Thank you all for the great support of our production of Gloucester Blue. By all standards of measurement it was a great success! We really appreciate all the kind words that so many of you sent in and are happy to hear you’re itching for more Horovitz. Man in Snow next spring will surely not disappoint. Do you have your season pass yet? Better hurry, you only have until July 17 to save over 30% off and get a crack at those HAMILTON tickets.
Tomorrow we begin rehearsals for Caryl Churchill’s Cloud Nine, the final show of the 2016-17 season. Cloud Nine is a hilarious and poignant comedy that tackles the lingering ghosts of our colonial past in how those societal structures still work to repress gender, sexuality, and race. Our 2003 production was named Best Play of the Year and in 2009 went on to be honored as a Top 10 Play of the Decade by Creative Loafing. That production is major landmark for us in many ways and we are really looking forward to a complete “reboot” under the direction of Gavin Hawk who as assembled the design team of Jerid Fox (scenic), Jo Averill-Snell (lights), and Katrina Stevenson (costumes).
Stevenson, a member of the 2003 cast, joins me as the “returning” cast members for the production — though we are playing different roles. It’s always fun to get to revisit a play, even more so when you get to step inside of it through a different pair of eyes. I look forward to playing the matriarch Betty in the first act (set 1879), then Betty’s son Edward in act two (which takes place in 1979, but for the characters only 25 years have passed).
Before I go there, however, I’ll be making another stop in London tonight via our auditions for The Threepenny Opera! Music director Jeremy Douglass, choreographer Alison Burns Jackson, and I all look forward to seeing what people bring! We will be hiring 7 principal cast members and 4 acting apprentices to round out our chorus joining our on-stage band of 8. Can’t wait! Threepenny is the second show of the 2017-18 season, following our season opener, Annie Baker’s The Flick. Did you see the cast Summer Bohnenkamp put together for this one? Brian Shea, Georgia Mallory Guy, and Thomas Morgan are sure to light that thing on fire!
Now at the halfway point, 2017 has been a great year for us. Record-setting season ticket sales, a string of quality shows that people have loved, and we’re on pace to once again make our Annual Campaign — we’re now at 57%! All donations are still being matched $1 for $1 by a generous grant from the Gobioff Foundation. If you’ve felt like we’ve really just “stepped up” in the past year in terms of the quality of our productions and the scope of our educational programs, this isn’t a fluke. This is precisely the sort of impact we hoped establishing this Annual Campaign would have. I urge you to consider supporting us with a tax-deductible donation. We’re a small not-for-profit with not a lot of overhead, even what some might consider to the smallest amount goes a long way to help us reach our goals.
Best,
-dj
