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by Mark G. Auerbach

Amadeus: A Majestic Musical Rivalry at The Majestic 

 

Amadeus, Peter Shaffer’s sweeping fictionalized history of the rivalry between classical music composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Antonio Salieri, kicks off the New Year at West Springfield’s Majestic Theater through February 12.

A big hit in London, on Broadway, and subsequently as a film, Amadeus tells of Salieri’s jealousy for Mozart’s talents, and disdain for his wild ways. Shaffer, who adapted the play into the film, was inspired by a short 1830 play by Alexander Pushkin called Mozart and Salieri (which was also used as the libretto for an opera of the same name by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1897). The play premiered on Broadway in 1980 with Ian McKellen as Salieri, Tim Curry as Mozart, and Jane Seymour as

Constanze. Tim Curry was replaced by Star Wars star Mark Hamill, who in turn was replaced by John Thomas Waite, who stages the Majestic production.

Amadeus won the 1981 Tony Award for Best Play. It was adapted by Shaffer for the 1984 Academy Award-winning film of the same name

At the Majestic, Keith Langsdale plays Salieri; Stephen Petit of Southwick plays Mozart;  Kaytlyn Vendeloecht plays Constanze Weber, and Westfield actor Stuart Gamble plays Emperor Joseph II. .

For details: 413.747.7797: or http://www.majestictheater.com/

[Title of Show] Plays West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park

[Title of Show], the quirky Broadway musical, takes over West Hartford’s Playhouse on Park from

January 11-29. Authors Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell wrote the musical as an entry in the New York Musical Theatre Festival, and the show made its way uptown to Broadway, where it won a Tony Award nomination for Best Book of a Musical in 2009. Composer and lyricist Bowen and librettist Bell describe [Title of Show] as “a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical”. The musical has lots of insider Broadway musical jokes that will make anyone who has seen a new musical this century chuckle. David Edwards directs.

The cast includes Miles Jacoby from the Broadway and National Tours of The Book of Mormon, Peje Mele, Ashlkey Brooke, and Amanda Forker. Director David Edwards makes his Playhouse on Park debut as director with [Title of Show].  As an actor, he is a veteran of Broadway’s By Jeeves, The Rothschilds, and The Producers.  Recently, he was nominated for a Connecticut Critics Circle Award for his direction of South Pacific at Ivoryton Playhouse.

For details: 860.523-5900 EXT 10 or http://www.playhouseonpark.org/

The Ghost Light Project: A National Theatre Initiative

The theatre community has always been a front-runner, when it comes to promoting equality, diversity, and a safe space for artists to create works that showcase important issues and for audiences to participate in these onstage/offstage dialogues and discussions.
Activism has been part of the picture since Ancient Greece, when Aristophanes wrote an anti-war play, Lysistrata, in which a group of solder’s wives denied their husbands sex, until they gave up their battle..

The Ghost Light Project, a new national initiative, aims to unite the theater community nationwide in solidarity. The project aims to create spaces – both literal and symbolic – that will serve as lights in the coming years, and to activate a network of people across the country working to support vulnerable communities.

On January 19 at 5:30PM in each time zone across the country, members of the theater community from Broadway to regional theaters to high schools and colleges and community theaters will come together to launch The GhostLight Project.

As of December 31, some of the participating regional theaters and companies include  Arts Emerson; Boston Center for The Arts, Silverthorne Theatre in Massachusetts and ; Connecticut College, TheaterWorks, Housatonic Musical Theatre Society, Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and Goodspeed Musicals in Connecticut, and more. ,

For details on the group’s mission, and an updated list of participants: https://theghostlightproject.com/

Of Note

Michael Wartella, the Berkshires native who recently played Mickey Rooney in Goodspeed’s Chasing Rainbows, stars with Christian Borle, John Rubenstein, and Jackie Hoffman in the new Broadway musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which opens on Broadway in late March.  Wartella was previously on Broadway in Wicked and Tuck Everlasting. Also in the cast is Alan H. Green from Barrington Stage’s Broadway Bounty Hunter last season. For details: http://www.charlieonbroadway.com/

George S. Irving, the actor and Springfield, MA native who won the 1973 Tony Award for his performance opposite Debbie Reynolds in Irene, died on December 26. Born George Irving Shelasky in 1922, he grew up singing at neighborhood synagogues and churches. He made his Broadway debut in 1943 in Oklahoma!. With 32 Broadway credits, Irving performed in such classics as Gentleman Prefer Blondes, Can-Can, Bells Are Ringing, the 1981 revival of The Pirates of Penzance, and Me and My Girl, for which he earned a Tony nomination. He was married to the ballerina Maria Karnilova, who starred on Broadway as Tessie Tura in Gypsy and Golde in Fiddler on The Roof.
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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.