This North Coast Weekend

HSU opens Young Frankenstein: The Musical  tonight (Thursday) for two weekends. As he did with the stage version of The Producers, Mel Brooks wrote the script, music and lyrics, slightly parodying past Broadway songs. This 2007 musical comedy version doesn’t require familiarity with the classic 1974 Young Frankenstein movie, but key comic moments recur, with some variation and embellishment. Director Rae Robison and designer Derek Lane are applying an industrial “steam punk” (or Frankensteam) approach to the set and the Monster. But the Monster’s specific look (and the identity of the well-known local actor who plays him) are secrets for audiences to discover.

 Erik Standifird plays Dr. Frederick Frankenstein, grandson of the original monster-maker. He played the lead in last year’s NCRT production of Anything Goes, the Cole Porter show that inspired Mel Brooks’ musical approach to this one. A large ensemble features Anna Duchi, Ashley Adams, Christopher Moreno, Sasha Shay and Keith Brown. Elisabeth Harrington is music director, Paul Cummings conducts the band, and Lizzie Chapman is dance choreographer. Marissa Menezes designed costumes, Telfer Reynolds the lighting, Charles Thompson the sound.  This is the HSU Theatre, Film & Dance department and HSU Music department co-production that typically happens every other year.

 This comedy about a man, his monster and the women who loved them contains verbal and visible PG humor of a sexual nature—no surprise, it’s Mel Brooks. Because it’s in the relatively small Gist Hall Theatre, two Saturday matinees are added to the usual schedule of Thurs.-Sat. at 7:30 and Sunday at 2. Young Frankenstein opens Oct. 17 and plays weekends through Oct. 27.  There's more information at HSU Stage & Screen, where you can be the first to read the strange story of how Frankenstein and Dracula were born on the same dark and stormy night!

Meanwhile, Our Town continues at Ferndale Rep.

This North Coast Weekend

Dell'Arte International second years present their Tragedy project, A Harvest of Stones, described as a "poetic story of a farmer who struggles to hold onto his land in the face of drought, debt, and ecological disaster."  It's ensemble-devised, led by faculty instructor Lauren Wilson, with choregraphy by Donlin Foreman.  It's at the Carlo Thursday, Friday and Saturday (April 18-20) at 8 p.m.  707 668-5663, www.dellarte.com.

Also beginning Thursday, the HSU Opera Workshop opens the contemporary comic opera Too Many Sopranos by Edwin Penhorwood, a satire with luscious music about four sopranos who must go to hell to bring back tenors and basses (i.e. men) for the soprano-heavy heavenly choir. North Coast singers Steve Nobles, Dylan Karl, Luke Sikora, Rigel Schmitt and Op Workshop director Elisabeth Harrington join up with student singers Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Studio Theatre, upstairs in the HSU Theatre Arts building.  826-3928.  HSUMusic.

On Friday, Ferndale Rep opens the musical Hello Dolly. (No photo made available.) Directed by Justin Takata with musical direction by Tina Toomatta, choreography by Linda Maxwell and scenic design by Liz Uhazy, it stars Rae Robison as Dolly, with Dave Fuller, Erik Standifird and Molly Severdia headlining the large cast.  It continues weekends through May 12.  786-5483.

The Arcata Playhouse Family Fun series continues this weekend with Lakota storyteller Robert Owens-Greygrass performing "Stories to Grow Your Heart On" on Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m., with a Saturday afternoon show at 2 p.m.  On Sunday at 8 p.m. Owens-Greygrass reprises an earlier show, "Walking on Turtle Island." 

North Coast high schools are mounting their spring productions.  Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m., Arcata High School performs the whodunit mystery It Was A Dark and Stormy Night (joshuarbaugh@gmail.com). Thursday and Friday at 7:30 p.m. Eureka High offers Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, described as "30 neo-futurist plays in under one hour."  441-2508. Ehsplayers.

Meanwhile, Shakespeare's The Tempest continues at NCRT.

This North Coast Weekend

Joan Schirle, Michael Fields, David Powell, Lynnie Horrigan, Donald Forrest, Tim Randles and special guests headline a weekend of Musical Cabaret, Friday through Sunday (February 24,25,26) at 8pm in the Carlo Theate at Dell'Arte in Blue Lake. Albert McFee is the MC, and performs new original songs.

Saturday, by the way, is International Commedia dell'arte Day, so, I don't know, take a clown to lunch!

Also on Saturday, Jeff DeMark is back at the Sewell Gallery with La Patinas doing his work-in-progress, currently titled The Thong Remains the Same.

The Language Archive continues at Redwood Curtain.   My review is in the Journal this week.  To get the in-joke about "fully baked" and the advice to have fresh bread on hand after the show, well, you have to go to the show.

This is the final weekend for Look Back in Anger at Ferndale Rep.   A drama (this one) and a comedy (at Redwood Curtain), both with superior acting.  Pretty good for any theatre town.

I should also mention a music event with a stage tie-in.  On Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m., Elisabeth Harrington and six North Coast friends (Craig Benson, Ana Cruz, Robert Keiber, Steve Nobles, Jenny Quigley and Kevin Sharkey) sing a love song to ice cream by Kurt Weil, among other delicious operatic selections.  The friends became friends as a result of working together on various stages, including Humboldt Light Opera and especially Sweeney Todd at Ferndale Rep.  It's in Fulkerson Hall at HSU, and proceeds to HSU Music scholarship fund. Tickets at 826-3928 or more easily at the door. http://HSUMusic.blogspot.com.

Brigadoon

Who can resist discovering a magic world?  Brigadoon is one of the classic Golden Age musicals, but isn't performed as often as the others.  Now it's on the Van Duzer Theatre stage at HSU, beginning Thursday (October 13) at 7:30 p.m. for two weekends (Thurs.-Sat.), including two Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.  It's the big musical produced by the HSU Department of Theatre, Film & Dance with the HSU Department of Music every two years.

The story: Leaving the cynical city (and its cynical musicals) behind, two New York men drift out of cell phone range into the Scottish highlands, where they discover an enchanted village that lives only for a day every 100 years, called Brigadoon. There they find new love and a different way to live. But can the magic last, and if it’s lost, can it be found again?

Brigadoon is the first Broadway hit by Lerner and Loewe, who later were responsible for My Fair Lady and Camelot.  The HSU production updates this 1947 show slightly to make the modern point of view relevant to today's audiences, but the timeless village of Brigadoon--and the great songs and music--remains the same.   Brigadoon is co-directed by Bernadette Cheyne and Richard Woods, with musical direction by Elisabeth Harrington. It has the special advantage (for me at least) of a full orchestra, playing the lush score that captures the spirit of Scotland, conducted by Paul Cummings.  Jeff O’Connor is the choreographer.

Miles Raymer plays Tommy Albright, a troubled young man from 2011 Manhattan, and Brandy Rose is Fiona MacLaren, the woman who wins his heart in Brigadoon. Philip de Roulet plays Charlie, and Jessi Shieman plays Jean, the Brigadoon couple about to be married as the play begins. Camille Morgan plays the playful Meg, Michael Thomas is Jeff (the other New Yorker), and Fran Whittman is Lundie.  There's much more information at HSU Stage & Screen and HSU Music, authored by yours truly.

There have been a lot of musicals in a row hereabouts (with a small one yet to come), but Brigadoon is the only one that's from the classic Golden Age of the Broadway musical, usually considered to be from the 1940s into the 1960s.  It's probably the least known of the first tier of those musicals, which definitely must include two other Lerner & Loewe shows, My Fair Lady and Camelot. 

The New York Drama Critics Circle named the original production the best musical of the year, praising its “thoughtful beauty” representing “the lyric theatre at its best.” Lerner (book and lyrics) and Loewe (music and vocal arrangments.) It includes the classic song, “Almost Like Being in Love.”

I don't want to get into full review mode here, but I did see it on opening night--and above all, I did hear it, all of it--which has sometimes been a problem in the Van Duzer Theatre.  Thanks in part to presentation, and in part to the new miking and sound system, this HSU musical is fully audible as well as visible.  Based on the music alone, I would advise not missing this opportunity.  The singing is terrific, and at times wonderful and moving. There are individual songs--yes, real Golden Age songs in a musical!--and some impressive choral singing.  The orchestra makes a big difference, too. 

The village of Brigadoon lives but one day, then disappears for a century.  When this show disappears, it could be a long time before there's another Brigadoon on the North Coast.

 David Kenworthy is scenic designer, Lynnie Horrigan designed costumes, Kitty Grenot the makeup, James McHugh lighting and Glen Nagy the sound. Brigadoon is on the Van Duzer Theatre stage at HSU for one more weekend.  More information at HSU Stage & Screen.

This North Coast Weekend

The HSU Opera Workshop presents Mozart's opera The Magic Flute for three performances this weekend: Friday and Saturday (April 22, 23) at 8 p.m., and Sunday (April 24) at 2 p.m. in Gist Hall Theatre.  Students Brandy Rose and Philip de Roulet, and community singers Nanette Voss, Christopher Hatcher and Steve Nobles sing the principal roles. With dialogue in English, it’s relocated by director Elisabeth Harrington and scenographer Rachel Parti to the Mayan culture, which adds color and imagery (a leopard, a lion and lots of birds) and strengthens a nature-based emphasis. “It’s a show for all ages,” Harrington said, “with magic and comedy and drama, but focused on love and friendship, nobility and bravery.”  Paul Cummings, who directs the accompanying 20-piece orchestra, says the music is among Mozart’s best.  More info.

The Fence In Its Thousandth Year by contemporary British playwright Howard Barker is presented at Dell'Arte Thursday through Sunday (April 21-24) at 8 p.m. in the Carlo. According to Dell'Arte: "Written in 2005, Barker's play is a powerful theatrical journey into the borderlands between social classes, metaphorically presented as a literal fence where the powerful and the powerless exist in a tense, emotional symbiosis. Sexually explicit, viscerally emotional and hauntingly poetic, Barker's imagined world speaks to our contemporary social and cultural divisions through the heightened language of the theater." This project on tragedy by the Dell'Arte School's second year MFA's is directed by Stephanie Thompson.

Continuing: Final weekend for the HSU dance concert Gravity Defined in the Van Duzer; Othello continues at North Coast Rep, South Pacific at Ferndale Rep.

HSU Going Dark

If stage matters on the North Coast, then this matters: the graduate programs of the Humboldt State University Theatre, Film & Dance department are on the list for elimination. The undergraduate programs may be right behind them.

It's getting to be decision time at HSU, in the latest budget crisis. The Academic Senate has formally listed those graduate programs for elimination, and the department has to defend them--has to say why they shouldn't be scrapped.

The evaluation has nothing to do with their value. It has to do with numerical criteria devised to look like a relevant objective measure. It looks to me like the usual bureaucratic smokescreen, but what do I know.

What I do know is that virtually every production of every theatre organization here depends in part on students--graduate and undergraduate--of HSU, as well as faculty and long-ago graduates of the Theatre department. HSU students starred in, designed and worked on the latest North Coast Rep show. An HSU student directed the latest Ferndale Rep show. Even though Dell'Arte has its own fine school, its productions often use HSU faculty and grads. Humboldt Light Opera, North Coast Prep, and the other groups that come and go...none of it would be the same, and some of it wouldn't exist, without HSU theatre.

And then there's what HSU theatre produces--that no one else locally does. That too, is threatened. But it's even worse than that. Part of the reason that the HSU Theatre department looks so expensive is that it is responsible for running the Van Duzer and other performance spaces. Those costs get figured as department costs. So will those venues also close? And will the other theatre organizations who use those spaces need to go elsewhere?

It gets even worse than that. Also on the list for program elimination is the Music department. Another group of students, graduates and faculty that are essential to musical theatre as well as the musical vitality of Humboldt County. I can't imagine musical theatre at North Coast Rep over the past several years, for example, without the talents who came through HSU. Similiar arguments could be made about dance and film.

Part of the horror of the budget process is the zero sum game--if this isn't cut, then another worthy program--and its faculty and students--must go. I don't happen to think it has to be that way, but I'll stay with just this point: the local community has a stake in the decisions being made at HSU. In particular, the local theatre community has a stake in the fate of the HSU Theatre, Film and Dance department.

A particular irony now is that HSU is set to host next year's regional festival of the Kennedy Center American Theatre Festival. That's 800 to 1200 students, along with hundreds of faculty, etc., from colleges and universities in Northern California (San Francisco/Sacramento and north), Alaska, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Northern Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming. They'll be in Arcata for a week, going to shows, spending money. I stood in the lobby of the Arcata Playhouse a few weeks ago, and listened to stories from several prominent local theatre figures who participated in past regionals here, including one who got his start in North Coast theatre because of it.

But next spring, it could be a wake instead of a validation and celebration. Depending on what HSU does this year.

I've got a few obvious self-interests here. I do part-time work for both HSU Theatre, Film & Dance and the Music department. My partner is probably going to be the next chair of TFD. But it seems to me that everybody in the theatre community here has a self-interest to some degree--that's my point.

Maybe that self-interest ought to be declared to those making the decisions--like the Academic Senate and the Provost. Before it's too late.

This North Coast Weekend

Opening Thursday at the Van Duzer Theatre is the musical comedy City of Angels, produced by the HSU Department of Theatre, Film & Dance and the Department of Music. Photo is of Ethan Heintz and Jamie Banister; other featured performers include Brandy Rose and Chris Hatcher. This fond send-up of Hollywood and the hard-boiled detective pictures of the 40s was written by Larry Gelbart, with music by Cy Coleman. It plays two weekends: Thursdays through Saturdays Oct. 22-24 and Oct. 29-31 at 7:30 PM, with a Sunday matinee at 2 PM on Nov. 1. Much more info (which I created) at HSU Stage and HSU Music.

Flush from the overflow success of its first “Speakeasy” Benefit, the Arcata Playhouse has scheduled another, on Friday, Oct. 23, with music etc. by Jackie Dandeneau and others. Details at http://www.arcataplayhouse.org/.

In their final weekend: Inverted Alba at Dell'Arte and Crimes of the Heart at Ferndale Rep. I review Crimes of the Heart this week in the Journal, where I also tell a Larry Gelbart joke that almost nobody has heard before.

This North Coast Weekend

Humboldt Light Opera presents the childrens show Seussical Jr. the Musical this weekend at College of the Redwoods. A one woman show from Portland, The Last Show You'll Ever See, is on stage at the Arcata Playhouse on Saturday. The HSU Opera Workshop presents a children's opera and other theatrical offerings on Friday and Saturday at the Fulkerson Recital Hall. The HSU spring dance concert, From Floor to Flight, has its last weekend at the Van Duzer Theatre, with the annual Silent Auction on Saturday (photo above). And Ferndale Rep continues The Secret Garden (top photo above.) For specific information, click on the appropriate organizations in the links list to your right at you go out.

This North Coast Weekend: Deborah Clasquin Celebration

I don't usually do music events here, but maybe I should. Anyway, there's an important one this weekend, and since the story in Northern Lights unfortunately provides the wrong date, here it is: a benefit concert for pianist Deborah Clasquin begins at 7 PM on SATURDAY, June 21 in the Fulkerson Recital Hall on the HSU campus.

“The main theme of this event will be to rally around Deborah, to make sure she knows how important she is to so many people in our community and the music world, and to give everyone a chance to celebrate herrole in our lives,” said Linda Anderson, one of the organizers of the event. “The other priority will be to try and raise money for her expensive treatments which are not being reimbursed by her insurance.”

As a concert pianist, Deborah is a well-known performer on North Coast stages as well as in prestigious venues around the world, and on television, radio and recordings. As a teacher at Humboldt State, she has trained prize-winning keyboard artists. She has been an activist and advocate for music education. Now some of her North Coast friends have organized a celebration of Deborah Clasquin’s achievements and a benefit concert to help her defray medical costs as she continues treatments for cancer.

Performers for the concert include pianists Ryan MacEvoy McCullough and Emily Loeffler, clarinetist Armand Ambrosini, and violinists Terrie Baune and Signe Nicklas, who is Deborah Clasquin’s daughter. Also featured are The Babes Women’s Chorus directed by Carol Ryder, a quintet of Sequoia faculty members, and Barbara Davenport, Jill Petricca and Shao Way Wu playing a movement from the Claude Bolling Suite for Flute and Jazz Piano.

Tickets for the benefit concert beginning at 7 PM are $20, from the HSU Ticket Office (826-3928) or at the door. The reception with Deborah Clasquin, family and friends will be held in the lobby outside Fulkerson Hall at approximately 8 PM, and is a free event. Refreshments will be served.

Those who cannot attend or wish to make an additional contribution can send checks to the HSU Music Department, payable to Deborah Clasquin. Additional information at HSUMusic.

Update: This turned out to be a very successful event, with lots of good music and a full house, despite the absence of students and vacationing faculty members. I'm told however that the proceeds will probably pay for most of one of the three treatments Deborah will require. So contributions will continue to be needed, and will be accepted by the HSU Music Department.