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Saturday, April 10, 2010

Enjoy Adventures of Tom Sawyer at Hartford Stage

Tim McKiernan, Casey Predovic and Louisa Krause. Photo by T. Charles Erickson.
Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Tom Sawyer comes to life at Hartford Stage in a new stage adaptation by Laura Eason through May 9.

It takes a few moments for your brain to adjust to the fact that the red-haired kid is Tom Sawyer and the dark-haired kid is Huck Finn when everything in the literary recesses of your brain tells you it should be the other way around, but both actors, Tim McKiernan and Casey Predovic, respectively, do right by their characters under the direction of Associate Artistic Director Jeremy B. Cohen.

Louisa Krause is an engaging Becky Thatcher (and is appropriately blonde pigtailed). Nancy Lemenager seems a little young for the roles of Aunt Polly and the Widow Douglas, but the whole production, part of a national celebration commemorating the centennial of Twain’s death and the 175th anniversary of his birth as well as participating in this year’s “Big Read,” feels like a production written especially for school-aged audiences, so to little kids, she’ll probably seem old.

Turning in a really good performance is Teddy Canez as Injun Joe, the schoolmaster and the minister. Rounding out the cast are Chris Bowyer (Sid Sawyer, Doc Robinson, lawyer), Eric Lochtefled (Muff Potter, Widow’s brother) and Joe Paulik (Joe Harper, lawyer, accomplice).

Ilona Somogyi creates the period costumes and Daniel Ostling designs the set consisting of smaller pieces that fly in and various larger pieces that are used and reused in different ways throughout the production (again having the feel of a production that would tour to schools). Disappointingly, the famous fence gets whitewashed with a lighting effect (Robert Wierzel, design) instead of real paint. Broken Chord Collective provides original music and sound design.

Tickets for The Adventures of Tom Sawyer are $23-$66. Performances are Tuesday-Thursday at 7:30 pm, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Sundays at 2 pm and 7:30 pm, Saturdays at 2 pm and some Wednesdays at 2 pm. Call the box office at 860-527-5151 or visit www.hartfordstage.org.
-- Lauren Yarger
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Lauren Yarger with playwright Alfred Uhry at the Mark Twain House. Photo: Jacques Lamarre)

My Bio

Lauren Yarger has written, directed and produced
numerous shows and special events for both secular and Christian audiences. She co-wrote a Christian musical version of “A Christmas Carol” which played to sold-out audiences of over 3,000 in Vermont and was awarded the 2000 Vermont
Bessie (theater and film awards) for “People’s Choice for Theatre.”

Yarger trained for three years in the Broadway
League’s Producer Development Program, completed the Commercial Theater Institute's Producing Three-Day Training and produced a one-woman musical about Mary Magdalene that toured nationally and closed with an off-Broadway
run.

She was a Fellow at the National Critics Institute at the O'Neill
Theater Center in Waterford, CT. She writes reviews of Broadway and off-Broadway theater (the only ones you can find in the US with an added Christian perspective) at http://reflectionsinthelight.blogspot.com/. She
is editor of The Connecticut Arts Connection (http://ctarts.blogspot.com), CT Press Club's award winner of first place for web editing and second place in feature writing for the web in 2012.

She is a contributing editor for BroadwayWorld.com and is a theater reviewer for the Manchester Journal-Inquirer. She previously served as Connecticut theater editor
for CurtainUp.com and as Connecticut and New York reviewer for American Theater Web. Yarger is a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly and freelances for other sites. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

She is a freelance writer and playwright and member of The Drama Desk, The Outer Critics Circle, The American Theater Critics Association and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She served as a judge for the SDX Awards presented
by the Society of Professional Journalists. She also is a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle (awards committee).

A former newspaper editor and graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, Yarger also worked in arts management for the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts,
the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and served for nine years as the Executive Director of Masterwork Productions, Inc. She lives with her husband in West Granby, CT. They have two adult children.

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