Alexander Gemignani will become the second artistic director in the history of the O'Neill Center's National Music Theater Conference. Founding Artistic Director Paulette Haupt will step down in August after 40 seasons at the helm.
Since its founding in 1978, NMTC has developed more than 132 new musicals, including early works of Nine, Violet, Avenue Q, In Transit, and In The Heights.
Actor, musical director, composer, lyricist, and educator, Alexander Gemignani is currently performing as King George III in the Chicago company of Hamilton.
He has premiered solo shows at the Kennedy Center (Barbara Cook’s Spotlight), The Sheen Center, Birdland, and Feinstein’s. TV/Film: Empire, Homeland, Chicago Fire, The Good Wife, Empire State, and The Producers.
As a composer/lyricist, he is currently developing four new musicals and has composed the incidental music for several plays. As a musical director, he is in development for productions with The Public Theater and Roundabout Theatre Company. He has served on the faculty of the National Theater Institute and NYU. He is a member of the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop and a graduate of the University of Michigan
Paulette Haupt, founding artistic director of the Eugene
O’Neill Theater Center’s National Music Theater Conference in Waterford, will
be honored with the Connecticut Critics Circle’s Tom Killen Award, given in
recognition of her 40 years of extraordinary achievement and service to
Connecticut theater.
Haupt will be presented with the award on June 26 at the
27th annual event celebrating the state’s outstanding professional theater,
which will be held at the Edgerton Center for the Performing Arts at Sacred
Heart University in Fairfield. The event, scheduled to begin at 7:30 pm, is
free and open to the public. Three-time Tony Award-nominee Terrence Mann will
be master of ceremonies
Previous winners of the Killen Award include Lloyd Richards, Michael Price,
Gordon Edelstein, Michael Wilson, Lucille Lortel, and Carmen de Lavallade. Last
year’s winner was Anne Keefe.
Since 1978, Haupt has served as artistic director of the
National Music Theater Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center. In that capacity, she has
selected and guided the development of more than 120 new musicals including Nine, Avenue Q, Violet, The Wild Party, In
The Heights, and Darling Grenadine, which
will be performed at Goodspeed Musicals’ Norma Terris Theatre in Chester later
this summer.
An
associate producer for Polly Pen’s Goblin
Market Off Broadway, Haupt has commissioned, developed, and produced new
works for OPERA America, the National Alliance for Musical Theater, and
Columbia Artists Management.
Following
her San Francisco Opera debut in Carmen,
for more than three decades Haupt was a music director and conductor of
numerous operas and musicals in the US and abroad. As a
pianist, Haupt has appeared worldwide in concerts with renowned musical theater
and opera singers and was the only ‘Plaidette’ ever to perform in Stuart Ross’s
Forever Plaid in New York.
Since
2001, Haupt has commissioned, developed, and produced new works with her New
York Company Premieres, including several works by Richard Rodgers Award
recipients and a workshop of Lauren Robert’s .22 Caliber Mouth (New Millennium Theater Company, Chicago, 2004). She
continues to develop Premieres and its very successful “Inner Voices” series.
Nominees for 2016-17 Connecticut Critics Circle Awards will
be made public in early June. Winners in each category will be announced at the
awards ceremony and will be posted on this site.
Three-time Tony
Award-nominee Terrence Mann will be master of ceremonies for the 27th annual
Connecticut Critics Circle Awards 7:30 pm Monday, June 26 at Sacred Heart
University’s Edgerton Center for the Performing Arts in Fairfield. A private
reception will precede the awards show.
The event, which celebrates the best in professional theater in the state, is free
and open to the public. At the ceremony, Paulette Haupt, founding artistic
director of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Music Theater
Conference in Waterford, will be honored with the Connecticut Critics Circle’s
Tom Killen Award, given in recognition of her 40 years of extraordinary
achievement and service to Connecticut theater.
Last year’s top
honorees -- Yale Repertory Theatre’s Indecent and Hartford Stage’s Anastasia -- are currently on Broadway.
Mann is artistic director of the Nutmeg Summer Series
at the University of Connecticut at Storrs. He received
Tony nominations for his roles as Javert in Les Miserables, as the Beast in Beauty and the Beast and as King Charles in the revival of Pippin. He also
originated the role of Rum Tum Tugger in the Broadway production of Cats.
His Broadway
debut was in 1980 in Barnum. Other Broadway credits include The Scarlet
Pimpernel, Rags, Getting Away with Murder, Lennon, The Rocky Horror
Show, Jerome Robbins’ Broadway, The Addams Family, Finding Neverland and
last season’s Tuck Everlasting. He was in the original off-Broadway
production of Assassins.
Mann also has a
recurring role in TV’s “Sense8.” Other television roles include the role of
Earl Boyd in “All My Children.”
In film, Mann
played bounty hunter Ug in the four “Critters” films. Other movie roles
include “A Chorus Line” and “A Circle on
the Cross.”
He has also
acted and starred in productions at UConn, including Les Miserables in
Concert, Peter Pan, Man of La Mancha and My Fair Lady. Mann will direct
the first show of the Nutmeg season, 1776, with performances starting June 1.
A graduate of
North Carolina School of the Arts, he is a professor of musical theater at
Western Carolina University in North Carolina. He is married to actress
Charlotte D’Amboise.
Biloxi Blues
By Neil Simon
Directed by Sasha Bratt
Ivoryton Playhouse
Through May 14
By Lauren Yarger
What's It All About?
A memoir with humor from Neil Simon (The Odd Couple) about a group of young men sent to boot camp in Biloxi, MS in 1943. Eugene Morris Jerome (Zal Owen) is the Simon persona, who steps out of the action (with the help of Lighting Designer Tate R. Burmeister, who also designs sound) to give us some background or commentary on what is taking place.
The group of unlikely barracks mates arrives. Eugene, an aspiring writer, records his thoughts about his hopes that he'll fall in love and lose his virginity (not necessarily in that order) and his impressions of his fellow soldiers. There's Arnold Epstein (Alec Silberblatt), who rebels against Army food and regulations and clashes with their no-nonsense Sergeant Merwin Toomey (Mike Mihm); Don Carney (Ethan Kirschbaum), who fancies himself the next Perry Como; troublemaker Joseph Wykowski (Conor M. Hamill); secretive James Hennessey (George Mayer) and jokester Roy Seldridge (Chandler Smith). Together they share push ups, chipped beef and learn about pulling together as a team.
Helping Eugene fulfill his two fondest wishes about sex and love are prostitute Rowena (Moira O’Sullivan) and his first love, the very Catholic Daisy (Andee Buccheri).
What Are the Highlights?
A solid production using a mix of Equity and non-Equity actors. Simon's play is poignant and personal with some humor. Some of the themes are ahead of their time both in 1984 when the play premiered and in 1943 when it is set.
Glenn Davd Bassett's set appears simple at first glance, with Quonset type facades either side of the stage framing a bunk quarters on a raised center platform. Parts of the set reveal hidden dimension and props cleverly transform in unexpected ways.
What Are The Lowlights?
This middle piece in Simon's trilogy featuring Eugene (the first is Brighton Beach Memoirs and the last is Broadway Bound) is a bit on the long side clocking in at about two hours and 40 minutes with an intermission.
More Information:
Biloxi Blues marches on the Ivoryton Stage at 103 Main Street in Ivoryton through May 14. Performances are Wednesday and Sunday matinees at 2 pm, Evenings Wednesday and Thursday at 7:30; Friday and Saturday at 8. Tickets are $50 for adults; $45 for seniors; $22 for students and $17 for children: 860-767-7318; www.ivorytonplayhouse.org
An Evening of Reflections, Laughs and Anecdotes
By Lauren Yarger
Actor Alan Alda and Director Jason Reitman chatted about growing up in the entertainment industry with famous fathers, dealing with fame and reflected on their careers as part of the CT Forum series held Saturday at The Bushnell.
Alda was a last-minute replacement for actor/director Rob Reiner, but he and Reitman shared banter that couldn't have been a better fit. They have a lot in common: both have written and directed (Alda is most known for his multi-year run as Hawkeye Pierce on TV's "MASH" and Reitman for "Up in the Air" and other films) and they both grew up the sons of Hollywood icons: Alda's father was stage and film actor Robert Alda and Reitman is the son of film director and producer Ivan Reitman.
The conversation was moderated by Wesley Morris, a critic at large for the New York Times, who asked his own questions in the first part of the program and then presented questions from audience members in the second. Here's a synopsis of the questions and comments:
Reflecting on their fathers' influence:
Alan -- He had been reading lines with his father since he was 9. He often would decide he knew best, suggesting. "Maybe you should say it like this...." He realized this had given him confidence. Later he had a chance to write an episode of "MASH" starring his father who made a suggestion for an ending to the episode at which Alda initially scoffed. He realized he shouldn't resent the idea because of father/son dynamics and gave it a try. "Not only did it work, but it was a moment of father/son connection that we hadn't had before."
Jason -- He had decided to go to med school when his father urged him to select a field with more "magic." "My father became the first Jew to say don't be a doctor, be a film maker!" Reitman Sr. was a producer on "Up in the Air," which was an interesting dynamic. He didn't buy the scenes where people were being fired and Jason took his advice. He realized he didn't have the life experience to write them, so he ended up interviewing real people in Detroit and St. Louis and incorporating those conversations into the film.
Reflecting on fame:
Alan: It takes a while to get used to it. He had night terrors. People get disoriented when meeting famous people. He has had many come up to him and tell him, "You're my biggest fan." He tries his best to put people at ease as quickly as possible. He does a lot of takes, while directing (which he has little interest in doing any more) waiting "for life to happen." A scene with many takes develops an energy of its own.He is a big advocate of improvisation, especially to discover back story and help the actors understand what their characters have experienced up until beginning the dialogue.
Jason: the relationship with actors on film is different for people than on TV, he thinks, because the big screen in the dark has a more surreal feel. Actors on TV seem more like friends in your home. He doesn't believe in telling actors how to do a scene or say a line and "squeeze them in a box," but prefers to discover direction together. His job is to let the actors create and ask himself ,"Do I believe them." Some actors, like George Clooney, always are aware of what they are doing and why. Others get lost in the scene and have no idea of what is happening in relation to where the camera is, for example. He likes to combine those two as "dance partners." Some actors, like Charlize Theron or Ellen Page, he said, are 100 percent in both of those categories. Ellen can take so much direction that once he gave her about 25 directions on a take just to watch her do it, he joked. There's something about getting actors to expose something from their souls that's beautiful and exciting.
Reflecting on directing and what most excites them:
Alan: Loves a chance to do something that matters. The last episode of "MASH" united millions of people at the same time and touched them. He has to write form experience and refuses to write propaganda. Material needs to be about how people treat each other to be interesting. He loves working with good material, people he respects and having the audience "get it." When he worked on "The Four Season," which he starred in, wrote and directed, he started the process by telling the actors that their job was to become friends. He wanted that to translate to the film. He said doesn't have an interest in directing any more, but if he did, he would lean toward being more spontaneous.
Jason: A great performance is a gift to the director. He likes to listen and see what the actors' performances tell him about the material. He described his job in comparison to his father: His father wants to take your favorite song and play it the best you ever have heard. Jason wants to take your least favorite song and play it so well that you like it. He figures out which take works for his actors. Clooney, for example is take one.
"If we ever work together," Alda quipped, "I'm take 22."
Reflecting on women and film:
Alan: "For decades I have been an avowed feminist." When he is writing, what the women in the scene want is just as important to him as what the men want, he said. And the women shouldn't be staying home pouring coffee while the story focuses on the men. He pondered why the film industry, which had more women writers at the beginning of the industry now has so few.
Jason: Wants to tell new stories, and as women's stories are not generally told, they excite him. It must be terrifying to be a smart woman living in this country today, he said. Why aren't there more movies made by women? "Five different forms of sexism happening all the way up the ladder," he replied. There aren't enough women decision makers. We need to buy tickets and support films with women in them and written by women. He sees the internet and services like Amazon, Hulu and Netflix opening opportunities for more woman film makers.
Hartford Opera Theater will present The Tender Land with music by Aaron Copland, libretto by Horace Everett and directed by Kristy Chambrelli with music direction by Joseph Hodge.
In keeping with its mission of making opera accessible to everyone, the company has partnered with the American School for the Deaf to cast a deaf actress, Nakita Mallach, in the role of Beth Moss. The opera will be fully interpreted in American Sign Language.
Performances are Friday, June 2 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, June 4 at 3 pm at the Aetna Theatre at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main St., Hartford. There will be an ASL interpreted performance on June 2 and a touch-tour and audio description for the June 4 performance.
The Tender Land tells the story of a young girl, who finds herself on the cusp of adulthood and
must choose whether to remain in her small town or experience what the world has to offer.
Themes of love, communication, and what it means to belong are explored in the piece. All of the characters are struggling to be heard.
The cast features Lisa Williamson as Laurie, Janelle Robinson as Ma Moss,
Robert Barefield as Pa Moss, Darius Gillard as Martin, Michael McAvoy as Top and Mallach as Beth. The production team includes: Chambrelli (Director), Hodge (Conductor), Elena Blue (Sign Director), Ashley Atencio (Scenic Designer),
Damian Dominguez (Costume Designer), Paige Nee (Lighting Designer), Caitlin Leigh
Flemming (Asst.Director/Stage Manager), Lisabeth Miller (Executive Producer), Charity
Clark and Michelle Murray Fiertek (Co-Producers).
There will be a pre-show lecture beginning at pm. Tickets are available at hartfordoperatheater.com and at the door: $25 preferred seating/$15 general admission/$10 seniors and students.
Hartford Opera Theater, Inc. is dedicated to enriching the lives of all members of the Greater
Hartford community by offering quality, innovative, and affordable opera. Our organization
commits itself to keeping the genre of opera relevant for patrons and artists through the
presentation of productions that are both culturally topical and true to opera as an art form. We
foster a safe environment in which emerging and established artists can feel free to collaborate
and create. In addition, HOT promotes arts education and appreciation by providing free
outreach programs to members of our community. At HOT, we believe that all people deserve
to experience the beauty and total art that is opera. Hartford Opera Theater - Opera for
Everyone.
Emily Donahoe and Kathleen Chalfant, Photo: Joan Marcus
Mary Jane
By Amy Herzog
Directed by Anne Kauffman
Yale Repertory
Through May 20
By Lauren Yarger
If you think you are having a bad day, think again. Most of us can't imagine a day like any of those Mary Jane is having in the world premiere of Amy Herzog's poignant play and we probably wouldn't handle them with as much grace or optimism.
Mary Jane (an excellent Emily Donahoe), you see, is a single parent trying to balance caring for her extremely handicapped son, Alex (never seen), while trying not to eat up all of her sick and vacation days as an administrative assistant -- a job her sister's friend gave her out of sympathy, but which Mary Jane was happy to take for its medical benefits. Alex needs full-time care and while, some caregivers, like Sherry (Shona Tucker) go above and beyond, some refuse to take the case at all because it is "too hard." Others slack off and cause Mary Jane to miss work or sleep to make sure her son is being fed through his tube and not choking.
What emerges from an oppressive situation, smacking us in the face with its unexpected recurrence, is an unwavering positive attitude from Mary Jane. If anyone has a right to be down, it's she. Her husband couldn't face the future when Alex was born prematurely at 25 weeks with cerebral palsy and other issues and left her to deal with the reality alone. But her coping looks different from what you might expect.
Instead of cursing her life (like Job was encouraged to do), Mary Jane is a beacon of optimism for the women with whom she interacts. Sherry's young niece, Amelia (Vella Lovell), asks a lot of questions, which Mary Jane cheerfully answers. Brianne (Miriam Silverman), a new mother of a child with special needs, gets helpful advice about how to cope and shortcuts for how to get what she needs from the system.
Mary Jane gets some assistance from other women in her circle as well, like building superintendent Ruthie (Kathleen Chalfant) who provides practical help, like unclogging the sink, but who isn't able to provide much emotional support. That comes from Chaya (Silverman), another mom of a special-needs child, who well understands the long stints in the hospital (Laura Jellinek's versatile set switches to this location from Mary Jane's apartment) and Tenkei (also Chalfant), a compassionate Buddhist nun and the hospital's chaplain on call.
From Chaya and Tenkei, Mary Jane tries to glean some religious wisdom which can help her through the journey which her doctor doesn't think she fully understands -- it's not a journey to bringing Alex back home, it's the end of the road for her son whose health is deteriorating. In a way, realism translates into surrealism and we're not always sure which is the better way to go.
Mary Jane's propensity to cope -- except for one moment when she expresses her frustration when a music therapist fails to arrive to work with her son -- is extraordinary and a lesson for those of us who would complain about a lot less. Circumstances happen, but it is how we react to them that can make all the difference. Mary Jane's ability to see beauty, even in a migraine, is inspiring. Often there are murmurs of agreement from the audience as some truth is expressed.
It's an eloquent piece which makes some big statements without speeches, but in the development of an extraordinary, unusual character. Donahoe, under the direction if Anne Kauffman, who also helmed Herzog's Belleville at Yale) is sensational, communicating the depth of Mary Jane's feelings often in a simple expression or tone of voice. It's hard to believe we know her so well in the five months that span the play. The supporting cast all double in roles made distinguishable by Costume Designer Emily Rebholz and Wig, Hair and Makeup Designers J. Jared Janas and Dave Bovas.
Mary Jane plays through May 20 at Yale Repertory Theatre, 1120 Chapel St., New Haven. Tickets are $12–$99: yalerep.org; 203-432-1234.
