Curt Dale Clark News

We're heading into the final week of voting for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! Vote today to make sure your favorite local theatre's achievements and performers are recognized!

There's just two weeks left to vote for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! The people have spoken nominations are set, and now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatre's achievements and performers are recognized!

There's just a few weeks left to make your voice heard and submit your votes for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! The people have spoken nominations are set, and now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatre's achievements and performers are recognized!

It's December! Voting is now underway for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! Now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized. Check out the first set of stats below.

As evidenced by the breadth of nominations for Broadway World's Annual Audience Choice Awards, Maine's theatrical landscape seems to grow and flourish with each new season. For a state as remote as we are, we boast two prestigious regional theatres now in their second half centuries a?" Maine State Music Theatre and Ogunquit Playhouse a?" which are leaders on the national regional scene and which have become destinations for travellers from far flung places. Add to these an array of countless other companies of every size and philosophic bent, and you have a colorful, rich artistic arena that grows more interesting each year. I am privileged to get to sample these performances as Broadway World's Maine editor and to be able to compare many of them favorably with shows I see across the country, in New York and London. These are my personal choices of the best in Maine for 2019, grouped by theatre company and show.

Voting is NOW OPEN and the first votes are in for the 2019 BroadwayWorld Maine Awards, brought to you by TodayTix! The nominees are set, and now you can vote to make sure your favorite local theatres and performers are recognized!

Fulton's Peter Pan brings some refreshing and welcomed updates to a joyous American classic. First and foremost, one of the most interesting and beneficial changes to this production is the casting of the title role. Peter has traditionally, and almost exclusively, been played by an actress. Mary Martin, Sandy Duncan and Cathy Rigby have all had their turn as the boy who won't grow up.

Believe in magic this Holiday Season at the Fulton Theatre! Peter Pan flies in, November 14 through December 29, with previews November 12 & 13. An adventure for the entire family, Peter Pan is being produced on the grand scale of the Fulton's Beauty and the Beast.

a?oeA very, very merry, merry, happy, happy endinga??.a?? sings the colorful cast of human beings and sea creatures as they celebrate the wedding of Prince Alexander and Melody in Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark's musical version of THE LITTLE MERMAID. And, indeed, this final 2019 Maine State Music Theatre production in the Pickard Theater proves to be just that! The third Theatre for Young Audiences show which closes another season of spectacular theatre for the Brunswick-based theatre is one of the most ambitious, completely realized productions created by MSMT's intern company.

BroadwayWorld presents a comprehensive weekly roundup of regional stories around our Broadway World, which include videos, editor spotlights, regional reviews and more. This week, we feature JOSEPH on Broadway, Lea Salonga in SWEENEY TODD, FROZEN Tour First Look and More!

a?oeFor nearly forty years this story has given faithful service to the Young in Heart; and Time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashiona??..a?? These words from L. Frank Baum dance across the screen during the overture of MSMT's stunning new production of THE WIZARD OF OZ, reminding the audience of the perennial appeal of this beloved story. And as the curtain goes up, the audience is treated to arguably the largest, most lavish production in MSMT history with a cast of fifty (that includes twenty children and a dog), dazzling technical elements, staging and choreography to blow one away, and performances to melt the heart. a?oea??When I saw Marc Robin's production at the Fulton in 2016, I said, a?oeWe have to do this at MSMT. THE WIZARD OF OZ had not been on this stage since 1961, and it was time to give it a new life,a?? says Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark. Clark is one of the large panel, which also includes Marc Robin, Travis M. Grant, Carolyn Anne Miller, Susan Cella, Ian Knauer, and David Girolmo, who have come together in conversation with BWW's Maine Editor Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold in MSMT and BWW's final season collaboration of PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAIN at the Curtis Memorial Library on August 14th.

To stage the beloved cultural icon that is THE WIZARD OF OZ offers any theatre company a herculean challenge: one which requires stretching the imagination to the limits to create a universe where reality is redefined and fantasy is fulfilled. In short, it demands stunning stagecraft and brilliant artistic vision. And it is just that kind of theatrical magic which Maine State Music Theatre's new production co- directed by Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark boldly and beautifully realizes.

a?oeIn the musical they all learn that the thing they believe is missing is already inside of them. We all have within us everything we think we are deficient in a?" everything we need to become the person we are supposed to be.a?? Actor David Girolmo is speaking of the lesson his character, the Cowardly Lion, learns in the stage version of L. Frank Baum's iconic classic THE WIZARD OF OZ, which runs from August 7-24 in a spectacularly fantastical production co-directed by narc Robin and Curt Dale Clark at Maine State Music Theatre.

When actress Carolyn Anne Miller utters that iconic line on the Pickard Stage next week a?" a?oeToto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore,a?? it will have an added resonance for the Midwestern native, who makes her Maine State Music debut in THE WIZARD OF OZ. The Chicago born and educated Miller cut her professional teeth at, among other theatres, Music Theatre Wichita, before moving to New York City and on to star as Dorothy in MSMT's fantastical new production of the stage version of that perennial classic based on L. Frank Baum's stories, directed and choreographed by Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark.

a?oeSuperstara?? is the title of the final number in Maine State Music Theatre's third concert staging, THE MUSIC OF ANDREW LLOYD WEBBER, but the designation seems to apply just as easily to the aspirations and abilities of the young artists who brought this sensational evening of theatre to life. Each season MSMT, as part of its Educational Fellowship Program, presents a fully staged concert performance created completely by these young professionals in training, and, each year in recent memory, the offerings have grown more complex, the talent more dazzling. Last night's performance of Andrew Lloyd Webber's music bears witness to that phenomenon, offering an evening of inspired staging, strong solo and ensemble performances, and spectacular vocalism and dancing.

"The main purpose of NAMT (National Alliance for Musical Theatre) is preservation of the art form. We are committed to keeping musical theatre moving forward and changing with the times. MSMT is a founding member of NAMT, and our decision to produce TREASURE ISLAND A MUSICAL ADVENTURE is our way of participating with new work." The speaker is Curt Dale Clark, MSMT's Artistic Director, who is part of a panel of cast members from the theatre's East Coast premiere of the new musical version of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel, which is currently wowing audiences at the Pickard Theater in Brunswick. Clark, together with actors Aaron Ramey, James Patterson, Michael Iannucci, and Gabriel Rosario spoke with BROADWAY WORLD's Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold on July 3rd in the second of MSMT's PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAIN program at Curtis Memorial Library.

In the opening number of their revue, LETTIN' THE GOOD TIMES ROLL, E. Faye Butler and Felicia P. Fields sing "You only live once, so let the good times roll!" And for the next one hundred minutes,these two legendary divas unleash a torrent of song, story, and soul that rocks the Pickard Theater with unchained energy, joy, and inspiration.

There is magic afoot at MSMT's Pickard Theater - and miracles! Not supernatural ones, but rather those that happen when a fresh new work of musical theatre dazzles the public with its excitement and beauty. And that is exactly what Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark's TREASURE ISLAND A MUSICAL ADVENTURE does as its charts an epic and extraordinary course that gives MSMT audiences a production that is grand, genuinely thrilling, and emotionally satisfying in a timeless way. Robert Louis Stevenson's novel has been adapted for stage and screen numerous times, but none has been as compelling, as simultaneously classic and contemporary as this new musical version, which had its world premiere at the Fulton Theatre in 2018. This East Coast premiere of TREASURE ISLAND offers audiences an opulent production, a brilliant team of creatives, cast, and crew, who pour all their energies into crafting an adventure for the ages. Known for bringing 'Broadway to Brunswick,' with TREASURE ISLAND MSMT has produced a show that is worthy to inhabit any Broadway stage and to find a lasting place in the American musical repertoire.

"I would love to play an iconic adventure hero role, and this is a herculean moment for me that is incredibly gratifying. It is a beautiful story." Michael William Nigro is talking about playing the young hero of TREASURE ISLAND, Jim Hawkins, in the new musical version by Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark, which begins a run of its East Coast premiere at Maine State Music Theatre on June 26th. The twenty-year-old Nigro, who returns to the show after having made his debut in the Fulton Theatre's world premiere in September 2018, says that not only is TREASURE ISLAND a coming of age story for Jim Hawkins, but that he, himself, has "experienced moments of huge personal growth. The experience of the show has informed me so much in this last year. And now [returning to reprise the role], I get an opportunity to connect my own coming of age experience to the character - to bring what is so real to me into the role." Nigro's journey from the New Jersey suburb of Cranford to New York and regional stages as well as to television and film began, he recalls, at age three. "My Mom took me to see LES MISERABLES at the local high school. An actor named Jonathan Schwartz caught me attention. I was enamored of his work, and I followed his career as I grew up. He was the first person in the theatre whom I looked up to; I wanted to be like him. Fast forward to when I was fourteen and about to perform in THE SOUND OF MUSIC LIVE, I received a message from him as he was rehearsing ALADDIN on Broadway," he smiles, noting the serendipitous way lives intertwine in the theatre.

"I had been looking for a reason to come back, and do another show here, so I was pleased when my managers sent me to audition for TREASURE ISLAND [A MUSICAL ADVENTURE]. Doing new work is always great; I love that process where I get to be more involved in the actual creation." Broadway star Aaron Ramey is explaining how he has come to find himself back in Maine to play the plum role of Long John Silver in MSMT's East Coast premiere of Marc Robin and Curt Dale Clark's new epic musical which plays at the Pickard Theater from June 26 - July 13, 2019. Ramey had been an intern in 1997 while he was still a student at Otterbein University. "Ironically," he notes, "that was the summer of renovatios and MSMT performed at Crooker Auditorium, so this production will actually be my first time on the Pickard stage." He recalls the shows from that season: "I was in SWEENEY TODD, CAROUSEL, and TOMMY. I wasn't a good enough dancer to be in THE MUSIC MAN, but I did get to carry the pool table across stage, and in A CHORUS LINE, I played trombone in the pit," he laughs. "And then, too, I knew Michael Nigro [who plays Jim Hawkins] from a workshop we had both been in in New York, and he had urged me to audition."