San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
THEATER NOTEBOOK
After 30-year wait, Lamb’s veteran gets her dream role in ‘Belle of Amherst’
Over the past 33 years, actor Cynthia Gerber has performed in more than 90 productions with Lamb’s Players Theatre in Coronado.
But there’s one role that has eluded Gerber ever since she first brought it to the attention of Lamb’s producing artistic director Robert Smyth about 30 years ago. She has always wanted to play the 19th-century American poet Emily Dickinson in William Luce’s 1976 solo play “The Belle of Amherst.”
Smyth didn’t cast Gerber in the play three decades back because he felt she was too young for the part. But finally the time has come. Smyth is directing Gerber in “The Belle of Amherst” for the company’s first indoor production for a live audience since March 2020. Performances began on Saturday.
“Emily Dickinson was a woman decades ahead of her time,” Smyth said. “This vibrant and forgotten piece holds a startling relevance for today and is a perfect vehicle for Cynthia’s talent.”
Raised in Idyllwild and trained at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in Los Angeles, Gerber moved to San Diego in 1988 and landed her first role with Lamb’s — as the Wee Widow Mouse in “The Book of the Dun Cow” — later that year. In 1990, Smyth invited her to join Lamb’s year-round ensemble troupe. That’s when she first approached him with the script for “The Belle of Amherst,” which she had performed in college.
“This piece is a meaty drama that’s beautiful and deeply introspective, and it’s also about the comedy of life,” Gerber said of the play. “I loved the play first, and then fell in love with her poetry after. I feel that Emily’s gift is that she pulls the cover right off some of your deepest fears, desires and passions, and she can do it in just a couple of verses.”
Dickinson wrote more than 1,800 poems, though only 10 were published before she died at age 55 in 1886. Luce’s 100-minute play was drawn from the Massachusetts poet’s diaries and correspondence with friends and family, and it expresses both her sadness in self-imposed seclusion and the joys she found in life.
A married Coronado mother of two sons, ages 19 and 22, Gerber said rehearsing her first-ever solo play after an 18-month pandemicrelated break feels like running a marathon, but she’s excited to tackle the role again.
“I think the themes of the play are incredibly universal, and yet she was so unique and unusual,” Gerber said. “In the play we talk about the importance of family, the extraordinary beauty of nature and understanding what what religion and faith mean. We also talk about love, and she did love passionately, and about understanding death, which was one of her big themes.”
“The Belle of Amherst” runs through Nov. 14 at Lamb’s Players Theatre, 1142 Orange Ave., Coronado. Tickets are $24 to $74. Proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative PCR test result within 72 hours of curtain is required, along with a face mask indoors. For more, visit lambsplayers.org.
Danny Burstein wins long-overdue Tony Award
University of California San Diego graduate Danny Burstein won a long-overdue Tony Award and a standing ovation at the 74th annual Tony Awards in New York last Sunday.
Burstein had been Tony-nominated seven times but hadn’t won until this year for his featured role as nightclub impresario Harold Zidler in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical,” which recently reopened after an 18-month break. Last December, Burstein lost his wife of 20 years and fellow Broadway veteran Rebecca Luker to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). During his acceptance speech, Burstein thanked the theater community for its tireless support — from notes to calls to bagel drop-offs — during the past two difficult years.
Burstein and Luker had a sentimental connection to San Diego. They met while performing onstage in “Time and Again” at the Old Globe in 1996. That was six years after Burstein graduated from the master’s acting program at UC San Diego.
‘Dancing Lessons’ extends
Due to high ticket demand, North Coast Repertory Theatre has extended by one week its production of “Dancing Lessons,” which will now run through Oct. 10. Tickets are $54 to $65. Visit northcoastrep.org.
‘Grinch’ goes on sale
Tickets for the Old Globe’s 23rd annual “Dr. Seuss’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas!” are now on sale. The popular holiday musical was presented last year as a radio broadcast on KPBS-FM, but it returns to live performances Nov. 3 through Dec. 30 in the main Old Globe Theatre. For tickets, visit theoldglobe.org.
S.D. Rep veteran Felder’s ‘Florence’ season on sale
Tickets for veteran San Diego Repertory Theatre performer Hershey Felder’s second season of filmed “Live From Florence” biographical musical plays will go on sale Monday. Over the next year, the playwright-pianist-performer will film the plays in locations throughout Europe and in San Diego and will stream them from his home in Florence, Italy, on select dates Nov. 28 through December 2022.
The season includes “Dante and Beatrice in Florence,” Nov. 28; “Mozart and Figaro in Vienna,” Jan. 9, 2022; “The Verdi Fiasco,” March 27, 2022; “The Assembly,” May 29, 2022; “Chopin in Paris,” Aug. 7, 2022; “The Crazy Widow (of Moses de Leon),” Oct. 16, 2022; and a musical holiday special on Dec. 18, 2022. Details on the shows and tickets are available at hersheyfelder.net and will also be sold closer to the streaming dates at sdrep.org.