MARK AUERBACH
Spamalot Slides Into Storrs
Monty Python’s Spamalot, the zany, laugh-filled Tony Award winning musical, brings its sophomoric hilarity to the Connecticut Repertory Theatre at UConn’s Harriet S. Jorgenson Theatre in Storrs through May 1. Based loosely on the film Monty Python and The Holy Grail, with book and lyrics by Eric Idle, and music by John De Prez and Eric Idle, the musical stars Richard Kline as King Arthur and Mariand Torres, a Broadway Elphaba in Wicked, as the Lady of The Lake. Richard Ruiz directs and Tom Kosis choreographs.
Richard Kline stars as King Arthur in Monty Python’s Spamalot at Connecticut Repertory Theatre.
Spamalot tells the tale of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table as they embark on their quest for the Holy Grail. You’ll enjoy some mostly handsome knights, a bevy of beautiful show girls, not to mention cows, killer rabbits, and French people, before the familiar sound of clomping coconut shells brings down the curtain on the season’s goofiest, if satirically dead-on, comic delights.
When Spamalot opened on Broadway in 2005, winning the Tony Award for Best Musical and two others, it introduced David Hyde Pierce in his Broadway musical debut, and Sara Ramirez as The Lady of The Lake, who later went to TV’s Grey’s Anatomy as Callie.
For details: 860-486-2113 or www.crt.uconn.edu.
Steve Collins, new Executive Director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra.
Think Summer
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra has announced its programs for the 2016 Talcott Mountain Music Festival at the Performing Arts Center at Simsbury Meadows in Simsbury, CT.
The line-up includes: Celebrate America! (July 1, rain date: July 2) with Maestra Carolyn Kuan conducting red, white and blue favorites followed by fireworks; The Women of Song (July 8, rain date July 9) featuring hits by Barbra Streisand, Aretha Franklin, Whitney Houston and more; conducted by Assistant Conductor Adam Kerry Boyles. Appalachian Spring and music by Tchaikovsky and Mozart are featured on July 15 (rain date July 16); A Ray Charles and Motown Tribute is scheduled for July 22 (rain date July 23) and the season conxludes with a salute to Journey (July 29, rain date July 30).
Two kinds of seating are available–table seating on lawn passes. For details: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.org.
Jaxques Lamarre from the Mark Twain House
Transitions
Steve Collins has been named Executive Director of the Hartford Symphony Orchestra. Collins has served as the orchestra’s Director of Artistic Operations and Administration since August, 2014. Collins succeeds David Fay, who continues as President & CEO of The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, in leading the HSO management team and assuming responsibility for the general management of the organization.Collins is former Executive Director of the Waterbury Symphony Orchestra and Education Director of the New Haven Symphony Orchestra,
Jacques Lamarre, Mark Twain House communications director, is leaving the museum to take a job with BuzzEngine, a Connecticut events company. Lamarre previously held simmilar positions at Hartford Stage, Hartford Symphony, and TheaterWorks. He’s also a playwright. He wrote a segment of TheaterWorks Christmas on the Rocks, and his new play, Raging Skillet, is scheduled to be performed at TheaterWorks next season.
Marilyn Kushick, publicist at the University of Massachusetts Department of Music and Dance, is retiring next month, after 25 years promoting the department’s programs, recitals, and performances. Good luck !
Keep in Mind…
Through The Looking Glass: Musings from the Pens of Berkshire Women Writers will be performed under the auspices of the Berkshire Theatre Group on April 17 at the Unicorn Theatre in Stockbridge. Selected readings from writers including Frances Anne Kemble, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Harriett Beecher Stowe, and Edith Wharton will be performed by Amber Chand, Hilary Somers Deely, Kate Maguire, Corinna May, Mary Mott and Barbara Sims. For details: 413-997-4444 or www.berkshiretheatregroup.org.
Blockbuster Movie Scores by John Williams take center stage at Symphony Hall on April 23, when Maestro Kevin Rhodes conducts the Springfield Symphony Orchestra in music from the movies. Expect some tunes from the scores of Jaws, the Star Wars series, Superman: The Movie, the Indiana Jones series, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the first two Home Alone films, Hook, three of the four Jurassic Park films, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, the first three Harry Potter films, and much more. For details: 413-733-2291 or www.springfieldsymphony.org.
The Springfield Museums hosts a travelling exhibit that celebrates ground-breaking photographers from both sides of the Atlantic, who pushed the limits of the art form beginning in 1902. Photo-Secession: Painterly Masterworks of Turn-of-the-Century Photography will be on view at the Michele and Donald D’Amour Museum of Fine Arts through August 28. The exhibit features works by the preeminent artist-photographers of the day, including the group’s leader, Alfred Stieglitz, who founded the “Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession” to provide members with a venue for exhibiting their work. For details: 413-263-6800 or www.springfieldmuseums.org.
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra pops series offers music featuring Jake Shimabukuro’s Uke Nation on April 16 at The Bushnell HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan conducts For details: 860-987-5900 or www.hartfordsymphony.org.
Meet Lucy Stone, the Civil War abolitionist and suffragette and one of the most important unsung heroines in Massachusetts history. Judith Black, national award-winning actress/storyteller, will present her one-woman performance as she brings Lucy Stone to life at Springfield Armory National Historic Site in Springfield on April 24. The performance is free. For details: 413-734-855 or .www.nps.gov/spar
Mark G. Auerbach studied theatre at American University and the Yale School of Drama. He’s worked for arts organizations and reported on theatre for newspapers and radio.
