Ashley Rose Montondo News

Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company (MJTC) continues its 23rd season with Collected Stories by Donald Margulies, offering four post-show Doorways Programs that are free and open to the public.

Minnesota Jewish Theatre Company (MJTC) continues its 2 3rd season with Collected Stories by Donald Margulies. Jennie Ward will make her MJTC directorial debut. Ruth Steiner is a respected author in the autumn of her career when she hires Lisa, a graduate student, to be her assistant. Under Ruth's mentorship, Lisa's talent is unleashed, but when Lisa writes a novel based upon her teacher's past, their friendship explodes with questions about intellectual property and the ownership of experiences.

There have been various responses to the new presidency and the current political climate, including Facebook groups, letter writing and calling campaigns, petitions, and a nation-wide women's march. But what do artists do in response to injustice? They make art. Last weekend 7th House Theater opened a short run of what they call a 'pop up production' of the 1959 play RHINOCEROS, written by Eugene Ionesco as a response to the rise in Fascism in pre-WWII Europe. As company member David Darrow explained before the show, their new original musicals take about a year to plan, write, create, and produce, which makes it challenging to stay current. But with this piece, 7th House is presenting 'a specific work at a specific time in history.' After just ten days of rehearsal, they very intentionally opened on the night of the inauguration, a work presented in what David called 'a mostly sort of way.' While the staging is minimal and actors have scripts in their hands, Rhinoceros is a work that is wholly entertaining, eerily relevant, and exactly what we need right now.

The 2015 Torch Theater/Gremlin Theatre season at the Minneapolis Theatre Garage continues with the first all-Gremlin production, after the joint production, the dark and disturbing DEATH AND THE MAIDEN, and Torch's perfect screwball comedy BOEING BOEING earlier this year. For their production Gremlin is tackling H2O, a new play by Jane Martin. In the capable hands of director Ellen Fenster and a couple of compelling three-named actors, Peter Christian Hansen and Ashley Rose Montondo, this intense 90-minute two-hander is a funny, painful, and engaging story of fame, faith, and art.

Arthur Miller's 1953 play THE CRUCIBLE is a classic of the American theater, and dramatizes one of the greatest failings of the American, or rather pre-American, judicial system. During the infamous Salem witch trials of the late 17th Century, twenty people were put to death for the crime of witchcraft, following a long history of the execution of 'witches' in Europe. Arthur Miller explores the larger themes of this horrible incident through a very personal story of one affected family, making the play at once intimate and epic. Despite being over 60 years old, the themes of religious fanaticism, mob mentality, and persecution of people who are different are sadly as current as they were during the McCarthy era when the play was written. The Guthrie's grand production of this classic with a cast chock-full of talent is truly something to behold.

Ashley Rose Montondo, a graduate of the University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA program in Minneapolis, was cast into the lead role of Elizabeth Bennett in the Guthrie's summer smash, PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, starring opposite Mad Men star Vincent Kartheiser as Mr. Darcy when the original actor unexpectedly pulled out of the show. It is her first major starring role on the Guthrie stage, though she did have minor roles in a number of prior productions through her college program. Ashley took a few minutes to talk about her experience this summer.

Friday night, July 12, saw the opening of the Guthrie Theater's romantic summer comedy Pride and Prejudice helmed by Guthrie director Joe Dowling. The production is the Simon Reade adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel and features Ashley Rose Montondo (Guthrie: Charley's Aunt, University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA Actor Training Program) as Miss Elizabeth Bennet along with Vincent Kartheiser (Guthrie:A Christmas Carol, Henry V, Henry IV; Regional theater: Death of the Novel; Film: Untamed Heart, In Time; Television: 'Mad Men') as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Scroll down for photos from the curtain call and opening night party!

Friday night, July 12, saw the opening of the Guthrie Theater's romantic summer comedy Pride and Prejudice helmed by Guthrie director Joe Dowling. The production is the Simon Reade adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel and features Ashley Rose Montondo (Guthrie: Charley's Aunt, University of Minnesota/Guthrie BFA Actor Training Program) as Miss Elizabeth Bennet along with Vincent Kartheiser (Guthrie:A Christmas Carol, Henry V, Henry IV; Regional theater: Death of the Novel; Film: Untamed Heart, In Time; Television: "Mad Men") as Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy. Scroll down for a first look at the cast in action!

The Guthrie Theater today announced that Ashley Rose Montondo has joined the cast of its summer production of Pride and Prejudice. She assumes the featured role of Elizabeth Bennet after the sudden departure of Erin Krakow. Montondo steps into her first major role on the national stage, opposite leading man Vincent Kartheiser (television's 'Mad Men') in the role of Mister Darcy. The production is theSimon Reade adaptation of the classic Jane Austen novel in the two-hundred-year anniversary of its publication, helmed by Guthrie director Joe Dowling.