Thursday, December 1, 2011
Music lovers’ "Favorite Things" will fill Newtown Theatre this holiday season.
It’s an embarrassment of riches as Newtown Arts Company presents “The Sound of Music,” opening today at the Newtown Theatre. The show runs through Dec. 11. With a dual cast of von Trapp children and Rolf, in addition to an expansive chorus, the production is sure to fill the quaint, historic theater to the brim with song. “We have an amazing group of women for the nuns and postulates,” said Music Director Susan den Outen. “Over 100 kids auditioned. We could have cast a dozen Liesls, they were that wonderful. So many came out who were talented. The kids have been fun to work with; they have a lot of energy.” The trial of working with a dual cast with youngsters in a very small and old theater were overcome, den Outen said, by procedures …
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Tuesday, October 11, 2011
Agatha Christie’s Inspector Poirot is on the case in Newtown.
She’s the best-selling mystery writer of all time and he is her best-loved crime solver. Together, they make for a fun cup of who-done-it joe. Newtown Arts Company presents Agatha Christie’s “Black Coffee” Oct. 13 through 19 at Newtown Theatre. “Black Coffee” is not only the prolific author’s first play, but the only one of her plays to feature her beloved character of many novels, short stories and adapted films: Inspector Hercule Poirot. Bringing the meticulous Belgian detective to Newtown are co-directors Jane DeKorte and Jim McCrane, yet is was DeKorte who did the footwork of tracking down the elusive play. Christie wrote the play in the late 1920s and it was long out of print in the U.S., DeKorte said, but she finally acquired it for …
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Newtown Theatre
120 N State St, Newtown, PA
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Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The benefit performance goes forward, despite setbacks.
Some folks will not back away from a challenge. Langhorne Players surely belongs in this category. The theater company is going ahead with its planned benefit despite recent flood damage, although the event has been scaled back from two evenings to one. "Showin’ Off – A Benefit for Langhorne Players" will take place 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 23, at Spring Garden Mill. Founded in 1947, Langhorne Players has long been committed to quality theater. Their motto is: “Plays worth talking about.” Although the grammar is questionable, the productions never are. The choice of works, casting, directing, stage design, lighting, sound, acting, wardrobe and props are all intentional and superb. “Unpaid professional theater” is the term Elliot Simmons …
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Laughter, tears mingle in Pulitzer Prize-winning gem.
If you've ever given or gratefully received platitudes such as "it's God's plan," "God must've needed another angel in heaven" or "he's in a better place now" you may not fully appreciate Becca's pain in "Rabbit Hole," the David Lindsay-Abaire play produced by Langhorne Players and running through Sept. 3 at Spring Garden Mill in Tyler State Park. Highly practical, non-sentimental Becca suffers loss just as strongly as those who mourn in more traditional forms, but others don’t necessarily see it. She methodically folds clothes readying them for charity, clothes once worn by Danny, her young son who ran out in front of a car eight months ago. Becca is portrayed with heroic restraint by Kyla Mostello Donnelly of Levittown. Donnelly plays …
Art imitates life – just a bit – in this large-cast production.
A play within a play in a common conceit (think “Hamlet”) but Newtown Arts Company’s “Our Miss Brooks” takes it a bit further. The play, written by Christopher Sergel, is running this Thursday through Aug. 31 at Newtown Theatre. Lori Steel Naglak is not only directing the comedy based on the widely popular CBS Radio series (1948-57) that later appeared on the small screen and the silver screen, but Naglak is also a bit of a Miss Brooks herself. She is about to enter her eighth year as drama teacher at Council Rock South. This is her first time directing with Newtown Arts Company. “I heard they needed a director,” said Naglak, “and I figured I had some time, so I volunteered to help out.” Half of the eight adults in the cast are teachers or…
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Newtown Theatre
120 N State St, Newtown, PA
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Friday, August 19, 2011
The Pulitzer Prize-winning play balances pain and perseverance.
Success is often a matter of persistence, trying one more time than you fail. As Samuel Johnson said: “Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.” Langhorne Players’ fourth offering of the season – Rabbit Hole, which runs Aug. 19 through Sept. 3 – is a result of such diligent determination. Two years ago, director Robert Norman tried to get the rights to the 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning play written by David Lindsay-Abaire. He failed. He tried again last year and failed again. “It’s a play we’ve had our eye on for a couple of years,” Norman said about the drama in which a young couple deal with the accidental death of their 4-year-old son. Surprisingly – for those who haven’t already seen the 2010 movie version starring…
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Langhorne Players brings three iconic characters to the stage in a poignant comedy about a family in need of salvation.
Stephen Hawking, Jesus and Elvis walk into a room… well, roll, float and saunter into a room actually. It sounds like the set-up to a joke, but it is the dramedy "End Days," produced by Langhorne Players and running through July 30 at Spring Garden Mill in Tyler State Park. The Stein family deals with post-traumatic stress disorder each in their own way. Arthur, who survived the attack on the World Trade Center, stops eating, showering, caring. Sylvia abandons her family responsibilities for evangelical doomsday-saying. And 16-year-old Rachel adopts a Goth persona to keep others at bay and further masks herself from the world in a marijuana haze. Instead of living, the characters in Deborah Zoe Laufer’s play are just marking time, …
Friday, July 15, 2011
One family survives 9/11 only to wait for the Rapture that never comes.
A September 11 survivor hardly seems the stuff of humor. Neither does a religious zealot waiting for the Rapture. Same with Stephen Hawking. And most 16-year-olds. But a 16-year-old in an Elvis suit? An imaginary Jesus? Now you might be getting somewhere. Langhorne Players presents "End Days" through July 30 at Spring Garden Mill in Tyler Park. The play, written by Deborah Zoe Laufer, is a comedy. The Steins have moved to the suburbs after 9/11. The father, Authur, survived the attack on the World Trade Centers, but hasn’t changed out of his pajamas since. The mom, Silvia, is newly and passionately Evangelical. She has a personal relationship with Jesus – yes, he talks to her. Jesus has probably given Silvia a packing list for Wednesday – …
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Newtown Arts Company addresses the big white rabbit in the room.
If ever there was a time where the collective consciousness dictated behavior and mores, it was during World War II, when women were expected to put a dress on to cook dinner after working the assembly line to make bombs all day. Crazy just to think about it? Sure, but it was expected. Talking to an imaginary friend? Crazy. Just plain crazy. Starting June 23, the Newtown Arts Company will present Harvey, a work that earned playwright Mary Chase a Pulitzer Prize after it was produced on Broadway in 1944. The play will be performed through June 29 at the Newtown Theatre. Harvey is about an extremely pleasant man, Elwood P. Dowd, who has strayed beyond societal norms, so much so that his sister wants to have him committed into a mental …
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Newtown Theatre
120 N State St, Newtown, PA
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Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Langhorne Players presents Albee’s intimate examination of moving on.
We all occasionally need someone to poke us in the ribs and make us move. This is what happens to Nancy and Charlie in Edward Albee’s Seascape. Langhorne Players presents the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, directed by Bernard DiCasimirro and running through June 18 at Spring Garden Mill in Tyler State Park. Nancy wants to travel from beach to beach, taking in all life has to offer. Charlie wants to do nothing. He thinks he’s earned it. The retired couple have enough baggage to overfill the picnic basket they’ve brought to the seaside, where Nancy sketches and plans the next stage of their life, while Charlie does nothing, actively nothing. In between moments of tenderness, they battle – covertly and overtly. “You’ve had a good life,” …
A. Paul Ing.
7:49 am on Saturday, June 25, 2011
"switch their paradigm a little" ? Oh brother! When a director says that, it's an indication that he thinks very highly of himself but has no clue whatsoever about theater. "Paradigm" is one of those BS management-babble words that mean absolutely nothing! more ›