?Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT) kicks off the 2015 season with the heartwarming upbeat comedy THE FULL MONTY. This 10-time Tony Award-nominee is filled with honest affection, engaging melodies and a raucous mix of razor-sharp humor and toe-tapping pizazz, not to mention the most highly anticipated closing number in Broadway history! THE FULL MONTY runs June 3 - June 20, 2015.
Maine State Music Theatre Finds Its Talent for Summer 2015 When the audience thinks of casting for a Broadway musical, they conjure up the image of a darkened auditorium, an artist onstage peering into the glare and hearing Zach's voice from out of the void with its curt dismissal, 'Thank you.' Since its smash opening on Broadway in 1975 A Chorus Line has come to embody in poetic terms the uphill struggles of countless artists who toil every day on stage and off in pursuit of the metier they love. The rituals of auditioning and casting calls are integral to the life of an actor or theatre director, and each year they are played out in countless theatres large and small across the country, a crucial part of the puzzle that goes into shaping a successful season.
'All our stories this year will be about families or individuals who are broken, but they come back to make the best of it - to survive. That is our job as human beings, and if our shows can give somebody the strength and courage to do just that, then we in the theatre are doing our jobs.' Curt Dale Clark, Artistic Director of Maine State Music Theatre, is waxing eloquent about the company's plans for the 2015 summer season, the fifty-seventh for the company, and his second in the leadership position. Together with his partner, Managing Director, Stephanie Dupal, Clark outlines their plans for what they hope will be a worthy encore to last year's spectacularly successful season.
Today, Sister Act has been announced as the second show of the much-anticipated 57th season at Maine State Music Theatre. Sister Act will run from June 24 to July 11 at Pickard Theater, located at 1 Bath Road on the Bowdoin College campus.
Director/Choreographer Marc Robin brings home a dance extravaganza of the Irving Berlin holiday musical
Once again 2014 was a year to revel in the diversity and accomplishments of the theatrical scene in Maine. The summer and winter seasons yielded a nice balance between adventurous programming and classics. Here is my personal list for 2014, grouped by theatre company and show. 1. MAINE STATE MUSIC THEATRE once again receives my vote for the finest company in the region. Their 2014 season offered four dazzling main stage productions, including the remarkable revival of Chamberlain: A Civil War Romance, a daring and moving music theatre piece, beautifully realized by director-choreographer Marc Robin together with stars James Patterson and Kathy Voytko.
In the last of its 'Peek Behind the Curtain' series, Maine State Music Theatre presented a lively talkback which highlighted the company's final production of Footloose, as well as touching on the intern program, a review of the 2014 season and a preview of the coming 2015 lineup. Broadway World local editor Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold interviewed Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark, Audience Services Manager Susie Sharp, Resident Sound Designer Colin Whitely, Footloose principal David Ruprecht, and MSMT 'Angels' Judie Lemons and Bill Heaphy.
Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT)'s 2014 season is 'still rockin' with their remarkable season closing production of the high-energy dance musical, FOOTLOOSE, running today, August 6 - 23.
Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT)'s 2014 season is 'still rockin' with their remarkable season closing production of the high-energy dance musical, FOOTLOOSE, beginning tonight, August 6, and continuing through August 23.
Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT)'s 2014 season is 'still rockin' with their remarkable season closing production of the high-energy dance musical, FOOTLOOSE, running August 6 - 23.
The intern program at Maine State Music Theatre is one of the company's finest features, and what better way to showcase these talented 2014 performers than as the youthful, energetic ensemble in the Steven Schwartz/John-Michael Tebelak rock musical, GODSPELL. Billed as a concert performance, this production directed by Curt Dale Clark, is actually fairly elaborate in terms of choreography and musical-dramatic staging. Clark sets a compelling pace - ninety minutes of sheer joie de vivre - and he draws from these young actors highly individualized and detailed characterizations, at the same time that he inspires the kind of ensemble dynamic so crucial to this show: the sense of love and sharing that resonates with the play's message and communicates to the audience.
'It's the heart that makes it fun! The adrenalin gets going; we are all so engrossed in each other with different stories developing every night. There are always discoveries being made. This show is an adventure every single night!' The speaker is actor-dancer Carson Twitchell, who is talking about Maine State Music Theatre's latest hit, the Patti Colombo staging of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which opened July 17th at the Pickard Theatre in Brunswick, Maine. Twitchell is part of a six-person panel assembled at the Curtis Memorial Library on July 23 for the third Peek Behind the Curtain talkback. Joined by Barbara Whidden, MSMT's Director of Development, Kristen Thomas, House Manager, Leo Stagg, Technical Director, and fellow actors (Ruth) and Merill West (Dorcas), the panelists spoke with BWW's Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold about the thrill of this exuberant musical.
'I definitely have a choreographic style - much of what I do is ballet-based and athletic, but I was trained in the Jack Cole manner. My mentors, Ron Lewis, Ron Fields, were all Jack Cole people. I have a strong sense of jazz, true American jazz based in ballet.' The speaker is a petite, svelte, red-haired dynamo of energy and bubbly enthusiasm. Seated opposite me a few days before the opening of her latest theatrical endeavor, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at Maine State Music Theatre, director-choreographer Patti Colombo talks about her Maine debut and her other award-winning theatrical projects - among them, On the Town, West Side Story, Mask, L'il Abner, Peter Pan, Seussical, which have taken her to Broadway and around the world.
Maine State Music Theatre presents the hit Broadway show Godspell for two shows only on July 28th at 2:00pm and 7:30pm.
Maine State Music Theatre hosted its second talkback in its series, 'A Peek Behind the Curtain,' on July 2, 2014, at the Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick. The six-person panel moderated by BWW's Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold, was comprised of Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark, Advisory Board and 'Angel' member Lee Gilman, Costume Rental Supervisor Amy Mussman, and actors James Patterson (Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain), Kathy Voytko (Fannie Chamberlain), and Sam Weber (Tom Chamberlain) explored the experience of creating the revival of Sarah Knapp and Steven M. Alper's musical, Chamberlain A Civil War Romance. The near-capacity crowd at the Morrell Reading Room was treated to a lively exchange among the panel members and audience, laced with the warmth, camaraderie, and obvious affection for the company and the work.
Maine State Music Theatre's second production of the season, a revival of the Knapp-Alper 1996 musical Chamberlain A Civil War Romance, proves to be a grand and glorious theatrical experience, an endeavor of epic proportions that delivers spectacle, emotion, and inspiration in equal measure. Spanning more than fifty years in the life of Brunswick's legendary Civil War hero, Maine governor, and Bowdoin college president, Joshua L. Chamberlain, and focusing on his relationship with his passionate, mercurial wife, Fannie Adams, the musical, in this brilliantly executed new production, directed and choreographed by Marc Robin, offers both epic sweep and touching intimacy. Large in musical and dramatic scale, lavish in production values, and cast with a first rate ensemble of singing-actors, Chamberlain dazzles the ear and eye and warms the heart.
Maine State Music Theatre's (MSMT) production of Chamberlain: A Civil War Romance brings the life of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to the stage. The story centers on his relationship with his wife, Fannie, and explores the trials and tribulations of a man committed to his family as well as his country.
I sat there alone on the storied crest, till the sun went down as it did before over the misty hills, and the darkness crept up the slopes, till from all earthly sight I was buried as with those before. But oh, what radiant companionship rose around, what steadfast ranks of power, what bearing of heroic souls. Oh, the glory that beamed through those days and nights. Nobody will ever know it here! - I am sorry most of all for that! The proud young valor that rose above the mortal, and then at last was mortal after all.... When she read these lines written by Civil War hero and Maine Legend Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain more than eighteen years ago, lyricist/ book writer Sarah Knapp became convinced that she and her husband composer Steven M. Alper had to write their 'memory play.' The musical, commissioned by Charles Abbott, then Artistic Director of Maine State Music Theatre, became one of the greatest successes in the company's history, selling out before it even opened - ('it was the only show where they were scalping tickets on the lawn,' Knapp recalls). Now almost two decades later, Chamberlain A Civil War Romance will receive its first new production since that world premiere in 1996, once again at the Maine State Music Theatre in Brunswick, the hometown of Chamberlain and his wife Fannie. Speaking with the composer and writer just days before the opening, they shared their palpable excitement at the prospect of this revival.
On June 13, 2014, Maine State Music Theatre inaugurated the first of a new series of talkbacks, called 'A Peek Behind the Curtain,' designed to share with its audiences the ingredients which go into putting together a successful theatre season. Broadway World local editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold, was invited to interview a panel comprised of actors, creative and administrative team members from their current show, The Buddy Holly Story, after which the floor was opened to the audience for questions. The event, held at the Curtis Memorial Library, drew a large and enthusiastic crowd, and the exchange was informative, entertaining, and in many ways, an inspiring tribute to the work the company does and to the theatrical profession these artists hold dear. The panelists were Stephanie Dupal. MSMT Managing Director, Kyle Melton, Props Master, Matthew J. Riordan, who plays Niki Sullivan and Tommy Allsup; Lore Eure who portrays Vi Petty, and Chari Burdick, Secretary of the MSMT Angels, a volunteer support group for the theatre.
Maine State Music Theatre's (MSMT) production of Chamberlain: A Civil War Romance brings the life of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain to the stage. The story centers on his relationship with his wife, Fannie, and explores the trials and tribulations of a man committed to his family as well as his country.
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