Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold - Page 7

Portland’s Good Theater newest production is a side-splittingly funny, perfectly timed farce with ancient roots in Italy’s Commedia dell’Arte, Richard Bean’s ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS.

The Good Theater presents a fresh take on its annual musical revue, BROADWAY AT THE GOOD: THE TWIN PIANO EDITION, this time honoring six seminal musicals from Broadway’s Golden Age, performed by a sprightly company of nine under the direction of Brian P. Allen, who conceived and directed the show and serves as its charming emcee.

Portland Stage opens its fiftieth season with a warm, witty, insightful new play by one of Maine’s most original voices, Monica Wood, in a stylish production directed by Sally Wood. Portland Stage’s commitment to new work has been an enduring one, and surely one of the theatre’s brightest new endeavors has been to nurture the playwrighting talents of Monica Wood. Her latest work, SAINT DAD, is a polished and poignant play about the intersection of people from two very different worlds brought together by the sale of a family camp in rural Maine and the journey they take individually and collectively to reach some transformative epiphanies.

The Good Theater opens its 21st season with a luminous production of Matthew Barber’s poignant 2017 play about the flickers of late-life romance, expertly directed by Brian P. Allen, starring Valerie Perri in a nuanced, delicate and incandescent performance. FIREFLIES, as the title and central metaphor suggest, draws a subtle portrait of the sparks that simmer repressed in a lonely woman’s soul, only to be kindled by the attentions of an erratic, but appealing drifter who comes into her life and enables her to shake off decades of claustrophobic expectations.   Barber draws his four characters with great insight and empathy, and though the ending may be fated from the start, keeps the audience guessing as to the directions the principal pair will choose.  His dialogue is wry, laced with a warm wit and tender pathos, and he manages to infuse every moment of the week-long action with palpable emotion.

The Public Theatre in Lewiston opens its 2023-24 season with the world premiere of Cary Crim’s latest work, PAINT NIGHT, a heartfelt exploration of the complexities and conflicts that confront mothers and daughters in our contemporary world.  The six-character play, directed by Janet Mitchko, strikes some familiar chords and appears to resonate with the theatre’s audience.

The MSMT Singers, the spectacularly talented group of young professionals in residence at Maine State Music Theatre all summer, bid farewell to Brunswick with two splendidly crafted and performed cabarets at the Freeport venue, Cadenza. The eight performers were able to showcase their triple threat talents and the new skills they honed all summer, in a program of musical theatre song and dance.

The record crowd who came out to fill the Brunswick Mall and celebrate the final week of the theatre company’s 2023 season were treated to a summer’s evening of joyful song, performed by the stars of SOMETHING ROTTEN! (the current main stage production) and the MSMT Singers. The concert, presented in conjunction with the Brunswick Downtown Association and funded in part by a gift from the Maine Arts Commission, featured sixteen selections from the musical theatre repertoire and was emceed by MSMT Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark with his customary flair.

Maine State Music Theatre closes its TYA series with an imaginative revival of Robin & Clark’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The third children’s production of the season features a young cast – local actors ages 11-18 from the theatre’s Summer Intensive program and the MSMT Singers - in a colorful, clever production that combines song, dance, and puppetry

“As an actor, I have a huge sense of play, and this show is very much that. It’s really like a fun game of tennis with lots of back and forth. We don’t always know what is going to happen until we are in the moment, declares Tyler Hanes, who portrays Shakespeare in SOMETHING ROTTEN!, the musical which closes out MSMT’s 2023 season. Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark concurs, “SOMETHING ROTTEN! is like a game I love to play; it teases you verbally, vocally, and instrumentally to name those Broadway musicals. It is so much fun!” “It is everything I love about musical theatre all in one show,” agrees Lucy Godinez, who plays Bea Bottom. “It’s joyful; it’s fun; there is love. The sense of play in this show gives you the license to fill in the blanks.” Bryant Martin, who plays Nick Bottom, adds that not only is the show great fun with lots of great musical numbers, but it also “speaks to the struggle all artists have dealing with validation. Nick asks why his peers are having success and he isn’t. It’s a situation with which we as actors can easily resonate.” The foursome are serving on a panel moderated by BWW World Maine Editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, at MSMT’s final Peek Behind the Curtain on August 16 at Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library to discuss MSMT’s hilarious production of SOMETHING ROTTEN! And judging by the laughter in the room, the large audience agrees that the musical by Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick is not only clever and hugely funny, but a crowd-pleasing hit.

Dancing omelettes, a zany soothsayer, THE Bard of English theatre, and a ragtag troupe of Renaissance actors struggling to survive all share the Maine State Music Theatre stage in dizzying profusion in the final main stage production of the season: SOMETHING ROTTEN! - an outrageously funny, simultaneously urbane and plebeian send up and homage to classical theatre and that unique genre the MUSICAL. The stylish and brilliant co-production with Lancaster’s Fulton Theatre, directed by Marc Robin, creates an entirely new imaginary universe, a world at the intersection of Elizabethan England and modern American musical theatre – part Renaissance Faire (on steroids), part Monty Python at their most hilarious. The evening, which is filled with endearing characters, showstopping song and dance numbers, comedy fueled by allusions, puns, slapstick, scatological jokes, and occasionally even poetry, is pure entertainment. No one will need to “brush up his Shakespeare” or be able to “name that tune” in order to come away from SOMETHING ROTTEN! thoroughly exhilarated and brimming with joy.

“Whether you get all the references or not, this show is still smart and funny. It’s a little like HAMILTON, which creates a gateway into history, in that it offers the audience a gateway into theatre. It makes them interested in the art form as a whole,” Bryant Martin says. “And the audience will be impressed with the singing and dancing – with the pure spectacle of what they are seeing on stage. There is something in this show for everybody from the book to the musical aspects,” concurs Tyler Hanes. Hanes, who plays William Shakespeare, and Martin, who portrays his rival playwright and theatrical producer, Nick Bottom, are waxing enthusiastic about SOMETHING ROTTEN!, the last main stage show of Maine State Music Theatre’s 2023 season which begins performances on August 9th.

For two brief hours in Brunswick, Maine, the king of rock ‘n’ roll seems to come to life again on stage at the sold out (waiting list only) concert, KING IN CONCERT, as Victor Trevino, Jr. re-creates the vocal and physical charisma of Elvis Presley in a high energy, kinetically seductive performance.  His evening featuring Elvis’ most beloved hits successfully captures the visceral magic of the man who is arguably the most important and revolutionary figure in popular music in the 20th century.

“MSMT has been trying for years to get the rights to 9 to 5 THE MUSICAL, so I was delighted when we finally were able to present this show this season. When we screened the movie at our May Teaser Tuesday series, the entire room guffawed all night long, and I knew the musical would be the perfect choice for 2023. People want to laugh, and they deserve to laugh, especially after all we have been through in the past few years.” Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark is talking about the Dolly Parton musical now in its last week at the Pickard Theater in Brunswick, Maine. He is joined by cast members Lauren Blackman, Jaden Dominique, and Kevin Earley as part of MSMT’s Peek Behind the Curtain panel hosted by Broadway World Maine Editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, held at Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library on July 26. The conversation explores the enduring appeal of Dolly Parton’s musical, the lessons it teaches through humor, and and the resonance it continues to have today.

Stiles & Drewe’s THE THREE LITTLE PIGS returns to Maine State Music Theatre after its popular 2019 run in an enchanting revival directed by Raymond Marc Dumont. The production is a lighthearted, contemporized version of the traditional English fairytale, told with humor and warmth and presented with the first-class production values for which Maine State Music Theatre is known.

Maine State Music Theatre’s new production of 9 TO 5 THE MUSICAL with Dolly Parton’s pulsating score is a high energy, hilarious madcap misadventure that somehow also manages to ring uncannily true. Both a period piece and a contemporary one, this tale of women in the workplace is propelled by zany humor, but also fueled by the empathetic characters at its core. The trio of women embattled with their narcissistic boss are - as Parton, herself, phrased it “just a step on the boss man's ladder” - and yet they sing and dance their way into our hearts in an evening filled with laughter and warmth.

“This is going to be a summer of fun with substance,” smiles Jaden Dominque as she describes her new project, Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5 THE MUSICAL, which opens at Maine State Music Theatre on July 19.

“You may say I’m a dreamer,” John Lennon writes in his iconic anthem, “Imagine,” and, indeed, in 1969 when the Beatles disbanded and embarked on solo careers, each of the four would create songs that did explore new realms. Musician Joe Boucher and his band, allow themselves to re-imagine new possibilities for the Beatles music from their solo careers in a concert bearing the title of Lennon’s song, which the group performed to a soldout house as a part of Maine State Music Theatre’s Concert Series July 9-10. IMAGINE presents compositions by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr from 1969-1980, played as they might have, had the foursome still been performing together as The Beatles and still under the watchful, creative eye of producer George Martin.

We are the stewards of the music. We are here to keep it alive and share it with as many people as possible,” says actor Jayson Elliott, who plays the Big Bopper in Maine State Music Theatre’s current production of THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY. Elliott joins Diego Guevara, who portrays Ritchie Valens, Angela C. Howell, director/choreographer/music director who also plays Vi Petty, and MSMT Artistic Director, Curt Dale Clark for a conversation about the musical with Broadway World’s Maine Editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold at the second Peek Behind the Curtain series of the season. The record-breaking crowd attending the panel discussion mirrors the sold-out houses THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY has been drawing each night at the Pickard Theatre. They have come to celebrate the rock n’ roll legends and to explore what made Buddy Holly and his early colleagues such phenomena of music history.

There are certain moments of history that become emblazoned in our collective human  psyches. Fans of American popular music all remember with a searing certainty the day when Charles Hardin Holley was killed in a plane crash at age twenty-two,  his pioneering meteoric rock ‘n’ roll career brought to a tragic end. But if  Feb 3,1959, was “the day the music died “ - as Don McLean wrote - MSMT’s Buddy Holly STORY turns that trope on its head. The new production, staged by Angela C. Howell makes clear that the legacy of Buddy Holly lives, and if MSMT’s production of the jukebox musical about Holly’s legend and his legacy rocks the Pickard Theater to the rafters with its visceral musical energy, it also speaks volumes about the warmth and heart of the Holly story.

On one of its most gala evenings in recent memory, Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark and Maine State Music Theatre celebrated Maury Yeston,Tony/Drama Desk/Olivier Award winning composer and lyricist of TITANIC, with two standing room only performances of the company’s recent revival, directed and choreographed by Marc Robin. And Yeston, who had journeyed to Maine to see his work performed at the Pickard Theater on June 22 and 23, in turn celebrated the work of the company, calling the new co-production, conceived and created by MSMT and the Fulton Theatre, “the most innovative, exciting presentation of anything I have seen in years. It is not even a matter of whether it was my work or any work, what they did here was so original and brilliant in its simplicity that it was magic.”