Charis Leos News

Maine State Music Theatre brings Rydell High's senior class of 1959 to the Pickard stage with Grease July 19 - August 5.

Part of the perennial appeal of Frank Loesser's Guys and Dolls lies in the larger-than-life aura of its Damon Runyonesque roots - its fantasy land of gangsters and dolls, Broadway in the Prohibition era, and memorable characters who sing, dance, and deliver wise-cracks. Maine State Music Theatre's new production, the fifth in the company's history, brings this classic to life with a vivid freshness that embraces both the grand framework of the story and the intimacy of its essential heart. Sweet, sassy, and colorful, soaring and ambitious, MSMT's second show of the 2017 season is breathtakingly daring in the way it utilizes all the company's resources to their fullest, all the while that it demonstrates to a new generation why Guys and Dolls both invented and broke the mold for American musical theatre.

Maine State Music Theatre presents Frank Loesser's celebrated musical comedy about rolling the dice and falling in love, Guys and Dolls. Considered by many to be the 'perfect musical comedy,' Guys and Dolls runs from June 28 - July 15.

'We wanted to go big and grand. We knew we had Christine [Mild] with her powerhouse performance and Charis [Leos] so we wanted to play it large and create an environment that would support them. The production concept we came up with turned out to be a wonderful envelope to wrap around the show and the entire staging fell into place.' Co-director/choreographer Marc Robin was talking about his and Curt Dale Clark's vision for their new staging of Always, Patsy Cline, which opened Maine State Music Theatre's 2017 season on June 7th. Robin was part of a panel that also featured Patsy star Christine Mild and stand-by Heidi Kettenring, MSMT Charge Scenic Artist Sean Cox, and MSMT Board Vice President Kristine Ganong. The discussion on June 14th, moderated by Broadway World Maine editor Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold was the first in the now four-year-old summer series of free public forums, A Peek Behind the Curtain, held at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. The series, designed to give theatre-goers insight into the creative processes of producing each of the summer main stage shows, featured a lively and far-reaching conversation about Patsy Cline, MSMT's Theatre for Young Audiences program, and the theatre's burgeoning role in the community.

'I love it here! This Always, Patsy Cline will be the twenty-sixth production I've appeared in with MSMT, and by the end of this summer, the number will be twenty-nine.' Actress Charis Leos - a huge favorite with Maine audiences and critics alike - is reflecting on her long association with the Brunswick theatre and what the future holds for her here and in the other numerous regional theatres where she lights up the stage with her vibrant, inimitable gifts as a musical theatre performer.

About half way through the musical, Always, Patsy Cline, Louise says of the legendary singer, 'She blew the roof off that old honky tonk!' And much the same could be said for the electric atmosphere at the Brunswick's Pickard Theater, where MSMT opened its 59th season with a dazzling production of the musical that includes twenty-seven songs made famous by the singer, who remains to this day - fifty-four years after her untimely death - a towering presence in the world of country and pop music. With true betes de scene, Christine Mild as Patsy and Charis Leos as Louise, accompanied by a virtuoso band, performing an unforgettable songbook, this production delivers not only powerhouse vocal-dramatic values, but also offers the audience a vibrant and poignant journey to another time and place that magically come alive through in the charismatic story of its protagonists. The Ted Swindley musical which focuses on the last six years of Patsy Cline's life and on her friendship with a Texas divorcee and fan, Louise Seger, is so much more than a catalog of songs strung together by a chronological narrative. Indeed, the book is touching well-constructed - funny, sad, warm and human by turns - and the songs are integrated into the story with a seamlessness that lets the play move from reality to memory.

'It's all in the way she placed her voice. I like to call it the Kermit the Frog place - the soft palate at the back of the throat, and that's what activates the yodel, the catch, the cry, the growl which are the iconic hallmarks of her singing. Patsy Cline wasn't really a technical singer; this all just came naturally to her, but for me as an actress and technical singer who has to do the show eight times a week, I have to make sure I am singing in a healthy, safe way and understand how to make that happen. So if I place the voice right - if I place it in the 'Patsy place'- it all happens without trying.'

The nationally regarded Maine State Music Theatre celebrates music legend and cross-over sensation Patsy Cline, June 7 - 24. The touching true story, Always… Patsy Cline combines humor, heartache and 27 of Patsy's most unforgettable hits, such as "Crazy," "Walkin' After Midnight," "Sweet Dreams," and more.

The perennial Patsy Cline jukenox musical gets a solid production at the Fulton in Lancaster. It's not high art, but it's a good time.

The nationally regarded Fulton Theatre and Maine State Music Theatre celebrate music legend and cross-over sensation Patsy Cline, April 18 through May 21.

'At the end of last summer I told myself that we were not going to try to top the 2016 season. I was going to think of 2017 as a completely separate and unique adventure, but the end result is that we are already topping our previous metrics in terms of ticket sales.' The speaker, Curt Dale Clark, Maine State Music Theatre's energetic and charismatic Artistic Director, is reflecting on the sold out 2016 season which garnered the company lavish critical and audience acclaim and made an MSMT ticket one of the hottest items in the region.

There was a buzz of excitement in theatres across the country on Wednesday, January 4, as Broadway World Regional Managing Editor Christina Mancuso announced each region's winners in the 2016 Broadway World Audience Choice Awards. Here in Maine within seconds of the postings, congratulations and comments poured in on social media and websites. Hoping to get a measure of the reaction, we contacted all the winners and took a sampling of responses to share with everyone.

Votes are cast; polls are closed; and results have been tabulated! This was our biggest year yet! After a record number of voters in more than 75 regions worldwide, BroadwayWorld is very excited to announce the 2016 Maine winners! Thanks to all who voted, and huge congratulations to all the winners!

Fulton Theatre's current production, DISNEY'S BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, due to popular demand, is being held over until January 7, 2017. The storyline is one that reminds each of us to value, above all else, one's inner strength and beauty. Through exquisite swirls of colorful costumes and melodic trills of voice, this production is a feast for the soul and enlightenment for the spirit.

The nationally regarded Fulton Theatre is thrilled to announce the extension of Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

Having had the privilege to serve as Broadway World's Maine Editor for more than three years now, I can say with pride that the state, though remote as it may seem from the epicenter of the theatre world, Broadway, is blessed to be home to so many thriving theatre companies who produce exciting, vibrant seasons. As I compiled my list for 2016 with many familiar names, I was also struck by the extraordinary consistency of excellence these companies maintain. Here are my personal choices of the best in Maine, grouped by theatre and show.

It's not just big, it's huge. It's colorful. It's amazingly costumed. Marc Robin brings the wonderful world of Disney into high relief at the Fulton in his BEAUTY AND THE BEAST.

'We are the storytellers; we are the musicmakers; we are the dreamers of dreams.' With these words the cast of Frank McCourt's The Irish and How They Got That Way brings to a close a spellbinding evening of story and song that has the audience clapping, foot-tapping, weeping, and laughing in one of the most vibrant theatrical experiences in recent memory. The co-production of Pulitzer Prize winning author Frank McCourt's 1997 play with music marks a stunningly successful collaboration between Maine State Music Theatre and Portland Stage and promises to be a major hit for its brief four-week engagement. McCourt's one-hundred-minute drama tells the story of several centuries of the Irish experience on both sides of the Atlantic. No mere history lesson, however, as much knowledge as the play does impart, rather The Irish is a poetic, saucy, irreverent, and exquisitely beautiful tapestry of music, language, narrative, peopled with colorful characters and showcased in compelling song and dance.

Two of Maine's most revered cultural institutions, Portland Stage in Portland and Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT) in Brunswick, are pleased to announce their co-production of Frank McCourt's THE IRISH... AND HOW THEY GOT THAT WAY.  BroadwayWorld brings you a first look below!

'There are two kinds of people in the world, as ye very well know,' Peter Cormican asserts in a lilting accent, 'those that are Irish and those that want to be.' The English-born actor, son Irish parents - a Protestant mother from Belfast and a Catholic father from Galway - is currently in Maine to make his Maine State Music Theatre/Portland Stage debut in Frank McCourt's play The Irish and How They Got That Way, directed by Marc Robin, which opens in Portland August 19th. The production, a bold new collaboration between two of Maine leading Equity companies, marks an exciting new chapter for both theatres and promises to be one of the season's biggest hits, as it has been in every town its played. Cormican is joined in our conversation by two of the other four principals from the a small cast that also stars Curt Dale Clark [see BWW interview 5/24/16], Charis Leos and Cary Michele Miller, (and features Cameron Wright and Emily Davis, Ernest Sauceda (fiddler) and two other musicians). Both Leos and Miller are MSMT veterans, but new to McCourt's play. 'This is my debut at Portland Stage,' Miller says with anticipation. 'I always look forward to working with Curt and Charis and Marc, and I am enjoying getting to know Peter. And I am always excited to learn new material and new music.'