AUDITIONS FOR
STEEL MAGNOLIAS!
Auditions for
Steel Magnolias are just around the corner, February 12 and 13 at 7:00 p.m. at 51 Walden. Callbacks will be held Sunday, February 16 at 6:00 p.m. at the theater. Auditions will consist of readings from the script. A
SignUpGenius form is live now.
Alternatively hilarious and touching, this beloved comedy-drama by Robert Harding portrays the bond among a group of Southern women in northwest Louisiana. It reveals, over time, the depth of the strength and purposefulness of its unforgettable characters - ladies who are "as delicate as magnolias but as tough as steel." Performances will be held April 24, 25, May 1, 2, 3 (matinee), 8, 9, 2020.
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Take a free-spirited bride with an over-active libido and an extravagant excess of
joie de vivre.
Mix her with a stuffy, straight-laced lawyer who always abides by the rules and obsessively presses his ties.
Place them in a drafty Manhattan loft, with a kooky neighbor and the bride's mother who refuses to utter the word "sex" in the same room with her daughter.
What you get is a delightful evening of sophisticated comedy with the Concord Players' production of Neil Simon's
Barefoot in the Park, scheduled to open at 51 Walden on February 7th, 2020.
Set in Manhattan in the early 1960s,
Barefoot in the Park was Simon's longest running hit, opening in October, 1963 and running until June, 1967. The production earned four Tony nominations and a win for director, Mike Nichols.
Its huge success prompted a remake into a major motion picture in 1967, starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda, with scores of revivals around the country re-mounted since then.
Comedy is an exercise in contrasts and Simon conjured his opposites with deliberate comedic intent.
Newlyweds, Corie and Paul Bratter are truly, madly, deeply in love, but their sensibilities have yet to be aligned.
Corie sees pure domestic bliss in the 6th-floor walk-up she's found for the couple's first home.
The hole in the ceiling, the broken refrigerator, the oven that doesn't work and the bathroom without a tub pose no obstacles to her plans for building a cozy love nest.
Paul's pragmatism, however, threatens to burst her bubble.Honeymoon romance at the Plaza Hotel was thrilling, but two in a single bed every night can only mean creaky joints, baggy eyes and an expensive coffee addiction.
Players' director, Lisa Astbury, has employed her keen instincts for comedy to get this show on the boards.
She encourages the actors to deliver their dialogue with the wit, sass and rapier-witted edge that characterize Simon's writing.
The talented cast is gifted in keeping Simon's out-sized characters real, and have brought a few tricks of their own to pepper the laughs from her ingenious knack for staging physical comedy.
The ensemble's chemistry works like a magic potion for producing laughs.
Danielle Wehner is an adorable, energetic Corie who is so joyful you'll think she's dancing, even when she's not. Her character's determined optimism is skillfully offset by Michael Jay who plays Paul's bewilderment and indignation at Corie's shenanigans to hilarious effect.
Veteran player John Alzapiedi brings kinetic color to the group dynamic as the eccentric neighbor, Victor Velasco, who has a mysterious past and doesn't pay his bills. His engaging charm and passion for life endear him to everyone, though, eventually even Corie's mom, played by Barbara Douglass, an actor who can bring an audience to belly laughs with the flick of a finger.
Paul Murphy has graced the Players' stage in many roles. For this show he is the phlegmatic telephone man.
A typical New Yorker with the blasé attitude that only a New Yorker could bring to the zany scenarios he finds in the Bratters' loft.
And under the category of "there is no small part," comes Concord Players' newcomer Mark Rolli as the Lord & Taylor delivery man.
His appearance is brief, but he plays it so well it might even stop the show.
So come out of the cold and the dark of February and warm yourself up with some hearty guffaws at the Players' production of
Barefoot in the Park.
Barefoot in the Park opens February 7th and runs for three weekends. Tickets
here.
Produced by Jay Newlon
Set design by Allen Bantly
Set dressing by Andrea Roessler
Stage management by Alison Walters-Short
--Linda McConchie
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LITTLE WOMEN WEEK IN CONCORD
In celebration of the opening of the film, the Players participated in Concord's Little Women Week by holding a drama workshop for high school kids and hosting an Open House.
Kate Clarke (director of our 2002 production and Jo in 1992) and her sister, Maura Clarke-Talhouni, ran a half-day workshop in early December hosting 12 local students, the result of which were several scenes for our Open House on Thursday, December 19th.
A crowd of about 50 guests gathered to be entertained and informed. The young actors (costumed by Tracy Wall) from the workshop did several scenes from the David Fielding play, including the lovely moving scene of Marmee reading Father's letter. Thanks to Katy Blair for stepping in as Marmee. Some of the actors who were extras in the film, Alan Rowher, Katy Blair, and Rachel Healy, gave an insider's look at the making of the film. Tracy Wall and Jean Devine did a bit of history of CP and Louisa May Alcott's connection to our theater. And finally, all were treated to fresh gingerbread (prepared by the mothers and daughters of the National Charity League) and hot mulled cider served by Carol Antos, Kathy Booth, Amanda Casale, Jean Devine, and Andrea Roessler, who donned proper 19th century attire for the occasion. A grand time was had by all.
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SAVE THE DATE:
PLACES PLEASE!
Join us June 6th and 7th for
Places Please: Celebrating 100 Years in 100 Minutes with the Concord Players. As we cap off the season, we will offer revue-style entertainment paying homage to the Players' first 100 years. The revue will feature songs, dance numbers, and memories, performed by Players past and present.
A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT
My fellow Concord Players, Happy New Year to you all!
As we are in the middle of our current season and while coming off of a wonderful musical this last fall and still reveling in the majesty of
Funny Girl, we are thankful that we were able to draw the talent we did to put up such a riveting and compelling story. As we look forward to the rest of the season, we have two more remarkable stories to tell,
Barefoot in the Park set in Greenwich Village in the '60s and
Steel Magnolias set in a small town Southern community that could be taking place at any time, even as we speak! One of the things that I am constantly amazed at, is the universality of the stories that we've chosen for this season. Although the trappings, locations and time settings of our season this year are to help represent the timeline of the Concord Players work from 1919 to today, you will see that the struggles that each of the protagonists in all three plays face are ubiquitous to the human experience. Coming of age, finding your way in the world, navigating new loving relationships, handling great sorrow and grief and then finding the resolve to soldier on are elements of what makes us all uniquely who we are and yet still establishes the common thread and shared experiences that bring us together.
Theater is our way of telling stories and bringing to life the little and big things that we can all appreciate and identify with. Our goal always is to entertain, but to do so also in a way that may allow the experience to really affect the audience. If you laugh or cry, are provoked into thinking about things from a different point of view, brought back to some memory that is important, or resolved to apply yourself in some positive way going forward, then we have done our job. As Concord's Community Theater, some of our goals are to help generate that sense of neighborly communal good will and to provide an artistic platform to express the best (and worst sometimes) of what we all encounter.
We have a great season ahead of us and will be culminating the celebration of our 100th anniversary in June with
Places Please! Stay tuned for more news about what else we have in store for you and we'll see you at the theater!
--Jay Newlon, President
HARRY B. LITTLE AND THE CP LOGO
Ever wonder where the Concord Players' logo came from? It seems to have been around for as long as anyone can remember - that's because it dates back to 1922 - almost the founding of our group.
Harry B. Little began as a member of the Concord Dramatic Club and one of the Gang of Seven that eventually helped Sam Merwin form the new Concord Players in 1919. He was a renowned architect and as part of the Frohman and Robb Architectural firm he worked on a number of important projects, including the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York and the National Episcopal Cathedral in Washington among others. His extensive work in Concord - where he lived from 1915 until his death in 1944 - included the
Middlesex Bank, the Trinitarian Congregational Church, the Concord Antiquarian Society (
Concord Museum) building,
Anderson's Market, Crosby's Filling Station, and a number of private residences, as well as the Fowler Branch of the
Concord Free Public Library and the 1933 remodeling and expansion of the main library in Concord Center.
He was a quiet and modest man, with a love of the theater, and to his family's surprise was an avid participant in the Concord Players from the time of its inception. He performed in 20 plays from the organization's beginning in 1919 through 1941. And in 1936, he was elected president, and served in varied capacities building scenery and as stage manager.
It was in 1922 as the fledgling theater group was finding their identity that he helped to not only re-design the old Veteran's Building into a performance hall, but to create the logo we know today of the two performers treading the boards under a grand curtain with footlights illuminating their silhouetted figures. We still use the logo and have adapted it for the 100th celebrations.
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CONCORD PLAYERS MEMBER NEWS
Dead Man's Cell Phone: Concord Players member Diana Doyle will be performing at
MMAS in Sarah Ruhl's
Dead Man's Cell Phone at the end of January
.
Sing Out! Duets: Concord Players members Perry Albert (The Secret Garden), Amanda Casale (Spamalot), and Mike Chateauneuf (The Secret Garden) will be joined by Samantha Casale, Andrew Kasper, and Meghan Kasper for Sing Out!: Duets on Saturday, January 25th from 8pm to 11pm in the Napoleon Room of Club Cafe. Club Cafe is so excited to host these brilliant pairs, performing a variety of songs - some of your favorite duets that you rarely hear, and some that'll be new to you! Don't miss it! There is no cover, with a full bar and menu available during the show. Doors open at 7:30pm. Seating is extremely limited, so reserve your table online soon at https://www.clubcafe.com/reserve/ . Select the Napoleon Room - and be sure to write "Sing Out!" in the notes.
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UPCOMING EVENTS AT 51 WALDEN
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January 11th at 3 p.m.: Says You! radio - a mainstay of WGBH 89.7FM and public radio stations across the country - returns home again for a national broadcast event. Says You! brings a timeless brand of comedic wordplay to the stage, where two teams face off against each other as their host dishes out some of the toughest challenges on air anywhere. If you are a devotee of Scrabble and Jeopardy - you're sure to love Says You! - Crosswords without cross words. Come out of the cold and warm up with friends and family for a delightful afternoon of intellectual recreation punctuated with live music. Two shows with a brief intermission. Get tickets here.
January 24th and 25th at 8 p.m.: Andrew Gu, Winner of the Ehlers Young Artist Competition, will perform Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1 with The Concord Orchestra. Also on the program is Brahms' Tragic Overture and Symphony No. 6 by Shostakovich. Buy tickets here.
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