Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold - Page 4

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.

“I think Carole King is a poet. She paved the way for so many women who came after her in [popular music]. There is such a rawness and pure emotion in her music that feels like poetry to me,” declares actress Kathryn Boswell, who will play Cynthia Weil in BEAUTIFU: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL at Maine State Music Theatre.  “When you don’t have the words to express what you feel, you write it in poetry or music because some of these emotions are just too big to hold.”  “Carole King writes about such universal themes, about love and humanness – emotions that are always relevant,” concurs Alfie Parker, Jr., who serves as Associate Choreographer and plays one of The Drifters in the show. The musical, which explores the rise to stardom of popular music legend, Carole King, runs at MSMT from August 7 -24 and concludes the company’s spectacular 2024 season.

Maine State Music Theatre’s third concert of the season features a wild roller coaster ride through the history of early rock and roll with Jason Cohen and his stellar bandmates paying tribute to the legendary pianist and songwriter, Jerry Lee Lewis and his contemporaries. In an evening that offers electrifying pianistic virtuosity and raw energy vocals, Cohen and company bring down the house and demonstrate the power and the revolution that early rock and roll was.

“It is perfect symmetry to utter the words ‘Curt Dale Clark’ and ‘Christmas’ in one sentence because no one does Christmas better than he and Marc Robin.”  These were my words as moderator of MSMT’s third Peek Behind the Curtain panel discussion as I introduced MSMT Artistic Director, (Curt Dale Clark) and his concept for the Christmas in July extravaganza currently providing context for the theatre’s spectacular production of WHITE CHRISTMAS, directed and choreographed by Robin. The panel of several of the show’s stars, Kerry Conte (Betty Haynes), Darien Crago (Judy Haynes), and David Girolmo (General Waverly) joined Clark and me to share with the audience their experience on stage in the beloved Irving Berlin classic now running at the Pickard Theater until August 3.

What could be more enticing to youngsters than Christmas that comes early? This summer Maine State Music Theatre invites families to experience Christmas in July at the Pickard Theatre and to share the magic of a musical never before presented here in Brunswick: Robin and Clark’s  THE STORY OF THE NUTCRACKER. Twinkling lights, myriads of trees, a market filled with goodies, and even a hint of snow …. all join forces to create an immersive experience for the Theatre for Young Audiences series. While Robin and Clark’s musical version of the Nutcracker story has been a Christmas staple for years in cities like Chicago and Lancaster, PA, It has not been presented here in Maine until now.  But after this debut series of performances, one can only hope it will become a new Maine tradition.