Park Playhouse opens season at Cohoes Music Hall
Musical ‘Million Dollar Quartet’ opens Park Playhouse’s 31st season
COHOES, N.Y. >> Tonight, the musical, “Million Dollar Quartet” opens Park Playhouse’s 31st season. It could be a historical moment for the group which is entering a new phase of its existence.
The show, which runs until No- vember 11, is part of the compa- ny’s second season at the Cohoes Music Hall, in Cohoes. It is a relationship which seems positive and permanent.
Owen Smith, the Producing Artistic Director of the Playhouse, recently resigned his post as managing director of the Palace Theatre in Albany. He’ll be stewarding the Playhouse full time through this new stage of its development – which is being called Playhouse Stage Company.
He says the realization that the “shared resources model” with the Palace was no longer viable forced a number of changes to the operation of the organization. “We are approaching our business plan with a start-up mentality. When I joined Park Playhouse we developed a 3-year, 5-year, and a ten-year plan. We accomplished all those goals and now it’s time to do it again.”
Smith says the organization’s primary goal remains the same. “Our main passion is to create good theater,” he insists. A secondary goal is to offer that theater at reasonable prices. “It is not uncommon to pay forty, fifty dollars or more for area theater tickets. Some non-professional theaters charge $35 for a musical. We want to keep our tickets under $30, with severe discounts for students.”
“Million Dollar Quartet” meets that criteria. It is popular entertainment. It uses a company of professional actors and local performers. Tickets top out at $27, $17 for students.
It also fits the template which they developed during their first season at Cohoes Music Hall. Last season, the program alternated performances that used professional actors with shows that only used students from the company’s youth program.
It was such a success that Smith entered a more complicated longterm relationship with the economic development department of the City of Cohoes. It involves producing six shows a season at the Music Hall, with the City getting a share of the profits on each show and receiving $2 on every ticket sold. The schools within the Cohoes school district will get free tickets to student productions during the season. Park will produce a couple of music revues for the city’s summer outdoor concert series “Rock the Block” at the Canal Center Block.
With the business aspects secure, Smith is now focusing on the work onstage. He’s directing “Million Dollar Quartet” which he claims has appeal to everyone.
The show is fiction based on a true incident. On December 4, 1956, four musicians held an impromptu jam session in the studio of Sun Records, which was headed by Sam Phillips. The four men who were just starting their careers were each to become legendary performers. They were Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis, all of whom were mentored by Philips throughout their careers.
The session is a historical fact – what happened inside the studio is fiction. The music performed in “Million Dollar Quartet” is solid gold. They include songs like “Blue Suede Shoes,” I Walk the Line,” Great Balls of Fire,” and “Hound Dog.”
Smith said, “One of the more positive aspects about presenting theater in the Cohoes Music Hall is the intimacy of the space. I saw it in its Broadway debut run back in 1990 at the smaller New World Theatre in New York City. Later I saw the touring versions that played Proctors in Schenectady and the Palace in Albany,” he said. “While I loved the show each time, there is no question it works best in a smaller space.”
Smith believes that the Playhouse Stage Company will have the same success in Cohoes that Park Playhouse has in Albany. “Starting a new phase of an operation is always uncertain,” he says. “What I do know is that we are having an impact on our community every day. And that’s a great feeling.”