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Lewis Center for the Arts presents “Curtain Up: Celebrating Music Theater at Princeton”

(PRINCETON, NJ)  — Princeton University’s Lewis Center for the Arts and the Department of Music will mark the launch of a new Program in Music Theater with a day-long symposium on Princeton’s music theater past, present and future on Saturday, October 8 from 10:00am to 5:00pm in the James M. Stewart ’32 Theater at 185 Nassau Street. The event is free and open to the public, however advance reservations are encouraged at arts.princeton.edu/curtainup.

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At 11:00am, a panel entitled “Why Music Theater” will address the experiences, inspirations and motivations of those who are pursuing a career in music theater writing or composing, as well as the larger question of why it matters that we write music theater. The panel will feature composer and lyricist Pete Mills ’95, director and writer Cara Reichel ’96, who are the founding members of the Prospect Theatre Company; visiting Lecturer in Theater Robert Lee ’92; and recent alumna and composer Sam Kaseta ’15. The panel will begin with a short performance of an original piece by Kaseta.

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Read the full article from the New Jersey Stage  here.

Richard Dreyfuss Likes Finding Work Off Beaten Path (i.e., TheaterWorks)

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But, slumped comfortably in an upholstered chair in a rehearsal room at Hartford’s TheaterWorks on Pearl Street, where he’ll perform in Mark St. Germain‘s play “Relativity” Oct. 7 through Nov. 20, Dreyfuss doesn’t seem fazed by paths not taken. He obviously has a love for theater that’s found off the beaten path.

When asked if he prefers the regional theater realm to Broadway, Dreyfuss waves an arm around himself. Here he is. The show may well move on to New York, though nothing has been confirmed. Hartford has it now. The TheaterWorks run of “Relativity” was just extended by a week, and is selling out quickly.

When TheaterWorks approached Richard Dreyfuss to play Albert Einstein in the theater’s season-opening production of “Relativity,” little did they know that Dreyfuss had recently read Walter Isaacson’s biography “Einstein: His Life and Universe.” Nor did they know that Dreyfuss had written an unproduced screenplay about the renowned physicist.

 

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Finding The Spectacle

Will “Relativity” be as physically demanding as some of his Shakespearean roles?

“Well, I wrestle her,” Dreyfuss deadpans about castmate Christa Scott-Reed, who plays Margaret Harding in the play. He extends the joke with hilarious imagined descriptions of other violent altercations.

In truth, “Relativity” spars with words rather than fists. Einstein, while wrestling in his mind with matters of time and space, is forced by an unexpected visitor to confront a difficult personal decision from his past.

Despite the number of chairs apparent in the small office setting of the play, “Relativity” sounds like quite a lively piece. Dreyfuss will wield a violin, for instance.

The spirited encounter in the play is in keeping with previous Mark St. Germain works such as “Freud’s Last Session,” “Camping With Henry and Tom” and “Becoming Dr. Ruth.” Those shows also uncovered uncomfortable yet illuminating episodes in the lives of celebrated public figures.

“First of all, it’s all true,” says Dreyfuss of “Relativity.” “Hopefully, we’ll find a way to hit the audience right in the mouth. It has to be the verbal equivalent of ‘The Lion King.’ You have to have some spectacle or it’s not interesting.”

Dreyfuss ruminates a lot on the power of the spoken word and the value of thoughtful leadership. Thirty years ago, he co-founded the still-active and highly influential L.A. Theatre Works (unrelated to the similarly named Hartford company), which produces popular radio versions of classic plays. Dreyfuss has performed in numerous broadcasts with L.A. Theatre Works including the Arthur Miller dramas “The Crucible” and “The Price.”

The actor rhapsodizes about Orson Welles and how he brought a special style to his “Mercury Theatre on the Air” radio shows of the late 1930s. He speaks animatedly of the great potential he still sees in radio drama. “I want to reinvent radio theater,” he proclaims.

Read the full article from the Hartford Courant here.

Richard Dreyfuss to Return to the Stage in St. Germain’s RELATIVITY

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Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss (above), last on Broadway in the 2004 production of Sly Fox, will star in TheaterWorks’ Relativity, a new play by Mark St. Germain.

Directed by Rob Ruggiero, performances at the Hartford venue are scheduled to run October 7-November 13.

In a statement artistic director Ruggiero said, “I am thrilled that we are launching our season with the news that our production ofRelativity will star the Academy Award winning actor Richard Dreyfuss in the role of Albert Einstein. Dreyfuss is an ‘Einstein enthusiast’ and will bring not only his intelligence and sensitivity to the role, but also a deep connection to Einstein, the man. We are delighted to bring an actor of his renown to Hartford and thrilled to present Mark’s penetrating look at family, ambition and choices.”

“In 1902, Albert and Mileva Einstein had a baby daughter,” state production notes. “After 1904, she was never heard from again. Years later in Princeton, when a young reporter confronts Einstein, he must face his greatest challenge: his past. Relativity explores the bonds of family and the cost of genius. Do you need to be a good man to be a great man?“

Read the full article from Playbill here.

Mashuq Mushtaq Deen’s Solo, Draw the Circle, Chronicles His Female-to-Male Transition

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Mashuq Mushtaq Deen stars in PRC’s world premiere of Draw the Circle (photo by HuthPhoto)

PlayMakers Repertory Company will kick off its 2016-17 season on Aug. 24-28 with the world premiere of DRAW THE CIRCLE, an autobiographical one-man show about his female-to-male transition written and performed by Mashuq Mushtaq Deen and directed by Chay Yew. There will be a freewheeling talkback with the artists and selected subject-matter experts, following each performance of this provocative PRC2 production in the Elizabeth Price Kenan Theatre in the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Center for Dramatic Art.

On his website, Deen describes this intensely personal yet universal play as “The hilarious and deeply moving story of conservative Muslim mother at her wits’ end, a Muslim father who likes to tell jokes, and a queer American woman trying to make a good impression on her Indian in-laws. In a story about family and love and the things we do to be together, one immigrant family must come to terms with a child who defies their most basic expectations of what it means to have a daughter … and one woman will redefine the limits of unconditional love.”

“The story is autobiographical, so in a way, the story conceived me,” claims Mashuq Mushtaq Deen. “People ask, When did you ‘transition’?, as if it’s a point in time. It was more than a decade in the making — years of resisting, coming to terms, resisting again.”

He adds, “I finally decided to write about it, because I thought the story could do some good in the world, could help other people feel less alone than I felt. But when I began the telling, I realized I wasn’t as interested in my own journey, I had already lived through it. The exploration I could sustain — and writing for me is both exploration and a lengthy commitment, as plays can take years — was the journey of the other characters, those who loved me and didn’t want me to change. And certainly, writing the play also helped me to understand my family in a different way.

“While I was writing [Draw the Circle], I did a lot of research on solo shows,” Deen recalls. “I was most inspired by my friend and colleague Jessica Dickey’s piece, The Amish Project [– which is] a brilliant piece of theater, if you ever get to see it[.] In that play, she portrays all the characters around the Amish community; and through that negative space, if you will, the audience gets a much more complicated version of the heart and soul of this Amish community.

^Taken from Triangle Arts & Entertainment’s Review of DRAW THE CIRCLE, read the full review here.

Learn more about DRAW THE CIRCLE, here.

Congratulations to France-Luce Benson, Winner in the 2016 Samuel French Off Off-Broadway Short Play Festival

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France-Luce Benson

At the conclusion of the week-long Samuel French Off Off-Broadway Short Play Festival, six plays were named the winners of the nation’s premier short play competition, including Risen from the Dough by France-Luce Benson!

These winning works were performed as part of an August 14 showcase at Classic Stage Company’s East 13 th Street Theater. Samuel French will publish the pieces and make them available for licensing.

Thirty finalists competed for the six prize spots. The finalists were chosen from 1,500 submissions worldwide.

Read the full article here.