The Guthrie's BEHOLD Gala Celebrates 50th Anniversary with Community, Performances

On Saturday night, BEHOLD: A Gala Performance, honoring 50 years of the Guthrie, took place on the theater's Wurtele Thrust Stage before a packed house. The performance featured a glittering array of contributors including actors and artists linked to all aspects of the Guthrie's past and its vision for the future. BEHOLD, the centerpiece of a weekend that captivated the Twin Cities and marked the long and vital relationship between the Guthrie and the community that it calls home, marked the half-century milestone for the flagship of the American regional theater movement that first opened its doors in 1963.

BEHOLD was co-hosted by Guthrie favorites Greta Oglesby and Sally Wingert; during the course of the evening Oglesby reprised her lauded performance of "Lot's Wife" from Tony Kushner's Caroline, or Change (in which she played the title role at the Guthrie in 2009) and Wingert (more than 75 Guthrie Productions since 1975) performed a scene from George S. Kaufman and Edna Ferber's The Royal Family along with Valeri Mudek (Guthrie: Time Stands Still, Tiny Kushner) and Guthrie legend Barbara Bryne.

Peter Flynn-whose extensive credits include directorial work on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in regional theaters and other gala events-directed. The script for the show was written by Mark Benninghofen.

The musical portions of BEHOLD were accompanied by a 12-piece orchestra helmed by Musical Director Andrew Cooke. An ensemble of 17 vocalists from some of the Guthrie's most memorable plays and musicals also appeared throughout the night, including during the opening "A Guthrie Gala Overture," which featured passages from favorites including H.M.S. Pinafore, The Pirates of Penzance,Sweeney Todd, She Loves Me and 1776.

Selected scenes from great plays were featured throughout the show. Longtime Guthrie veteran Peter Michael Goetz delivered an inimitable comic monologue, which then shifted into a scene from his iconic performance in the Guthrie's 2004 production of Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. Goetz was accompanied by Matthew Amendt (12 Guthrie Productions) and Erik Heger (Macbeth, The Great Gatsby). In a comedic interlude from Noël Coward's Private Lives, real-life husband and wife Daniel Gerroll (Much Ado About Nothing, Pygmalion) and Patricia Kalember (lead roles on TV's "Sisters" and "thirtysomething," as well as numerous stage credits) took the stage in a classic scene of bickering ex-spouses unable to deny the enduring spark of their romance.

Musical numbers also propelled BEHOLD. The all-male Cantus vocal ensemble provided an original take on Bernstein and Sondheim's "Somewhere" from West Side Story, lending rich choral textures and warm complexity in a new arrangement of the familiar classic. Theater, film and TV's Brian d'Arcy James led the Gala Ensemble in the original "Hamlet 3.2," composed by Tony and Drama Desk Award-winner Jason Robert Brown especially for the Guthrie's anniversary with words by William Shakespeare. While Cantus and James made their Guthrie debuts, Olivier and Tony Award nominee Tracie Bennett returned to the Guthrie stage following her acclaimed turn as Judy Garland in 2012's End of the Rainbow to perform a medley of "Almost Like Being in Love" and "This Can't Be Love."

Appearing through video messages were Christopher Plummer, who offered anniversary wishes in black tie, and Zoe Caldwell; Caldwell appeared in a warm segment being interviewed by stage, film and TV's T.R. Knight (Amadeus, A Christmas Carol), who appeared in person at BEHOLD to introduce the recording and offer his own anniversary thoughts. Memories and good wishes via video were also shared by Santino Fontana, Harriet Harris, Joshua Henry, Jeff Perry, David Hyde Pierce, Gary Sinese and Courtney B. Vance.

Returning to the Guthrie for the first time since her 1988 five-night engagement was Oscar, Emmy, Grammy and Tony Award recipientWhoopi Goldberg, who made a flying entrance from on high and delivered "Why I Love the Theater" with trademark charm and incisive irreverence. Rounding out the evening was a recitation of the Prospero Soliloquy from Shakespeare's The Tempest by Stephen Yoakam(more than 75 Guthrie Productions including May's one-man An Iliad), and an ensemble performance of "Make Our Garden Grow" fromCandide by Leonard Bernstein and Richard Wilbur.

The BEHOLD vocal ensemble: Jay Albright (A Christmas Carol), Christina Baldwin (Roman Holiday, H.M.S. Pinafore), Michelle Barber(Other Desert Cities, Roman Holiday), Bob Beverage (1776, Merrily We Roll Along), Dieter Bierbrauer (The Secret Fall of Constance Wilde, The Pirates of Penzance), Nathan Bird (H.M.S. Pinafore), Shawn Hamilton (Appomattox, Little House on the Prairie), Aleks Knezevich (H.M.S. Pinafore), Timotha Lanae (H.M.S. Pinafore), Norah Long (Little House on the Prairie, 1776), Molly Sue McDonald(H.M.S. Pinafore, A Christmas Carol, She Loves Me), Ann Michels (The Primrose Path, A Streetcar Named Desire), Tinia Moulder(Pirates of Penzance, Merrily We Roll Along), Jennifer Baldwin Peden (Pirates of Penzance, The Comedy of Errors), James Ramlet (A Christmas Carol, Little House on the Prairie), Brian Sostek (The Burial at Thebes, H.M.S. Pinafore), Angela Timberman (A Christmas Carol, The Birds, Roman Holiday).

BEHOLD featured musical direction and arrangements by Cooke, choreography by Brian Sostek, set design by Michael Hoover, costume design by Christine A. Richardson, lighting design by Tom Mays, sound design by Scott W. Edwards and stage management by Tree O'Halloran.

BEHOLD: A Gala Performance was part of the Guthrie's 50th Anniversary Celebration Weekend (June 22-23, 2013), presented in conjunction with celebration dinners the Golden Soirée and Fête 50.

The GUTHRIE THEATER (Joe Dowling, Director) was founded by Sir Tyrone Guthrie in 1963 and is an American center for theater performance, production, education and professional training. The Tony Award-winning Guthrie Theater is dedicated to producing the great works of dramatic literature, developing the work of contemporary playwrights and cultivating the next generation of theater artists. With annual attendance of nearly 500,000 people, the Guthrie Theater presents a mix of classic plays and contemporary work on its three stages. Under the artistic leadership of Joe Dowling since 1995, the Guthrie continues to set a national standard for excellence in theatrical production and performance. In 2006, the Guthrie opened its new home on the banks of the Mississippi River in Minneapolis. Designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Jean Nouvel, the Guthrie Theater houses three state-of-the-art stages, production facilities, classrooms and dramatic public lobbies.www.guthrietheater.org.

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