Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold - Page 3

“I am always drawn to characters and stories in which there is a deep transformation.  In TOOTSIE Michael’s huge catalyst for change occurs when he begins to step into the shoes of another person – a woman.”  His journey awakens “new empathy, new compassion in him.  He is able to see that Dorothy is a part of him.  All of us have a masculine and feminine side within us; the trick is to balance the two, to dissolve old stereotypes, and to discover how powerful the softer feminine side can actually be.”

As soon as the orchestra launches into the opening bars of Maine State Music Theatre’s current production of Anastasia, there is a frisson of electricity that runs through the house.

MSMT resumed its 11th season of the popular series, Peek Behind the Curtain, on June 11, 2025, presenting a panel of stars from the current production of ANASTASIA together with MSMT Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark and BWW moderator Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold. Held at  Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, the event drew through an enthusiastic crowd. Among the panelists were a Mary Ernster (Broadway WAR PAINT, THE NOTEBOOK, Winner 2 Jeff Awards), who portrays the Dowager Empress; Amanda Rose (Broadway MERRILY WE ROLL ALONG, WICKED, National Tours of OKLAHOMA, WICKED,HOLIDAY INN), who plays Countess Lily; and Christopher Page-Sanders (THE FROGS, THE WIZ, DREAMGIRLS), who serves as Associate Choreographer and Dance Captain of the show.

Maine State Music Theatre chose to revive one of its most popular titles, Robin and Clark’s ALADDIN as the opener of its Family Series 2025. Read our review here!

Having attended the opening of Anastasia at Maine State Music Theatre the prior night, I decided to return in order to enjoy the stunning production once again – this time without the task of reviewing. 

For more than a century since the Russian Revolution, the mystery and romance of the bygone Romanov era has continued to fascinate audiences. The opulence, the glamour, the faded memories all create the enduring allure of nostalgia. In presenting the Maine premiere of ANASTASIA, Maine State Music Theatre (in a co- production with the Fulton Theatre) has not only achieved an industry coup, but has also masterfully brought to life a compelling journey to the past, as well as a personal story that is poignant, heartfelt and uplifting.

Laden with intrigue, mystery and tumultuous historical events, Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty’s musical, ANASTASIA, opens the Maine State Music Theatre season on June 4. It is tale which has fascinated and enchanted theatre-goers for decades. Perhaps the most dazzling and yet poignant incarnation is the musical version which premiered on Broadway in 2017. It tells the compelling story of the Romanov princess, Anastasia, who was said to have escaped assassination at the hands of the Bolsheviks in 1917, and resurfaced in Paris years later, seeking to be reunited with her grandmother, the Dowager Empress. Maine audiences will now have a chance to relive the drama and romance in a dazzling, lavish new co-production staged by MSMT, in collaboration with the Fulton Theatre.

The Good Theater welcomed a full house of almost 500 to its newly renovated space at Steven Square on April 30 to begin a week of celebratory concerts, marking the theatre’s return to the Portland theatrical landscape after a year’s absence.

Maine State Ballet welcomes spring with a lively production of DON QUIXOTE, the 19th century classic with music by Ludwig Minkus and original choreography by Marius Petipa and Alexander Gorsky.  The colorful, energetic staging by Artistic Director Linda MacArthur Miele, offers the more than forty-member company a chance to showcase some virtuosic dancing.

Lewiston’s Public Theatre’s latest production is a poignant, funny, and sweet ode to sisterhood and the joys of small town life. Set in Nova Scotia, Canadian playwright Norm Foster’s HALFWAY THERE pays tribute to bonds of female friendship forged in the confines of four ordinary lives played out in the hamlet of Stewiacke, whose only claim to fame is its location halfway between the Equator and the North Pole.

Portland Stage’s latest production, Steven Dietz’s adaptation of Agatha Christie’s MURDER ON THE LINKS, aims to lighten the winter blues with a comic take on the usually formulaic murder mystery. 

Lewiston’s Public Theatre opens its 34th season to a full house, convulsed in laughter at the Victorian spoof,  DRACULA:  A COMEDY OF TERRORS.  The 2023 Off- Broadway comedy by Steve Rosen and Gordon Greenberg is a sendup of Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel Dracula, but in this delightful comic concoction, horror is replaced with frothy fun and sheer silliness.

A hush fell over the audience at the Hill Center last March when Good Theater’s Executive/Artistic Director, Brain P. Allen, concluded his curtain speech with the news that the current  production of A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE would be the last for the GOOD THEATER on Munjoy Hill. The theatre company, which was celebrating more than twenty years as the resident company of what had formerly been known as The St. Lawrence Center for the Arts, had lost its home, and Portland was about to lose one of its most vibrant professional theatres.

With their concert subscription series such a huge success this season, Maine State Music Theatre scheduled one final treat for fans of historic rock ‘n’ roll. On August 19 Pink Floyd tribute band, Floydian Trip, took the stage at the Pickard Theater to present two concerts combining many of Pink Floyd’s signature hits into one single event. The seven musicians comprising the band led the audience on an explosive journey through pulsating sound, visual effects, and recreation of the era of psychedelic rock.

Curt Dale Clark and Seth Eliser joined Kathryn Boswell, Alfie Parker, Jr., Associate Choreographer/Dance Captain, and an actor playing one of The Drifters, for a panel discussion moderated by Broadway World’s Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold on August 14th at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick, Maine.

On August 14, the Brunswick Town Mall brimmed full with spectators, all eager to enjoy Maine State Music Theatre’s annual free Concert on the Mall, presented in collaboration with the Brunswick Downtown Association. For MSMT, the performance is a meaningful opportunity to give back to the community that has supported the theatre all summer. Stars of the final main stage show, BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL, together with the MSMT singers and several other favorite artists, treated the enthusiastic crowd of all ages to an evening of Broadway favorites and covers of popular standards.

When Dorothy, swept away by the tornado, finds herself transported beyond the rainbow to a land of vibrant color, the audience at Maine State Music Theatre’s final Theatre for Young Audiences production gasps in wonder. The production of the children’s version of the Harold Arlen/Yip Harburg musical with a cast of young professionals and local youth, directed by Betsy Puelle, has transformed the Pickard Theater into a land of pure fantasy and imagination using all the theatrical elements at their disposal. MSMT serves up an evening of song, dance, puppetry, and visual wizardry that is one of the most stunning and enchanting TYA performances seen there in recent years.

Powered by poetry, fueled by raw and resilient emotion, and presented with passion and high voltage energy by a company committed to the music and message, BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL triumphantly takes the stage as the finale of Maine State Music Theatre’s 2024 season. Exploring the early life and creative journey of popular music’s living legend, Carole King, BEAUTIFUL is a biographical jukebox musical that plays like a top 10 hit parade, at the same time that it tells its disarmingly, immediate and vulnerable story. With the luminous Kyra Kennedy giving a deeply authentic, earthy, and uplifting performance in the title role, BEAUTIFUL offers both absorbing entertainment and inspiration.