking for love; another is seeking a home; one is searching for a revelation; and Lana, the madam and master manipulator, pulls the strings for each of the ladies in the house. Early Girl allows the audience to see how the prostitutes in Lana’s house interact with each other, and how each woman deals with the toll the profession takes on them. It’s a funny, sexy, honest, and powerful play."

(CAUTION: This play contains nudity.)

Click to view additional images by Kimberley Mead.

A Little Night Music, Georgetown Palace Theatre, February 19 - March 14

A Little Night Music at the Georgetown Palace theatre is a giddy delight. Stephen Sondheim’s elegant fable has the magic of a midsummer night in far northern Sweden. The sun never fully disappears, time is in suspension and the world hums with yearning and expectation.

In this gentle world of lovers and fools the story is attractively simple . Sondheim’s music and lyrics lift in subtle fashion the sentimental dilemmas of the cast of vivid, idle upper class characters, transmuting a Feydeau-style farce into something far more touching and poignant.

On opening night Palace Artistic Director Mary Ellen Butler reminded us that for this 1973 piece Sondheim and librettist Hugh Wheeler had been inspired by Ingmar Bergman’s 1955 film Smiles of A Summer Night. Bergman attended and appreciated the musical but commented simply, “These are not my characters.”

Perhaps that’s just as well, for there's little of Bergman's darkness about this glittering tale. These elegant people are all fools for love, each in his or her fashion. Central to the story are a married pair: Frederik Egerman, a gentleman of middle age and considerable gravitas, and his blonde 18-year-old Anne, a breathless young thing who might more properly be his ward than his wife. Alas for Frederik, his young bride is skittish of the pleasures of the flesh. In their 18 months of marriage she has never admitted him to her bed.

Ah, the flesh, its delights and temptations, and the keen edge of time! Love in a summer night “smiles three times,” we hear from the elderly grande dame Mme Armfeldt. A Little Night Music accordingly gives us the innocent intensity of ardent youth, the knowledgeable longing of middle age and the wry wisdom of age.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .

Upcoming: A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim, Georgetown Palace, February 19 - March 14

UPDATE: KOOP's Lisa Schepps interviews director Cliff Butler, leading actors Joe Penrod and Wendy Zavaleta, and musical director Jonathan Borden, February 8

Found on-line:

The Georgetown Palace Theatre
presents

A Little Night Music
a musical
by Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler
based on Ingmar Bergman's film
February 19 - March 14
Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Tickets available through the website or by telephone at 512-869-7469

One of Broadway’s most neglected masterpieces, the romantic and achingly beautiful A Little Night Music deals with the universal subject of love, in all its wondrous, humorous and ironic forms.

In early twentieth-century Sweden, middle-aged Fredrik Egerman brings his 18-year-old bride Anne to a play starring his former mistress, Desirée Armfeldt. Soon, Fredrik and Desirée resume their romance, incurring the wrath of her current lover, a pompous Count. The situation culminates in a weekend at a country estate, with Fredrik, Anne, Desirée and the Count in attendance, as well as Fredrik’s son (who is hopelessly in love with Anne), Desirée’s illegitimate daughter, the Count’s manic-depressive wife and the Egerman’s lusty maid. And there, under the summer night, things are set right.

General admission: $22 Seniors(55+): $20 Student(16+)/Active Duty Military (with ID): $12
Children(15 or younger): $8

Talking With by Jane Martin, North by Northwest Theatre Company at the City Theatre, October 9 - 18

The solo monologue is one of the purest demonstrations of the art. These six women come individually to you in the intimacy and immediacy of the City Theatre's small house. In each scene the actress takes that text with your complicity and, before your eyes, becomes the character.

"Jane Martin" is probably a pseudonym for Jon Jory, who has directed all of her ten plays. The mysterious Jane has never been seen. She twice won the American Theatre Critics' award for a new play and was nominated for a Pulitzer prize. Jory simply declines to discuss the matter -- perhaps a ploy, perhaps an artist's staking out the liberty to explore his feminine side.

Because each of these characters is vividly, irrevocably female. Michelle Cheney as the actress finishing her makeup as "fifteen minutes!" to curtain time is called; Renee Brown as the housewife who escapes daily reality; Wendy Zavaleta as a daughter grieving the death of her otherwise indomitable mother; Jennifer Coy as a brash auditioner perfectly willing to use blackmail; B.J. Machalicek as a dreamer at McDonald's; and Marsha Sray as a girl explaining the meaning of baton twirling.

That's just the first act.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Talking With, North by Northwest Theatre Company at City Theatre, October 9 - 18

Click for ALT review, October 13

From NxNW Theatre Company:

Talking With

by Jane Martin
directed by Joni McClain
October 9 - 18

A young woman tests her faith by handling poisonous snakes. A destitute woman longs to live in McDonald’s where the sick are cured by Big Macs. A housewife makes a daily escape to the magical land of Oz. Pulitzer nominated playwright Jane Martin gives us the provocative and heartfelt stories of these and other women who are ostracized by the American dream. Talking With is a powerful show, both funny and sad, that examines courage, awaking from complacency and the value of eccentricity. Starring Renee Brown, Michelle Cheney, Jennifer Coy, BJ Machalicek, Marsha Sray and Wendy Zavaleta.

October 9 - 18
Eight Performances Only!
Wed, Thu, Fri, Sat at 8:00, Sun at 2:00
Tickets $20, $18 students/seniors
The City Theatre, 3823 Airport Blvd

Upcoming: A Night on the Red Carpet, Georgetown Palace Theatre, June 6

Received by e-mail:

The Georgetown Palace Theatre Events

A Night on the Red Carpet
The Georgetown Palace Theatre
Saturday June 6, 7:30 p.m

The Palace Theatre Guild announces a Gala show featuring Palace fan favorites performing various musical numbers from Oscar winners to numbers from past Palace productions. This is a special event not to be missed!

Including Performances by Rick Felkins, Joe Penrod, Patty Rowell, Cathie Sheridan, Wendy Zavaleta, Cliff Butler and Matthew Burnett.
And enjoy a special sneak preview of The Odd Couple.

Tickets are $10 each for this special event! Log on to www.thegeorgetownpalace.org to buy tickets online or call 512-869-7469 to order over the phone. Walk-up tickets may also be available.

The Georgetown Palace Theatre
810 South Austin Avenue
Georgetown, Texas 78626
512-869-7469

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)

I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change, NxNW at the Hideout Theatre, September 19 - October 12

This cheery cabaret production is a strawberry parfait, a delicious concocoction highly appealing to the eye with lots of sugar and self-confident sophistication. The North by Northwest Theatre Company has enlisted four attractive and highly talented actor/singers to create in Austin the first presentation of I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, a piece that played for 12 years off Broadway. Its 5000+ performances put the run of this simple musical second only to the Fantastiks.

ILYYPNC is playing for only four weekends here in Austin, Friday through Saturday through October 12 at the Hideout Theatre at 617 South Congress.

For non-initiates such as us, from the street the Hideout looks like an ordinary coffee shop & bar, conveniently located for a subsequent crawl of the bars and pubs along 6th street. But they deal in entertainment as well as coffee, beer, wine and snacks. On Saturday ILYYPNC was playing in the downstairs 100-seat “black box” while upstairs at the same time, the announcement read, “a crew of Austin's finest improvisers take the stage in full Federation uniform and, based on audience suggestions, create a wholly original ‘episode’ set in the Star Trek Universe.”

The ladies in the ticket office took one look at us and commented, “Nah – they’re not here for the Trekkies.”

We hated being so obvious, but then, we had in fact made an on-line reservation for ILYYPNC.

Our four actor/singers are accompanied by a keyboardist and violinist for a zippy evening of black-out sketches and songs, themed loosely on the lines of courtship, marriage, parenting and the pleasant puzzles of romance at middle age and later. Onstage for almost two hours with a 15-minute break halfway, Michelle Cheney, Joe Penrod, David Sray and Wendy Zavaleta deliver along with their rapid fire of very funny skits not fewer than 21 musical numbers, ranging from solos to a finale (“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change”) that starts with an a capello worthy of Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.

The show has the bright, derisive flash of New York – it is fun poked by sophisticate singles and the New York artist community at the dilemmas of the love life of bourgeois middle America. Most of the skits are silly, mugging cartoon send-ups of all too familiar life dilemmas, and the audience responds with hilarity at the send-ups.

In the first half the show has a merry time making fun of the insecurities of dating, sexual posturing, the lack of eligible beddable bachelors, guy behavior as opposed to girl behavior, well-intended parental interventions in romance, and the panic of proposals and weddings. The downtown audience howled and sometimes shouted out recognition and encouragement – most of those attending were of college age or in late 20s and early 30s, and they were clearly getting happy shocks of recognition.

So imagine this scene: superb actors, clowning and singing their hearts out with midtown Manhattan sophistication, and a youngish audience that was drinking beer as if it were going out of style. Again and again, spectators descended the center stairs and crossed in front of half the stage on their way out and back to the bar and the bathroom. Early on, they usually waited for the blackouts, but as the evening wore on and the alcohol level rose, occasionally someone would cross in front of an actor/singer hard at work.

Too bad there wasn’t a rear stair for those folks. Or a trap door.

But with everyone so well launched, the second half was equally successful.

Leaving aside that growsing, what talented and attractive actors these are!

Chameleons all, they appeared in constantly changing relationships to one another.


Above, David plays the oblivious self-centered engineer blathering on as Wendy wonders whether all available single men are all such losers. Below left, Joe delivers a quiet, wondering paean to the wonder of staying in love with the same woman for more than thirty years. Below right, Michelle is captivated by a “chic flic” (while the guy at her side struggles unsuccessfully to remain manfully indifferent).

The music is mostly up tempo, the lyrics witty and the melodies engaging but ultimately forgettable. The magic is in the actors themselves. For example they take four swivel chairs and turn them into a family car, complete with obnoxious kids in the back seat:



That one is an anthem marking the lasting love affair between Joe, father of the family -- and his vehicle.

Examples of other transformations, quickly:

Michelle, singing of the miseries of serving always as a bridesmaid, never as a bride – and assembling a collection of never-reusable bridesmaid’s outfits.










David on the superhero fantasies of geeks and nerds.







The whole company, when Michelle and Joe as the parents learn at Thanksgiving that after two years of living together son David and fiancée Wendy have decided to break up:


After trouncing Joe yet again on a fourth date, Wendy maneuvers him out of his gentlemanly distance and persuades him to come over for lasagna (“and you’ll bring the wine and the condoms, right?”) She closes that scene with an inspired little jump of glee.

And my personal favorite is a solo turn by Wendy, with not a note of music. She plays a woman recently divorced, still hurt and angry, who is reluctantly recording a video for a dating service -- and impulsively lays it all out, not giving a damn about masquerading as younger, more accessible or invulnerable.

So open your browser or pick up your telephone, and make your reservations now. If we are lucky, North by Northwest might get this show extended or repeated. But for now, you have your choice of only three remaining weekends, Friday to Sunday, to schedule this delightful dessert.


Producer's comments on opening night, including a reviewer in the front row (not me!)

Lambert, Hendricks and Ross doing "Swingin' the Blues"