Aspen Santa Fe Ballet proudly presents the classic holiday favorite,
The Nutcracker, at the Aspen District Theatre, Sunday at 1 p.m. and 5 p.m.
Post blogger Michael Conniff took a trip back in time to the jazz age courtesy of Aspen Community Theatre. "I came away as did so many others asking the obvious question: how could a community theatre pull off such a feat?" he blogs. "The friends who came with us had no idea this was anything but a professional theatre company until long after "Chicago" came to a roaring, rocking, raucous close. I think those of us who try to go every year remain amazed when Jason at Explore Booksellers turns out to be a song and dance man of surprising talent. Watching Aspen Community Theatre just like that--faces in the crowd who find center stage, if only for a moment."
Join Tom Ward, director of Aspen Community Theater's production of
Chicago, for a journey from the written script to
the detailed set.
Posts filed under 'Theater'
Before the experience fades into the gloaming, I'd like to take a moment to pay tribute to the play "Chicago," as performed over the past two weekends by the Aspen Community Theatre.
Ed Foran's "Mr. Cellophane" quite rightly got its share of the kudos, but I was amazed at the depth and breadth of the cast, the costumes, the music, the dancing, the set, the staging--and the general feeling of naughty enterprise that kept the evening sailing along from start to finish.
Continue Reading November 19th, 2008
Aspen Community Theatre has announced the cast for its fall musical “Chicago” which opens at the Aspen District Theatre on November 6 and runs through November 16.
Set in prohibition era Chicago, the story is a satire on corruption in the administration of criminal justice, and the concept of the celebrity criminal. “Chicago”, A Musical Vaudeville, has everything that makes Broadway musicals great: a universal tale of fame, fortune and all that jazz; one show-stopping-song after another and exciting dance numbers, Bob Fosse style. “Chicago” has been honored with 6 Tony Awards, 6 Oscars, a Grammy, and thousands of standing ovations.
Continue Reading September 17th, 2008
Aspen Community Theatre is offering a free scenic design workshop taught by Tom Ward, the set designer for A.C.T.’s fall musical "Chicago." Join Tom, as he takes us on the journey from the written script to a stunning, detailed set.
Tom, a theater graduate from Denison University, has designed sets for Theatre Aspen, Aspen Stage, theaters on the front range and 22 sets for A.C.T. including Fiddler on the Roof.
Continue Reading September 17th, 2008
The Con Man finds out about auditions for Aspen Community Theatre's production of "Chicago" from director-choreographer Marisa Post, then turns his attention to Barack Obama's acceptance speech.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday August 28, 2008.
August 29th, 2008
Aspen Community Theatre is offering a free dance workshop on August 23rd from 10 am to 3 pm hosted by Marisa Post, the director and choreographer for Aspen Community Theatre’s fall musical, "Chicago."
Synonymous with the show "Chicago" is the name of its brilliant director and choreographer Bob Fosse. Highly stylized, this dance class will explore the essential ingredients in the choreography of Fosse, including his dance roots in vaudeville, burlesque and jazz. The workshop will include a film history of vaudeville and burlesque, a session on how to follow choreography, culminating in a dance class designed to pull it all together. This class is perfect for actors, singers and dancers of all experience levels.
Marisa Post received her theatre training at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, NYC and is currently the Director of Education at Theatre Aspen. She has worked as a professional actress, in New York and nationally. As a director and choreographer, Marisa has created new and published works for the stage, including Umbrella Man, Little Shop of Horrors, A Little Night Music, I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change and The Sound of Music.
Enrollment is limited. Please call Carol Bayley @ 920.3937 to register.
August 14th, 2008
The Hudson Reed Ensemble announces its third annual free “Shakespeare In the Park” series held in the Galena Plaza Park directly behind the Pitkin County Library. Opening Wednesday, August 13, this year’s production is MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING which features a cast of fourteen and is directed by Ruth Leon a Shakesperian scholar and director from the U.K.
This wonderful comedy is the story of two very different couples that battle heroically against huge odds to find romance and happiness.
Continue Reading August 12th, 2008
"Crimes of the Heart," the black comedy by Beth Henley presented by Theatre Aspen and now underway under the tent in Rio Grande Park, finds horror in comedy and comedy in horror. Nobody--neither actors nor audience--gets cheated in the Aspen production directed by Michael Unger with a confidence that embraces Southern gothic chaos without losing control of the proceedings for a single moment.
The cast is part of the continuing Theatre Aspen upgrade of talent: director Unger and all six actors in the show are members of Actors Equity, generally a good sign. (All four Theatre Aspen shows continue throughout August.) In the theatrical equivalent of a chick flick, the three McGrath sisters--playing with astonishing pugnacity by Janet Metz, Lisa Datz, and Sandy Rustin--and their cousin Chick Boyle, played by Sally Mae Dunn, who embraces reprehensibility with a brio that borders on the illegal--manage to laugh and cry and stomp their way to a conclusion that becomes maniacly cheerful despite the odds. Both Richard Gallagher and Kevin Stapleton, the stars of the guy comedy "Rounding Third" at Theatre Aspen this summer, again display their wily versatility and easy humanity in supporting roles they could easily have phoned in.
The story is about family dysfunction risen to the level of art. You see, Babe (Rustin) has just shot her husband Zachary, an oily and awful big-shot lawyer in Haselhurst, Mississippi. She makes bail and comes back to the home that her sister (Lenny) is keeping for Old Grandaddy, an overbearing force now unseen because he has been dispatched to the hospital with a stroke. The play takes place on Lenny's 30th birthday--and one day later--and the event is not a happy one, in part because of her "shrunken ovary," a condition that is oft-remarked upon. Meg (Datz) is a failed singer with on-again, off-again mental problems who is so godawful ashamed of her life she has to lie about it to Old Grandaddy. Doc Porter (Stapleton) is the boyfriend she loved but left after the roof literally fell in, and Barnette Lloyd (Gallagher) is Babe's lawyer bent on revenge against her husband, the man with a bullet in his belly.
Got that? One other thing: the mother of the stanky McGraths not only hung herself in the basement of their house, but also hung the family cat with her, a decision that brought "national" attention to the wonder of Babe, who contemplates same. Why hang the cat when you're killing yourself. The whole play hinges on the answer to that question.
Maybe you've seen the movie with Diane Keaton, Jessica Lange, and Sissy Spacek, but the stage version at Theatre Aspen surpasses those performances in my opinion. The actors almost seem to bust out of their seems with talent: toward the end of the evening the three McGrath sisters also show you that they can all sing beautifully--to go with their mastery of comedy, drama, and that place in between where most of life goes down. You hear their beautiful voice after all the comedy and carnage that has transpired, and you know from that point on, there's nothing these actresses can't do.
Continue Reading August 1st, 2008
The Con Man covers the waterfront with visits from the photographer behind "Dogs I've Nosed," the Broadway Babes starring in Theatre Aspen's black comedy "Crimes of the Heart," and Jim McWilliams, the Texas State University history professor who wrote "American Pests" covering the ground from colonial times to DDT.
Click here for Thursday's "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday July 31, 2008.
August 1st, 2008
The Con Man covers the waterfront with visits from the photographer behind "Dogs I've Nosed," the Broadway Babes starring in Theatre Aspen's black comedy "Crimes of the Heart," and Jim McWilliams, the Texas State University history professor who wrote "American Pests" covering the ground from colonial times to DDT.
Click here for Thursday's "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday July 31, 2008.
August 1st, 2008
Paige Price of Theatre Aspen visits the Con Man to tell about the premier of "Crimes of the Heart" under the tent in Rio Grande Part, and to say what she learned in her first year as artistic director. Then Barry Schochet weighs in on what he sees as the sanguine effects of the Iraq war.
Click here for the complete "Con Games with Michael Conniff" for Thursday July 24, 2008.
July 24th, 2008
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