Based on the story of Charles M. Russell
Based on an idea by Ronnie Claire Edwards
Dan was dedicated to providing new experiences for playwrights, actors and our community through the New Works Festival each year. It is in his honor that tradition is continued by presenting the work of five playwrights and three young playwrights. The New Works Festival is a platform for artists to launch their new works. Each work will be performed as a staged reading.
Be it ever so hostile, there's no place like home.
Such is the hard lesson learned by a singing cowboy's homecoming in Scott Cherney's new western comedy romance novel, Song of the Canyon Kid.
A straight-shooting, guitar strumming buckaroo known as The Canyon Kid returns to Dirt Clod, Missouri only to find his hometown in ruins due to the machinations of a corrupt 'hanging' judge. To make matters worse, he discovers that his childhood sweetheart is about to marry his sworn enemy, a ruthless desperado who is not only the town sheriff, but also dead set on framing The Canyon Kid for murder.
'It's a total cartoon,' Cherney explains. 'I mean the main character is a singing cowboy. When is the last book you hummed? And, in full disclosure, it's also a novelization.'
The author adapted his story from his comic melodramatic play entitled Song of the Lone Prairie or Poem on the Range which debuted in 1987 at the late, great Pollardville Palace Showboat Theater in Stockton, California, a production he also directed.
'Pollardville was a magical place,' Cherney recalls. 'We had a melodrama/vaudeville theater as well as our very own western ghost town on the property where we'd get paid to play cowboy on the weekends. Our duties included robbing the train, engaging in fisticuffs and shooting it out with fellow gunslingers at High Noon. This was the birthplace of The Canyon Kid.'
Cherney realizes the stigma of a novelization, but he felt creatively stagnated and needed a writing exercise to get himself in gear. Digging through his old writings, he came across his script for Lone Prairie, a melodrama he considers his best and the culmination of everything he learned at Pollardville.
Adapting it into novel form came fairly easy, fleshing out the characters and story while transposing the stage direction into prose. Soon, it began took on a life of its own.
'I loved revisiting my old characters and giving them back stories like Nastassia Kinky and her brother, Two Gun Boris, the fastest gun this side of the Ukraine. I also made The Kid's horse, Thunder, more of a supporting character. And the love story is something I never I thought I was capable of pulling off, but I feel like I did. Overall I had a blast with this, the most fun I've had with a project since I wrote the original back in the '80's. It certainly helped to rekindle my love for writing.'
Concurrent with the release of Song of the Canyon Kid has been renewed interest in the original source material, the melodrama which has been performed across the United States for the third year in a row. This summer, The Canyon Kid and Co. will riding into two separate productions in Texas. On Memorial Day Weekend, The Brazos Theatre Group in Waco will be the final performances of Song of the Lone Prairie under that title. The same show with the revised title of Song of the Canyon Kid opens this July in Houston's Theatre Suburbia.
'The Canyon Kid has been very good to me. I hope I've returned the favor,' author/playwright Scott Cherney declares about his creation. 'By digging back into my roots, I've found that sometimes you have to take step back in order to move forward.'
Song of the Canyon Kid is available in book paperback and e-book.
More information can be found at:
Website: http://www.scottcherney.com
Dan was dedicated to providing new experiences for playwrights, actors and our community through the New Works Festival each year. It is in his honor that tradition is continued by presenting the work of five playwrights and three young playwrights. The New Works Festival is a platform for artists to launch their new works. Each work will be performed as a staged reading.
In honor of Theater Works' late Executive Director, the Fourth Annual New Works Festival will be named after Dan Schay. Dan was dedicated to providing new experiences for playwrights, actors and our community through the New Works Festival each year. It is in his honor that tradition is continued by presenting the work of five playwrights and three young playwrights beginning Friday, July 8 in the McMillin Theater of the Peoria Center for the Performing Arts. The New Works Festival is a platform for artists to launch their new work. Each work will be performed as a staged reading.
YALE REPERTORY THEATRE announces its 50th Anniversary Season, which will include three world premieres commissioned by Yale Rep and two contemporary masterpieces.
Gloucester Stage continues the 36th season of producing professional theatre on Cape Ann with Deborah Zoe Laufer's Out of Sterno opening tonight, June 25 and running through July 18 at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA.
Gloucester Stage continues the 36th season of producing professional theatre on Cape Ann with Deborah Zoe Laufer's Out of Sterno opening on June 25 and running through July 18 at 267 East Main Street, Gloucester, MA.
British bad boy Billy Idol performs his hits at Mayo Performing Arts Center tonight, June 5 at 8 pm. Tickets are $75-150.
The Off-Broadway hit Murder for Two opens tonight (June 3) in the Audrey Skirball Kenis Theater. The production has now been extended through Sunday, August 2.
British bad boy Billy Idol performs his hits at Mayo Performing Arts Center on Friday, June 5 at 8 pm. Tickets are $75-150.
Geva Theatre Center presents Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike - Christopher Durang's laugh-out-loud, Tony Award-winning comedy, directed by Bruce Jordan. Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike begins performances May 5, opens May 9, and runs in the Elaine P. Wilson Mainstage through May 31.
Joanna Murray-Smith's Switzerland -- already extended one week -- will extend yet another eight performances by popular demand with a final closing date of April 26, 2015. A world premiere with the Sydney Theatre Company, Switzerland is a Los Angeles Times Arts Editors' "Essential Arts and Culture" Pick and features Laura Linney (Broadway World said she is "pure gold") and Seth Numrich (called "outstanding" by the Los Angeles Times).
The Film Society of Lincoln Center will present Let There Be Light: The Films of John Huston, December 19 - January 11,
Boz Scaggs makes his first appearance at Concord's Capitol Center for the Arts on Sunday, October 19, at 7:30pm. Tickets start at $54.50 and are available now at the Box Office, located at 44 South Main Street, Concord, NH, online at ccanh.com, or via phone at 603-225-1111.
Tony Award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike will feature Resident Actor Jeffrey Bean as Vanya, Sharon Lockwood returning to the Alley as Sonia, Alley Artist Josie de Guzman returning as Masha, and Resident Actor Jay Sullivan as Spike. Rounding out the cast and making their Alley debuts are Rachael Holmes as Cassandra and Sarah Nealis as Nina. Jonathan Moscone, Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater, helms the production and returns after having directed the Alley's 2011 production of Amadeus.
Nonesuch Records will release Natalie Merchant's new self-titled album today, May 6, 2014.
Alley Theatre Artistic Director Gregory Boyd announces the cast and creative team for recent Tony Award-winning comedy Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike. Appearing in titles roles are Resident Actor Jeffrey Bean as Vanya, Sharon Lockwood returning to the Alley as Sonia, Alley Artist Josie de Guzman returning as Masha, and Resident Actor Jay Sullivan as Spike. Rounding out the cast and making their Alley debuts are Rachael Holmes as Cassandra and Sarah Nealis as Nina. Jonathan Moscone, Artistic Director of California Shakespeare Theater, helms the production and returns after having directed the Alley's 2011 production of Amadeus.
For one night only, Tony-Nominated composer (Urban Cowboy, 'I Won't Mind') and actor (Murder for Two) Jeff Blumenkrantz presents the world premiere performance of his song cycle Month Upon a Time tonight, February 12, at 9:30PM at 54 Below.
For one night only, Tony-Nominated composer (Urban Cowboy, 'I Won't Mind') and actor (Murder for Two) Jeff Blumenkrantz presents the world premiere performance of his song cycle Month Upon a Time next Wednesday, February 12, at 9:30PM at 54 Below.
Turner Classic Movies (TCM) has added an exciting roster of screen legends and beloved titles to the 2014 TCM Classic Film Festival,
In celebration of the 60th anniversary of the world-renowned Newport Jazz Festival (August 1-3, 2014), clarinetist/saxophonist Anat Cohen, vocalist/pianist Karrin Allyson, bassists Larry Grenadier and Ben Allison, pianist Peter Martin, guitarist Mark Whitfield, trumpeter Randy Brecker, and drummer Clarence Penn embark on the 17-city 'Newport Jazz Festival: Now 60' Tour, February 8 - March 30, 2014, with more dates during June, July and August in North America and Europe.
Lisa Marie Presley, alt-country and roots rock band Cowboy Junkies, singer-songwriter Kevin Devine and a multimedia dance performance by acclaimed dance choreographers Art Bridgman and Myrna Packer are among the new shows announced for the ArtsQuest Center, 101 Founders Way, Bethlehem. Tickets for the shows will go on sale Dec. 10, 10 a.m., to ArtsQuest Members and Dec. 13, 10 a.m. to the public. They'll be available at www.artsquest.org and 610-332-3378.
Good Company Theatre has announced its production of Fences by renowned dramatist August Wilson. At the center of the story is headstrong patriarch Troy Maxon, a former Negro Leagues baseball player whose career was halted by racial prejudice. With wary and dutiful pride he supports his family as a garbage collector, struggling to reconcile his lived experiences with the escalating social change of 1950s America.
The Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre at the University of Oklahoma welcomes Tony nominee Jeff Blumenkrantz to the Campus Corner Cabaret at 7pm tonight, September 5, 2013 at Othello's in Norman.
From South Africa comes a stage adaptation of 'Sacred Elephant,' the epic poem by Heathcote Williams, performed by Jeremy Crutchley, a multi award-winning actor of stage and screen, and directed by Geoffrey Hyland. 'Sacred Elephant' is the first of four world-famous, influential poems Williams has written on environmental causes. It was followed by 'Whale Nation' (1988), 'Falling for a Dolphin' (1990) and 'Autogeddon' (1991). Sheer Nerve Productions, in association with BuyArt and Cockpit, will present the American premiere of the work tonight, September 4 to 22 as part of the Summer Shares at La MaMa, 74A East Fourth Street.
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