Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold - Page 14

Midway through the first act of The Who's Tommy, the young protagonist invites his mates and listeners to ride together on his amazing journey. And truly, Maine State Music Theatre's production of the Pete Townshend/DesMcAnuff musical, seen for two performances only at the Pickard Theater July 31 offers its audience just that - a riveting, often raw, perennially relevant, piercingly beautiful account of a boy's painful but ultimately uplifting journey through the darker side of human experience and into the light. The rarely staged 1992 musical version based on the 1969 concept album and rock opera with its sung-through score, narrative told largely in dance, and its sometimes disturbing material poses significant challenges to any company, but MSMT once again proves its artistic mettle. Under the inspired direction of Curt Dale Clark, with the complex choreography of Raymond Marc Dumont and the rousing musical direction of Patrick Fanning, this company of young artists marshals its considerable talents to tackle the ambitious project with energy, passion, and complete professionalism.

In a spare, tautly sculpted performance of Shakespeare's classic tragedy of deceit and jealousy, The Theater at Monmouth's offers a gripping, tension-filled and tempestuous account of Shakespeare's Othello. Staged in simple contemporary dress with a strong cast, the production bears witness to the timelessness of the tale.

'We are all there for each other,' Kevin Nietzel asserts, affirming the bond that is making Maine State Music Theatre's Grease so electric. 'It is very rewarding,' adds Neil Starkenberg, MSMT's Danny Zuko. Co-star Chelsea Williams, who plays Sandy to Starkenberg's Danny, continues the thought: 'Neil and I have had conversations about how we could do this show for a really long time. It is so much fun, and I think that must be obvious to the audience. The energy is so palpable that it is a special joy to work that hard every night. Everyone is having the time of his life!' These three actors together with principals Gerrianne Perez (Rizzo), Charis Leos (Miss Lynch), Costume Designer Travis M. Grant, and MSMT Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark all joined BWW's Maine editor Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold for the third panel discussion in the theatre's Peek Behind the Curtain series held each summer at Curtis Memorial Library. In an especially lively and far-ranging conversation that highlighted not only the challenges but also the camaraderie of this ensemble, the panel and capacity audience explored the history, characters, and production process for MSMT's summer mega hit.

Rock'n roll, teen rebellion, a collection of quirky, lovable characters, and a musical score seared into the American cultural fabric - all these come together in a breathless and breathtaking joy ride that pulsates with electrifying energy in Maine State Music Theatre's third main stage show, Grease. The Jim Jacobs/Warren Casey musical, which reminisces nostalgically about the joyful, naughty, unforgettable days of senior year in mythical Rydell High in 1959, has seen numerous permutations since its original production as an edgy, raunchy musical play called Vaseline in 1971, to its Broadway debut in 1972 and through various film versions including the iconic 1978 movie starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. Here in its Broadway version, amplified with a number of the favorite songs from the movie, MSMT has created a high-flying confection that is a valentine to a simpler era with just the right sparks of sass and sweetness that combine for an irresistibly engaging evening that is sure to prove the summer theatre scene's mega hit.

'I think other people first recognized that I was geared to being a performer. I didn't necessarily recognize that myself, but when I performed in my first musical in high school, I suddenly said to myself 'Nothing else makes me feel like this. I felt these amazing vibrations between me and the audience and me and the rest of the people on stage; I felt connected to the world - more like my true self myself that I had ever felt before, and that's how I knew.' Chelsea Williams is talking about discovering her vocation as an actress and the creative journey which has taken her to the nation's leading theatres. This July and August the Windham, Maine, native returns to her home state to play Sandy in Maine State Music Theatre's production of Grease, which begins its run at the Pickard Theater on July 19. Williams made her MSMT debut last summer as Sophie in MSMT's blockbuster hit, Mamma Mia!, reprising the role that constituted her big career breakthrough. Like Mamma Mia!, Grease is blessed with an unforgettable score and a story that is both endearing and totally joyous, and the new MSMT production in which Williams stars promises to be the mega hit of the company's summer season.

'I imagine that Danny is the youngest in a family of boys, and he feels he has to live up to the name Zuko at Rydell High. In the movie he says 'I've got a reputation to protect,' and I think that goes a long way to explaining his behavior.' Neil Starkenberg is commenting on his role debut in Maine State Music Theatre's upcoming production of Grease, which begins a run at the Pickard Theater on July 19. For the twenty-eight year-old actor, the iconic part of the fifties greaser, Danny Zuko, is a dream come true, and Starkenberg has spent a great deal of time preparing for the part.

Director, producer, actor Brian P. Allen is a born raconteur with a wicked sense of humor and his latest version of his hilarious one-man show, Blueberries, Broadway, and Brian, which he performed at the Strand Theater in Rockland and will reprise in Springvale, ME, speaks to Allen's wit, turn of phrase, and deliciously outrageous sense of humor.

'There have been so many musical threads throughout my life ever since I was a little guy. Music was something I did early on. I would listen to my dad, who had a beautiful voice, sing, and together we would listen to his vinyl record collection. I was always drawn to music written before I was born. There is something about the vulnerability, the universality, and the craft of earlier music that has always attracted me.' The speaker is Peter Oyloe who is touring with The Hank Band, his concert recreation of the music of the legendary folk/country western singer. Oyloe and the band's most recent gig was to open Maine State Music Theatre's 2017 Monday concert series with two virtually sold out performances of Hank Williams' music at Brunswick's Pickard Theater on July 10th. In conversation with Broadway World in the panoramic setting of a private reception in the band's honor on scenic Mere Point, Oyloe seems exceptionally soft spoken, but a few hours later when he takes the stage as Hank Williams, he transforms himself into the powerhouse singer Williams was. It is a role that has changed his life, Oyloe says, and a connection that now runs deeply as one of the primary threads in his own musical tapestry.

Four hundred and forty-five years later French playwright Moliere still bubbles with joyous, effervescent, sometimes mordant wit, and it is just this sparkle that Theater at Monmouth's new production of The Learned Ladies serves up in generous, exuberant fashion in an elegantly translated (uncredited), briskly performed, hugely witty comedy of manners about the affectations of a group of philosophy-loving women and the gender politics of their world.

'It's a warhorse and has been a guaranteed sellout since 1950, but that doesn't mean a production doesn't need a little spark. DJ [Salisbury] did exactly what I asked him to do,' says Maine State Music Theatre's Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark. 'I asked him not to reinvent the wheel, but to tweak the show with some new nuances.' Clark is talking about MSMT's new production of Guys and Dolls which opened last week to glowing reviews. Clark was part of the popular MSMT community series, PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAIN panel that also featured Guys and Dolls stars, James Beaman (Nathan Detroit), Kristen Hahn (Sarah Brown), and Stephen Mark Lukas (Sky Masterson), as well as Props Master Elizabeth Frino. Moderated by Broadway World's Maine editor Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold, the participants at the capacity-crowd event discussed the making of this exciting new production in Midcoast Maine.

Part of the perennial appeal of Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls lies in the larger-than-life aura of its Damon Runyonesque roots - its fantasy land of gangsters and dolls, Broadway in the Prohibition era, and memorable characters who sing, dance, and deliver wise-cracks. Maine State Music Theatre's new production, the fifth in the company's history, brings this classic to life with a vivid freshness that embraces both the grand framework of the story and the intimacy of its essential heart. Sweet, sassy, and colorful, soaring and ambitious, MSMT's second show of the 2017 season is breathtakingly daring in the way it utilizes all the company's resources to their fullest, all the while that it demonstrates to a new generation why Guys and Dolls both invented and broke the mold for American musical theatre.

"She's a wonderfully layered character," Kristen Hahn exclaims as she describes her newest role. "Most of all in her heart she wants to help people, but she is not quite cut out to rule with an iron fist like her mentor, General Cartwright. I think at first she is feeling a little lost and not willing to admit it. When she meets Sky Masterson, they go head-to-head. She is probably the first woman to challenge him. As the play develops, she realizes maybe she can have both her mission work and love. By letting her hair down a little when she discovers love, she realizes that she becomes of better use to the people she wants to help. It is very liberating for her. Sarah Brown is a strong lady, and that is a wonderful treat for an actress to play!" she concludes.

'There's this line in the show that I think is key to understanding Sky and Sarah's romance. 'Chemistry?' she asks, and he says, 'Yeah, chemistry.' The message is that when that connection between two people happens, it doesn't really matter what you've predicted for yourself. What's real is the chemistry, not the intellectual idea. Sky Masterson and Sarah Brown each have qualities the other is lacking, and together they fill in the gaps.' The speaker is the charismatic young actor, Stephen Mark Lukas, who will be making his Maine State Music Theatre debut in his first ever performances as the suave gambler Sky Masterson in Frank Loesser Guys and Dolls, which runs at the Pickard Theater from June 28-July 15.

'We wanted to go big and grand. We knew we had Christine [Mild] with her powerhouse performance and Charis [Leos] so we wanted to play it large and create an environment that would support them. The production concept we came up with turned out to be a wonderful envelope to wrap around the show and the entire staging fell into place.' Co-director/choreographer Marc Robin was talking about his and Curt Dale Clark's vision for their new staging of Always, Patsy Cline, which opened Maine State Music Theatre's 2017 season on June 7th. Robin was part of a panel that also featured Patsy star Christine Mild and stand-by Heidi Kettenring, MSMT Charge Scenic Artist Sean Cox, and MSMT Board Vice President Kristine Ganong. The discussion on June 14th, moderated by Broadway World Maine editor Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold was the first in the now four-year-old summer series of free public forums, A Peek Behind the Curtain, held at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. The series, designed to give theatre-goers insight into the creative processes of producing each of the summer main stage shows, featured a lively and far-reaching conversation about Patsy Cline, MSMT's Theatre for Young Audiences program, and the theatre's burgeoning role in the community.

MSMT opens its Theatre for Young Audiences with three performances of Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark's musical retelling of the Brothers Grimm fairytale, Sleeping Beauty, in a striking visual production, performed with energy, conviction, and style by a company of young actors. The hour-long musical version puts a contemporary spin on the familiar story and subtly raises issues and values which seem remarkably current, despite the fact that the show was written more than twenty years ago.

'I love it here! This Always, Patsy Cline will be the twenty-sixth production I've appeared in with MSMT, and by the end of this summer, the number will be twenty-nine.' Actress Charis Leos - a huge favorite with Maine audiences and critics alike - is reflecting on her long association with the Brunswick theatre and what the future holds for her here and in the other numerous regional theatres where she lights up the stage with her vibrant, inimitable gifts as a musical theatre performer.

About half way through the musical, Always, Patsy Cline, Louise says of the legendary singer, 'She blew the roof off that old honky tonk!' And much the same could be said for the electric atmosphere at the Brunswick's Pickard Theater, where MSMT opened its 59th season with a dazzling production of the musical that includes twenty-seven songs made famous by the singer, who remains to this day - fifty-four years after her untimely death - a towering presence in the world of country and pop music. With true betes de scene, Christine Mild as Patsy and Charis Leos as Louise, accompanied by a virtuoso band, performing an unforgettable songbook, this production delivers not only powerhouse vocal-dramatic values, but also offers the audience a vibrant and poignant journey to another time and place that magically come alive through in the charismatic story of its protagonists. The Ted Swindley musical which focuses on the last six years of Patsy Cline's life and on her friendship with a Texas divorcee and fan, Louise Seger, is so much more than a catalog of songs strung together by a chronological narrative. Indeed, the book is touching well-constructed - funny, sad, warm and human by turns - and the songs are integrated into the story with a seamlessness that lets the play move from reality to memory.

'It's all in the way she placed her voice. I like to call it the Kermit the Frog place - the soft palate at the back of the throat, and that's what activates the yodel, the catch, the cry, the growl which are the iconic hallmarks of her singing. Patsy Cline wasn't really a technical singer; this all just came naturally to her, but for me as an actress and technical singer who has to do the show eight times a week, I have to make sure I am singing in a healthy, safe way and understand how to make that happen. So if I place the voice right - if I place it in the 'Patsy place'- it all happens without trying.'

It's hard to imagine why this gem of a show had such a short Broadway run, but it is finding new life in regional productions, not the least of which opened here at South Portland's Lyric Music Theater this past weekend. Directed by Mary Meserve with sparkling choreography by Raymond Marc Dumont and featuring a large cast with strong vocal-dramatic abilities, anchored by Eric Berry-Sandelin's charismatic performance as Frank Abagnale, Jr., this is a delight not to be missed!

“The All Night Strut has a songbook to die for! It may not be as riotously funny as The Irish and How They Got Way was,” says Maine State Music Theatre's Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark, but I know from experience that the audience will leave the theatre exhilarated!” Clark, who will co-produce the show with Anita Stewart, Artistic Director of Portland Stage, describes the musical revue as “a collection of vignettes, each of which plays out before the next one begins. It is sort of like an evening of short stories that paints a colorful and poignant picture of 20th century America in the years of the Great Depression, World War II, and the post-war.”