E-town: Light Comedy, Heavy Carousing
From Elizabethtown, a new theater group and a unique production sends along this press release:
On May 30 and 31, 2008, the North Country's newest professional theatre will present their premiere production, "Barrymore," a two-person comedy by William Luce, concerning legendary actor and infamous Broadway eccentric John Barrymore. Known along Broadway as the era's supreme wit and heir to the Barrymore family acting dynasty, Barrymore and his famed profile delivered some of the most storied performances of the twentieth century on Broadway and in film (sometimes starring opposite his famous siblings, Ethel and Lionel).
The play is set in 1942. Barrymore has rented a stage to prepare for a comeback. As he rehearses, he jokes with the audience, gossips, spars with his Stage Manager, discusses his famous family, and reminisces about better times and better roles. Although the play is largely a humorous tour around the nooks and crannies of the actor's fascinating and funny personal and professional life, it also explores the fact that the famous actor is a haunted man, yearning to recapture past successes beneath the jokes and clever one-liners.
"Jack," as he was called, was known as the "clown prince" of the royal acting family. The play highlights his acting triumphs as well as showcasing his love of bawdy limericks, quick-witted one-liners, and delicious imitations ... including send ups of famous gossip columnist Louella Parsons and his famous siblings Lionel and Ethel.
NYC and Adirondack resident Jonathan Valuckas will take the title role of the eccentric John Barrymore. Keene Valley resident Tyler Nye will perform the role of Frank, Barrymore's droll and practical Stage Manager. Phill Greenland (who locally directed "The Music Hall Revusical," "George M. Cohan In His Own Words," and "The Life and Life's Work of Edgar Allan Poe") directs, with Kathy Recchia as Producer.
Cavalcade employs an interesting concept in staging productions. Rather than producing shows in a conventional theatre space, the company is dedicated to the principle of "site-specific theatre," in which the play or musical is staged in a historically suitable or atmospheric environment, such as their recent production of "The Life and Life's Work of Edgar Allan Poe" at Elizabethtown's Victorian-era Hand House Mansion. Cavalcade will produce "The Belle of Amherst," about the life of famous poetess Emily Dickinson in July.
Barrymore, by William Luce will be presented at the Lower Level stage at the Adirondack History Center Museum Route 9N and Hand Avenue in Elizabethtown Friday, May 30 and Saturday, May 31, 2008 General admission $12 Only fifty guests can be seated at each performance, reservations are recommended Call (518) 946-8323 or visit www.cavalcadenewyork.com
1 Comments:
Also, this play sounds like a lot of fun We are attending the play and have nothing to do with the production...):
Fort Salem’s Artistic Director, Jay Kerr, has announced the completion of casting for the World Premiere of Adirondack Awakening, an original musical revue, written by Kerr and Stephen Trombley. Adirondack Awakening will have its initial performances in the Cabaret Theater at Fort Salem on Memorial Day Weekend, May 23, 24, and 25.
The journey of Adirondack Awakening begins in 1609 when Samuel de Champlain and Henry Hudson “discovered” the mountains as they explored the bodies of water that now bear their names, each within months of the other. No aspect of the four hundred years since (or its evolutionary roots four billion years before that) is too serious to be lampooned, skewered, and satirized by the musical pens of the performer/authors and the wit of the two women joining them.
Whether lamenting the near extinction of the beaver or mocking the misery of men literally lost in the woods, whether eavesdropping on the diary of a teenage girl taking the TB cure and falling in love with a fellow patient in Saranac Lake or simply celebrating the invention of the paper bag (Adirondack timber and ingenuity), they use musical styles to comment on events in history that somehow missed inclusion in mainstream history textbooks.
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