Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold - Page 2

“You may say I’m a dreamer,” John Lennon writes in his iconic anthem, “Imagine,” and, indeed, in 1969 when the Beatles disbanded and embarked on solo careers, each of the four would create songs that did explore new realms. Musician Joe Boucher and his band, allow themselves to re-imagine new possibilities for the Beatles music from their solo careers in a concert bearing the title of Lennon’s song, which the group performed to a soldout house as a part of Maine State Music Theatre’s Concert Series July 9-10. IMAGINE presents compositions by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr from 1969-1980, played as they might have, had the foursome still been performing together as The Beatles and still under the watchful, creative eye of producer George Martin.

We are the stewards of the music. We are here to keep it alive and share it with as many people as possible,” says actor Jayson Elliott, who plays the Big Bopper in Maine State Music Theatre’s current production of THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY. Elliott joins Diego Guevara, who portrays Ritchie Valens, Angela C. Howell, director/choreographer/music director who also plays Vi Petty, and MSMT Artistic Director, Curt Dale Clark for a conversation about the musical with Broadway World’s Maine Editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold at the second Peek Behind the Curtain series of the season. The record-breaking crowd attending the panel discussion mirrors the sold-out houses THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY has been drawing each night at the Pickard Theatre. They have come to celebrate the rock n’ roll legends and to explore what made Buddy Holly and his early colleagues such phenomena of music history.

There are certain moments of history that become emblazoned in our collective human  psyches. Fans of American popular music all remember with a searing certainty the day when Charles Hardin Holley was killed in a plane crash at age twenty-two,  his pioneering meteoric rock ‘n’ roll career brought to a tragic end. But if  Feb 3,1959, was “the day the music died “ - as Don McLean wrote - MSMT’s Buddy Holly STORY turns that trope on its head. The new production, staged by Angela C. Howell makes clear that the legacy of Buddy Holly lives, and if MSMT’s production of the jukebox musical about Holly’s legend and his legacy rocks the Pickard Theater to the rafters with its visceral musical energy, it also speaks volumes about the warmth and heart of the Holly story.

On one of its most gala evenings in recent memory, Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark and Maine State Music Theatre celebrated Maury Yeston,Tony/Drama Desk/Olivier Award winning composer and lyricist of TITANIC, with two standing room only performances of the company’s recent revival, directed and choreographed by Marc Robin. And Yeston, who had journeyed to Maine to see his work performed at the Pickard Theater on June 22 and 23, in turn celebrated the work of the company, calling the new co-production, conceived and created by MSMT and the Fulton Theatre, “the most innovative, exciting presentation of anything I have seen in years. It is not even a matter of whether it was my work or any work, what they did here was so original and brilliant in its simplicity that it was magic.”

“To do this show, you’ve got to have a bag of tricks. Everybody in the cast has to be multi-instrumentalists, as well as actors and singers.” Actor Jayson Elliott is talking about the complexities of performing THE BUDDY HOLLY STORY, which MSMT will present on its main stage beginning June 28. Elliot is reprising his role of J.P. Richardson, known as “The Big Bopper,” and he and MSMT newcomer, Andrew Harvey, who essays the title role, are discussing the intricacies and appeal of this juke box musical and its inspiration, rock and roll legend, Buddy Holly. Harvey  and Elliott have worked together before on this show with director Angela C. Howell at Tuacahn Amphitheatre in Utah, and both actors have considerable experience with their roles.  Elliott says he has played The Big Bopper some twenty times; Harvey has four productions under his belt, and they both note that the MSMT cast of eighteen can cumulatively claim to have performed in some one hundred productions.  Harvey says, “ I have worked with quite a few of these people before, and I am enjoying being together again.  They are all insanely talented musicians – which you have to be in this kind of juke box musical.”

“TITANIC is ultimately uplifting, but a large part of the show sits in a melancholy place. It is a beautiful melancholy and it gives the audience a moment of hope and joy.” Maine State Music Theatre Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark is commenting on the company’s 2023 season opener, Maury Yeston and Peter Stone’s majestic musical, TITANIC, now playing its final week at the Pickard Theater. Clark is part of the first PEEK BEHIND THE CURTAIN panel discussion that includes some of TITANIC’s stars, Linda Balgord, Michael Nigro, and Carolyn Anne Miller in conversation with BWW Regional Maine Editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, who have assembled at Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library on June 14 to explore the appeal of Yeston’s work and to share insights about performing and producing this epic show.

Maine State Music Theatre opened its Theatre for Young Audiences series yesterday with the East Coast premiere of Robin & Clark’s latest children’s musical, RAPUNZEL. This unconventional and upbeat retelling of the traditional fairytale replaces the quintessential damsel in distress with a modern, sexist-defying heroine whose journey to embrace her destiny is a courageous adventure of self-discovery, reversal of stereotypes, and unabashed female empowerment.

The legend of the Titanic is a haunting, yet uplifting tale of dreams and hubris, unfinished stories and transcendent moments. It is a story that has been told from so many perspectives for more than a century since the unsinkable ship did, tragically, go down on her maiden voyage in 1912. But perhaps no retelling of the events captures both the scale of the drama and its intimacy as perfectly as the Maury Yeston/Peter Stone musical, TITANIC, with its majestic score and tightly woven book. Now in an epic and astonishingly beautiful new co-production created by MSMT with the Fulton Theatre, this masterpiece comes to life with a sensational cast in a dazzling visual production that focuses on the profoundly touching humanity of the saga – of the lives lived and lost, the lessons learned and remembered.

“The music and the story are moving, compelling, beautiful, funny, and this particular telling is unique because it utilizes incredible technology not previously available,” says actor Ian Knauer, who plays the Titanic’s first officer William Murdoch, in the spectacular new production that opens Maine State Music Theatre’s 2023 season at the Pickard Theater on June 7th.

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman’s classic, YOU CAN’T TAKE IT WITH YOU, is eighty-six years young, and the latest revival at Portland’s Good Theater makes a strong case for the work’s perennial appeal. Directed by Brian P. Allen and featuring a cast of eighteen, most Good Theater veterans, this delightfully zany script, filled with wacky but loveable characters, delivers a timeless message about family and the secrets to true happiness.

In the 1970s when legendary dancer, Rudolf Nureyev, and famed scion of the Wyeth dynasty, Jamie Wyeth, came together to engage in a series of portrait sittings that would extend over the next two decades, they ignited a volatile, probing, and passionate friendship that was to last until Nureyev’s death in 1993. The interaction of these two artistic geniuses, their sparring, their seeking answers to the mystery of artistic creation is told with penetrating honesty and sharp wit by playwright David Rush in his 2014 work, NUREYEV’S EYES, which Portland’s Good Theater brings the tale to life in a perfectly calibrated production, directed by James Noel Hoban.

The premiere of Richard Blanco and Vanessa Garcia’s SWEET GOATS and BLUBERRY SEÑORITAS at Portland Stage heralds the magical debut of a haunting new dramatic voice.  Poet Blanco and his collaborator Garcia have created a delicate, sad-sweet memory play, inhabited by six memorable and widely disparate characters, whose shards of reminiscence come together in the cold winter landscape of a small Maine town.

CRIMES OF THE HEART, Beth Henley’s Pulitzer-Prize winning 1981 dark comedy about three sisters and their shared secrets, receives a compelling production, directed by Brian P. Allen, at Portland’s Good Theater. Set in the Mississippi in the mid-twentieth century, Henley’s character-driven play has Chekovian overtones, as the relatively plotless piece relies on a series of revelations about the past to shape the mordent tragi-comedy.

Maine State Music Theatre was saddened to receive news of the passing of one of its legendary stars – an actor whose career was inextricably interwoven with the history of Maine’s premier musical theatre. “Bernie” Wurger was a mainstay of MSMT summers from 1962 until 2000, playing 195 leading and supporting roles and winning an indelible place in the hearts of his public. His long and versatile career spanned opera, musical theatre, directing, and film not only in Maine but in New York and leading regional theatres across the country.

After three seemingly endless years, Maine's theatrical landscape has truly begun to come to life again after the pandemic. I am thrilled to be able to pen this article, having experienced a 2022 that saw the remarkable 'comebacks' of Maine's theatres. While the year was not without continued challenges, these brave, resilient companies managed to produce first-class live theatre for grateful audiences. These are my personal choices of the best in Maine for 2022, grouped by theatre company and show.

The current production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s CAROUSEL at the Good Theater represents the realization of a lifelong dream for Executive/Artistic Director Brian P. Allen, and the show that he has conceived and directed is both ambitious and genuinely affecting. Marshalling all the resources that this small company can command, Allen has created a chamber version of this 1945 masterpiece that preserves the heart of the tale and pays homage to what is arguably Rodgers & Hammerstein finest score.

The Public Theatre’s production of Patricia Milton’s THE VICTORIAN LADIES DETECTIVE COLLECTIVE is a witty, sophisticated, clever examination of late Victorian mores, skillfully embedded with subtle feminist rhetoric, and all encased in the classic mystery thriller format. Add to this recipe a handful of zany, colorful characters and some facile repartee, and the end result is a delightfully period piece with a compelling contemporary twist.

For its second offering of the season Portland Stage regales its audience with Steven Dietz’s adaptation of William Gillette and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s original play, Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure. The play, a re-imagined period piece, offers a low-key, witty take on the familiar characters and material with enough twists and turns to satisfy Conan Doyle fans.

What better way to cap what has been billed as MSMT’s Revival Season than with a free, festive outdoor event that, despite intermittent showers, drew a large, enthusiastic crowd? That is exactly what MSMT did on August 24 when it presented its annual MSMT Concert on the Mall as part of the Brunswick Downtown Association’s summer series. In a program designed to thank the community for its loyal support of the theatre, especially during the pandemic, the seventy-five-minute concert featured performers from the company’s current main stage show, KINKY BOOTS, as well as other local artists in a rousing and engaging program of musical theatre selections.

“Lola gains her strength from her resilience,” says Stephane Duret, who plays the drag queen star of MSMT’s KINKY BOOTS. “Sometimes she feels like an island, alone in this world she has created. But she survives. She’s got her Angels for support, her chosen family, and even when she gets a little slap in the face from Charlie, she comes back to their partnership. That’s her resilience.” “And Lola challenges others to be accepting and to change their perspective,” continues MSMT Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark. “I consider it important for MSMT to present something that can cause change in a community, and this show with Stephane’s and the entire cast’s unbelievable performances is doing just that!” His remarks draw applause from the capacity audience at MSMT’s final Peek Behind the Curtain panel discussion, moderated by Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, BWW’s Maine editor, on August 17 at Curtis Memorial Library in Brunswick.