From: Patrick Reese <arizonatheatrematters@gmail.com>
Sent: Monday, December 12, 2022 12:40 PM
Subject: Arizona Premiere of Shakespeare In Love Theatre Production in May
Phoenix, AZ -- One of the most widely produced plays in the country, Shakespeare in Love makes its Arizona premiere with previews on May 3 and 4, 2023. It opens on May 5 and runs through the 28th at the celebrated, historic downtown Alwun House.
The story follows a young Will Shakespeare stumped by a crippling case of writer's block. Unbeknownst to him, his muse is waiting in the wings. Enter Viola De Lesseps, a theatre-loving aristocrat soon to be married off, and unwilling to accept her fate. She daringly dresses as a boy player to win the role of Romeo in Will's new play. As the two fall in love, a romantic comedy of errors unfurls, ultimately inspiring the creation of Shakespeare's tragic romantic masterpiece.
ATM Founding Artistic Director, Jeanmarie Simpson, returns to the director's chair for the first fully-staged, live production since the pandemic closed the playhouses.
Jeanmarie Simpson (director) is the Founding Artistic Director or Universal Access Productions / Arizona Theatre Matters. In 1989, she founded the Nevada Shakespeare Company, from which she retired in 2009. She has been a teaching artist since 1984 and has served on the Nevada Arts Council and other rosters for nearly 40 years. At 15, Jeanmarie began directing in Toronto and has since directed dozens of educational and regional theatre productions. Her most recent project was Kindertransport, a benefit for the Jewish Federation of Nevada Holocaust education programs. Also in Las Vegas, she directed The Diary of Anne Frank for Actors Repertory Theatre and Pinocchio for the Lied Discovery Children's Museum. For Nevada Shakespeare Company, Jeanmarie directed Quilters, Painting Churches, The Tempest, Night, Mother, Anything Goes, The Corn is Green, Steel Magnolias, Annie Get Your Gun with Lacy J Dalton, Hamlet, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Richard III, The Trojan Women, King Lear, As You Like It, and many others. For UAP/ATM, she directed The Dark Side, Dracula, Hamlet, The Pirates of Penzance, Under Milk Wood and her plays, Pineapple and Other Options and The Jewish Question. This winter, she will direct her play, When Churchyards Yawn, for Northern Nevada's flagship regional company, Bruka Theatre. To celebrate the Nevadan to Nevadan Poetry Project, the state's Poet Laureate, Gailmarie Pahmeier, commissioned Jeanmarie to create and direct an original Reader's Theatre piece for production at the historic Oats Park Arts Center on June 10th. She will direct When Churchyards Yawn in Sydney Australia, in July and August. She is a reader for the Ashland New Plays Festival in Ashland, Oregon, and served on the National Endowment for the Arts Theatre panel for 2023.
"I was playing the Nurse in Brelby Theatre's production of the play," Simpson said. "But a week in we had to postpone, and the show was ultimately canceled. I love the piece and was devastated, but now two years later was thrilled when the funding, venue, and time frame came together, and ATM secured the rights.
The cast includes Matt Clarke as Will, Kiley Bishop as Viola, Tyler Sines as Shakespeare's talented colleague and friend Kit Marlowe; Debra Lyman as the indomitable Queen Elizabeth I; Brady Anderson as Viola's insufferable fiancé Lord Wessex; Roberta Rubin as Viola's abetting nurse; RC Contreras as rival theatre manager Philip Henslowe.
Roles yet to be cast include:
TILNEY
RALPH
KATE
ROBIN / FREES
MOLLY / MISTRESS QUICKLY
BURBAGE
SIR ROBERT DE LESSEPS
SAM
PETER / BARMAN
WABASH
ADAM / BOATMAN
NED ALLEYN
LAMBERT / GUARD
FENNYMANWEBSTER
NOL
ENSEMBLE MEMBERS
MUSICIANS
ATTENDANTS
Interested actors (union and non-union) should email Pat Reese, arizonatheatrematters@gmail.com, with their headshots and resumes.
"The play is not the film," Simpson said. "It is a delightful and clever stand-alone version of the story, with fewer characters and several more deeply developed ones. It's a remarkable theatrical experience."
Reservations are required, though all seats are available on a "pay-what-you-can-basis."
-------------------------------------
TucsonStage home: www.TucsonStage.com
Recent announcements: http://tucsonstage.blogspot.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment