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Latest Press From Syracuse Stage and The Syracuse University Drama Department |
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SU Department of Drama Announces 2010/2011 SeasonApril 29, 2010 - SYRACUSE, NY: Syracuse University's Department of Drama in the College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA) is proud to announce its 2010/2011 season. The season's productions will include the groundbreaking Kander and Ebb musical Cabaret; Jungalbook, a modern take on Rudyard Kipling's classic story; RENT, a co-production with Syracuse Stage; the Ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata; Sam Shepard's starkly funny dysfunctional family play Curse of the Starving Class; and composer William Finn's autobiographical musical A New Brain. "Through these vastly differently productions, we hope to further solidify the department's status as a leader in artistic training while providing our community with adventurous theatre," said Producing Artistic Director Timothy Bond. Season packages are currently available at the Syracuse Stage Box Office at 820 East Genesee Street from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, or by calling the Box Office at 315-443-3275. Season subscriptions are $95 (includes five plays plus RENT) - and $85 for seniors. All shows will be performed in the Storch Theatre at Syracuse Stage (approximately 200 seats), except for Cabaret and RENT which will be performed in the Archbold Theatre, allowing students in the Department of Drama an opportunity to perform in a larger venue (approximately 500 seats). SEASON OVERVIEWCabaret Energetically musical and deeply entertaining, Cabaret ranks among the greatest American musicals. A memorable score (“Come to the Cabaret,” “Money,” “Married”) supports this daring and visionary play set amid the decadence of 1929 Weimar Germany’s netherworld. Life is a cabaret for the habitués of the Kit Kat Club as long as they remain willfully blind to the growing menace of Nazism. Originally directed on Broadway in 1966 by Harold Prince, Cabaret won eight Tony Awards, including Best Musical and Best Supporting Actor for Joel Grey as the Emcee. The musical inspired the 1972 film, directed by Bob Fosse, starring Liza Minelli as Sally Bowles, a role for which she won an Academy Award. The 1998 Broadway revival of Cabaret directed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall ran for six years, the third longest running revival in history. Previously for SU Drama, David Wanstreet has directed Anything Goes, Sweet Charity, Damn Yankees, Chicago, and Steel Pier. Jungalbook Take an excursion into a playground full of imagination and physical dexterity. Adapted from Rudyard Kipling’s books and poems, these intertwined tales of Mowgli, the “mancub,” get a contemporary spin as Kipling’s great characters spring to life. The familiar story of Mowgli—raised by Akela the wolf, tutored by Baloo the bear and protected by Bagheera the panther—climaxes in the final showdown with Sherakhan the tiger. Along the way, Mowgli learns the laws of the jungle and the price paid for breaking them. Unlike some popular film versions, this adaptation adheres closely to Kipling’s stories and captures the poetic spirit of the original tales. Mast is a Seattle-based playwright whose adaptations of The Jungle Books and The Hobbit allow contemporary audiences to access dated, but important stories. After Jungalbook's New York premiere in August 2006, it has been performed around the US for audiences of all ages. Previously for SU Drama, Felix Ivanov directed Aesop’s Fables in the Black Box Theatre. He is a graduate of the prestigious Schukin Theatre School at the Vakhtangov Academy Theatre and the Stasov Musical School (violin) in Moscow, Russia. RENT Jonathan Larson’s Broadway phenomenon ignites the stage with passion and energy. One year—525,600 minutes—in the lives of seven young friends from Alphabet City brings love, loss, tragedy and triumph in a whirl of non-stop music. Larson built the show on the artists and addicts he knew in his neighborhood as they battled poverty, drugs, AIDS and the looming gentrification of their Vie Bohème. Urban and gritty, this Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical brims with raw emotion and infectious enthusiasm. Based on Puccini's La Boheme, Rent opened off-Broadway in January 1996 to wide critical acclaim. It quickly moved to its Broadway home, the Nederlander Theatre, where it ran for 12 years, becoming the eighth longest running Broadway musical in history. Rent won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for drama and was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning four, including Best Musical and Best Original Score. The rock musical was adapted into a 2005 feature film directed by Chris Columbus starring most of the original cast, including SU Drama alumnus Taye Diggs ’93, Idina Menzel, and Adam Pascal. Rent's composer, lyricist and scribe Jonathan Larson died suddenly of an aortic aneurism just before previews began off-Broadway, a testament to Larson's message that there is "no day but today." Anthony Salatino previously directed A Little Night Music, Der Tisch the Table, Clowns, Red Noses, Ain’t Misbehavin’, and Sweeney Todd. For Syracuse Stage he choreographed A Christmas Carol; directed and choreographed Little Women, Fiddler on the Roof, The Sound of Music, West Side Story, Peter Pan, and choreographed The Wizard of Oz, Big River and My Fair Lady. Lysistrata Bawdy, provocative and hilarious, Lysistrata has been delighting audiences since Socrates was a baby, give or take a few decades. Aristophanes was the great comic writer of ancient Athens and in this wild play he captures the frustration of women weary of the suffering wrought by the long war waged by their glory-hungry men. The solution? Inflict a frustration of a more intimate sort on the men—deny them sex until they cease fighting. A classic in every sense of the word, Lysistrata proves that long before talk radio outrage and outrageousness lived side by side. First performed in Athens in 411 B.C., the play has survived over two centuries due to its comical take on a serious subject. Aristophanes authored approximately 40 plays between 425 and 388 BC, 11 of which survive today. Previously Stephen Cross directed Arabian Nights for SU Drama. Curse of the Starving Class Pulitzer Prize winner Sam Shepard’s 1978, excoriating comedy has never seemed timelier. “The whole thing is geared to invisible money,” laments Weston, the chronically soused patriarch of a family in serious financial and psychological disarray. The refrigerator’s empty, the house is crumbling, the creditors are baying, and that much longed-for American idyll is unattainable. Shepard’s savage fantasy on America’s voraciousness only gets better with age. Premiering at the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1978, Curse won the Obie Award for Best New American Play. Academy Award winner Olympia Dukakis (cousin of presidential candidate Michael Dukakis) played the matriarch Ella in the premiere of Curse. In the 1994 film version, another Academy Award winner, Kathy Bates, took on the role. Shepard, who won a Pulitzer Prize for drama for his subsequent play Buried Child, is also an Academy Award nominated actor for his supporting role in The Right Stuff (1983). Previously for SU Drama, Gerardine Clark directed The Rimers of Eldritch, Hurlyburly, Othello, Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, and Fifth of July, among others. A New Brain A talented young composer named Gordon Schwinn struggles with a creative block. For a brief diversion, he meets a friend for lunch and promptly passes out in his pasta. Rushed to the emergency room, he discovers he has a brain condition requiring surgery. Face to face with mortality, he worries he’ll die before having the chance to write his best songs. And so—from his hospital bed, from his wheelchair, from the depths of an MRI, and even while comatose—Gordon writes them. They flow out of his imagination and his subconscious as snatches of reality magically intrude. Tony Award-winning writer/composer William Finn (The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee) draws on his personal experience to create a beautiful musical celebrating life, love and the healing power of art. A New Brain, Finn's autobiographical musical, opened off-Broadway at Lincoln Center's Mitzi E. Newhouse Theatre in 1998. It starred Malcolm Gets as Gordon and Tony Award-winner Kristin Chenoweth as his nurse, Nancy. The musical reunites Finn and James Lapine (Into the Woods, Sunday in the Park with George); together, they make up the Tony Award-winning writing team of Falsettos (1992). For SU’s Department of Drama Nathan has musical directed Urinetown, Little Women, My One and Only, Sweeney Todd, Steel Pier and Oklahoma!, and has directed and musical directed Lucky Stiff and The World Goes Round. For Syracuse Stage Nathan has musical directed A Christmas Carol and Menopause: The Musical and appeared as the Rabbi in Fiddler On The Roof.
DEPARTMENT OF DRAMA Syracuse University’s Department of Drama offers conservatory-style BFA programs in acting, musical theatre, theatre design and technology, and stage management as well as training in community engagement, theatre education, and other aspects of the arts. Students benefit from the Department’s collaboration with Syracuse Stage, a member of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), through casting in productions, professional internships, administrative assistance, classroom instruction and other interaction with professional theatre artists. Drama students may also study abroad in London and Florence, Italy, at the Tepper Center in New York City, or attend a one-week intensive with writer/producer Aaron Sorkin at the Sorkin in LA Learning Practicum. http://vpa.syr.edu/drama
VPA AT SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY VPA is committed to the education of cultural leaders who will engage and inspire audiences through performance, visual art, design, scholarship and commentary. It provides the tools for self-discovery and risk-taking in an environment that thrives on critical thought and action. |
FencesCelebrating the 25th Anniversary of August Wilson's
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Syracuse Stage Announces 2010/2011 Season
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Chat With an Actor at Stage's New Prologue Program
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Syracuse University Department of Drama presents: Room Service“A farce delivering comic goods at upper speed limits.” – The New York TImes March 15, 2010 - SYRACUSE, NY: This comic delight from the 1930s is a real treat for anyone who loves theatre and especially for those who love the people who make theatre. An unscrupulous Broadway producer struggles to find a backer for his new show, which he knows will be a smash hit. Holed up in a Times Square hotel with 19 hungry actors and a ballooning room service bill, he tries to forestall eviction by concocting a series of ever-more preposterous events. A gem from an era of great American comedy. Directed by Robert Moss and presented by the Department of Drama in Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA), Room Service runs March 26-April 3. For tickets, please call 315-443-3275 or visit vpa.syr.edu/drama. When Room Service by John Murray and Allen Boretz opened on Broadway in 1937, America was on the rebound from the Great Depression and people were flocking to movies and theatres seeking escape from their troubles. A backstage comedy about an undauntable theatre producer, Room Service in its original staging played for 500 performances and it has been one of the most popular American comedies ever since. One year after its opening on Broadway, RKO Studio paid Murray and Boretz $225,000, an astounding amount for the time, for the film rights to their play and subsequently paid the Marx Brothers $100,000 to star in the movie. Four years later, in 1943, RKO turned Room Service into a musical for Frank Sinatra, entitled Step Lively. Although Boretz adapted both the film and musical versions of Room Service, neither project matched the popularity of its source. In 1953, however, sixteen years after its premiere, Room Service had a Broadway revival featuring a newcomer named Jack Lemmon. And today, over seventy years after its first success, audiences from coast to coast continue TICKETS Tickets for the Syracuse University Department of Drama’s production of Room Service are $18 for adults and $16 for students and seniors. $7 rush tickets are available at the door, one hour before curtain. Wednesday, March 31 is “Pay What You Can Night” for valid SU ID holders. For tickets and more information, contact the Department of Drama box office at 315-443-3275 or visit http://vpa.syr.edu/drama. DESIGNERS STAGE MANAGER CAST |
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Almost, MaineRomantic Happenings Bloom Beneath the Aurora BorealisBy John Cariani ARCHBOLD THEATRE at SYRACUSE STAGE March 15, 2010 - SYRACUSE, NY: It’s all about love, and like love, it is never what you expect. Meet the people of Almost, Maine, a tiny town so far north Vermont is considered the South. One winter night with the aurora borealis creating celestial enchantment, eight couples fall under the spell of that funny little unpredictable thing called love. By turns touching, comic, warm, gentle and altogether surprising, Almost, Maine is a funny Valentine of a play that will make you smile with your heart. Almost, Maine is co-produced with Geva Theatre Center of Rochester, NY, where the production played to sold out audiences earlier this season. Running March 24-April 11 at Syracuse Stage, tickets can be purchased online at www.SyracuseStage.org, by phone at 315-443-3275 or in person at 820 East Genesee Street. Almost, Maine is sponsored by J.R. Clancy, Residence Inn Marriott, and the Syracuse Stage Board of Trustees. The Syracuse New Times is the media sponsor. Syracuse Stage season sponsors are The Post-Standard and Time Warner Cable. Playwright John Cariani is an actor and playwright best known for his role as CSU Tech Julian Beck on television's Law & Order, and for his performance as Motel the Tailor in the 2004 Broadway revival of Fiddler on the Roof for which he received the Outer Critics’ Circle Award and a Tony Award nomination. After establishing his career as a stage and screen actor, Cariani began his playwriting career in 2004 with Almost, Maine, which debuted at the Portland Stage Company and was named one of the best plays of the year by The Wall Street Journal. In 2006, Almost, Maine opened off-Broadway and has since been produced by some 300 theatres all over the U.S., Mexico, Korea, Germany and Australia. TICKETS Single Tickets: $24-$48 *Rush tickets available day of performance, by phone ($5 fee) or in person (no fee) Online: www.SyracuseStage.org PLAYWRIGHT DIRECTOR CAST David Mason (Pete, Steve, Lendall, Chad, Dave) makes his Syracuse Stage debut in Almost, Maine. Other regional credits include Almost, Maine at Shadowland Theatre; Last Gas by John Cariani at Portland Stage Little Festival; The Last Mass At St. Casimir's and Almost, Maine at the Public Theatre in Lewiston; Enchanted April, It's A Wonderful Life and Lumberjacks in Love at the Majestic Theater; Arcadia, Arsenic and Old Lace, Kimberly Akimbo, Kong's Night Out, Sight Unseen, The Underpants, Lobby Hero, The Boys Next Door, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, An Inspector Calls, The Big Apple and All in the Timing at the New Century Theatre and Jerry Finnegan's Sister at Mt. Holyoke Summer Theatre, Foothills Theatre. Recent NYC credits include The Three Hagi Sisters at the Japan Society; Sky at Impact Theatre Festival; Two Rooms at Red Fern Theatre; Barbara Bush Never Slept Here and Kalighat at Circle East; L'esprit D'escalier at the Chip Deffaa Invitational; New York at the Ensemble Studio Theatre, Civilian Studios National Theatre for the Handicapped; Mae and Her Stories at Primary Stages; The Breaking Light with Present Company and This Will Be the Death of Him for NativeAliens. Alexis McGuinness (Glory, Waitress, Marvalyn, Marci, Suzette, Rhonda) makes her Syracuse Stage debut in Almost, Maine. Recent credits include The 49 Project (Fringe NYC), Waxing West at La MaMa, Bucharest and Sibiu, Romania and Stockholm, Sweden, The Lacy Project at the Ohio Theatre, Half of Plenty at SPF, The Drama League's Directors Project of Itamar Moses' Authorial Intent and Abandon at La MaMa. Regional credits include Twelfth Night at Milwaukee Shakespeare and Safe in Hell at Yale Repertory Theatre. She has studied at the NTI/Eugene O'Neill Theatre Center and the Guthrie Theatre, has a B.A. in Theatre from Dartmouth College and an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama. Regan Thompson (Ginette, Sandrine, Gayle, Woman) is thrilled to be making her Syracuse Stage debut. Off-Broadway credits include Theophilus North with Keen Company. NYC and other regional credits include A Christmas Story at Pioneer Theatre Company, Bad Dates at Hangar Theatre, The Elephant Man and The Crucible at Northern Stage, Crimes of the Heart at Playmakers Repertory Company, Theophilus North at Dorset Theatre Festival, As You Like It and Julius Caesar at North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, Vanities at Penguin Repertory Company, Deja Vu at Caldwell Theatre Company, Dracula at Tennessee Repertory Theatre, Proof at the Depot Theatre, I Vermin at NYC Fringe Festival, A Midsummer Night's Dream, King John, and Julius Caesar at Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Television appearances include As the World Turns and Law & Order: SVU. Ms. Thompson received her M.F.A. in Acting from the Alabama Shakespeare Festival P.A.T Program/University of Alabama. Patrick Noonan (East, Jimmy, Randy, Phil, Man) makes his Syracuse Stage debut in Almost, Maine. He performed Almost, Maine off-Broadway and is excited to be playing in that world once more with such a fantastic company. A proud veteran of the longest running play in America, he starred in over 1,500 performances of Shear Madness and just finished another successful run over the summer with the Capital Repertory Theatre. Mr. Noonan spent the prior year working extensively with the Florida Studio Theatre starring in Jewtopia, The Mystery Of Irma Vep and Edward Albee's Occupant. TV credits include 30 Rock, several Law & Orders, Life on Mars, The Black Donnellys, Hope and Faith, and The Guiding Light. Film credits include The Princess Diaries, Frame of Mind, and the soon to be released horror movie Choose. DESIGNERS Dipu Gupta (Scenic Designer) makes his Syracuse Stage debut with Almost, Maine. He is a Bay Area set designer and architect and has designed for companies throughout the country including for the Santa Fe Opera, Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Opera Pacific, Berkshire Opera, Wolf Trap Opera, the New Jersey Shakespeare Festival, San Jose Rep, the Julliard School, the Manhattan School of Music, the Gotham Chamber Opera, and two productions for Opera Africa in Johannesburg. As an architect, he has designed buildings in New York, New Hampshire, California, Montana and New Mexico. His interior design work in New York City has been published. He studied art history and architecture at the University of Pennsylvania, went on to earn a Masters of Architecture at the University of Virginia and a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of California, Los Angeles. He is on the faculty of the University of California as an Artist in Residence. Pamela Scofield (Costume Designer). Previous Syracuse Stage credits include Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Three Sisters, Awake and Sing, Finding Donis Anne, Lend Me A Tenor, and Androcles and the Lion. She has designed for regional theatres across the country, including Actors Theatre of Louisville, Geva Theatre Center, Asolo Theatre, McCarter Theatre, Theatreworks Palo Alto, Goodspeed Opera, and Berkshire Theatre Festival. New York credits include off-Broadway productions of Almost, Maine, Over the River and Through the Woods, A Fine and Private Place, I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change, and The Summer of ‘42. Ms. Scofield designed the national tour and Madison Square Garden productions of Cinderella, starring Eartha Kitt, and has designed several editions of the Grammy Awards at Radio City Music Hall. She is the designer for dramatic dancer Joan Evans, who performs internationally, and with whom she shares a Fringe First Award from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and an NEA grant for collaborative performance. Presently she is working on designs for Touch(ed), a new play for Salt Lake City’s Pioneer Theatre. Kendall Smith (Lighting Designer). Theatre credits include Indiana Repertory Theatre; Pioneer Theatre; Studio Theatre in Washington, D.C; Weston Playhouse; Merrimack Repertory Theatre; North Shore Music Theatre; Brunswick Music Theatre; Connecticut Repertory Theatre; Barter Theatre; and American Stage Festival. Regional Opera companies include San Diego Opera, Florida Grand Opera, Michigan Opera, Minnesota Opera, Lyric Opera of Kansas City, San Antonio Opera, Indianapolis Opera, Virginia Opera, Dayton Opera, and Eugene Opera. As the Resident Designer for Michigan Opera Theatre for the last twenty years, Mr. Smith has designed over 55 productions. Syracuse Stage is Central New York’s premier professional theatre. Founded in 1974, Stage has produced more than 220 plays in 36 seasons including a number of world, American, and East Coast premieres. Each season 90,000 patrons enjoy an adventurous mix of new plays and bold interpretations of classics and musicals featuring the finest theatre artists. In addition, Stage maintains a vital educational outreach program that annually serves over 30,000 students from 24 counties. A solid core of subscribers and supporters helps keep Syracuse Stage a vibrant artistic presence in Central New York. Additional support comes from the government, foundations, corporations and Syracuse University. Syracuse Stage is a constituent of the Theatre Communications Group (TCG), the national organization for the American theatre, and a member of the Syracuse Chamber of Commerce, the Arts and Cultural Leadership Alliance (ACLA), the University Hill Corporation and the East Genesee Regent Association. Syracuse Stage is a member of The League of Resident Theatres (LORT), the largest professional theatre association in the country. |
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04/01/2010 |
