Desales’ Act 1 kicks off holiday theater season
Act 1 DeSales University Theatre is one of the first out of the gate with the holiday show opening of “Miracle on 34th Street: A Live Musical Radio Play.” The production starts this weekend and resumes after the Thanksgiving holiday (Dec. 4-8) on the Main Stage of the
Labuda Center for the Performing Arts.
The legendary classic is retold in the tradition of a live 1940s-era radio broadcast, and is staged with live Foley effects and a score of Christmas favorites.
When Kris Kringle — the real Santa Claus — is mistaken for a department store wannabe in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, he pleads his case all the way to the Supreme Court.
There, a miracle unfolds that is sure to melt even the most cynical of hearts.
“Miracle on 34th Street: A Live Radio Play” follows the original 1948 Lux Radio Broadcast script, which featured cast members from the 1946 film such as Maureen O’Hara, John Payne, and Edmund Gwenn, and was performed in front of a live studio audience.
The Act 1 production is directed by Associate Professor Steven Dennis, with musical direction by Professor John Bell and choreography by DeSales University alumna Christine Baglivio. Professor Wayne Turney plays the iconic role of Kris Kringle.
“The overarching theme of the production is the need to keep imagination alive,” says Dennis. “Susan’s mother is a realist, and raises her daughter to be that way as well, telling her there is no such thing as Santa Claus. But the audience is able to see that growing up this way can stifle a childhood, and even stifle a life.”
He says the show demonstrates how it comes to a point where that child may grow up, limited to asking the question “What is?” rather than “What could be?”
“The classic show challenges audiences, young and old, to continue to value the gift of imagination in our lives, each and every day,” he says.
Act 1 will introduce the first of its Page to Stage Dinner events at 5 p.m. Nov. 22. Join Dennis and Bell as they share their expertise recreating the sights and sounds of this timeless holiday classic. The event includes a full bar and dinner and costs $32.
The 2 p.m. Nov. 23 performance will feature open captioning for patrons who are deaf or hard of hearing and audio descriptions for patrons who are blind or visually impaired. Tickets are half price for patrons using these special services on this date. Please call all Box Office Manager Zach Weidner at 610-282-3654, ext. 2 for more information.
There is a talk back with the director and cast after the performance Nov. 24
“Miracle on 34th Street,” 8 p.m. Wednesday to Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 24 and Dec. 4-8, Main Stage, Labuda Center for the Performing Arts, 2755 Station Ave.,
Center Valley, Tickets: $33; $31 for students and seniors, Wednesdays and Thursdays; $34; $32 for students and seniors on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays. 610-282-3192, www.desales.edu/act1.
All-female ‘Waiting for Godot’
Northampton Community College is adding a twist to Samuel Beckett’s classic tragic comedy by presenting it with an all-female cast Nov. 21-25 in the Lab Theatre.
In NCC’s “Waiting for
Godot” women play every part in the 1955 play including the two dilapidated bums waiting for the titular character to explain their insignificance, or put an end to it.
Staged in the round in the Lab Theatre with general admission seating, Chris Egging, adjunct theatre faculty member, directs.
The cast includes Sarah Thatcher as Estragon and Torez Mosley as Vladimir, who fill their days as painlessly as they can as they wait for Godot.
They are resourceful (not without quarrel) and depend on each other, as children often do.
Daniya Beard plays Pozzo, who comes by leading Lucky (Ciara Purcell,) a weakling slave who does her bidding like a mechanical doll. Later, she returns, blind, and her slave is mute, but the relationship is unchanged. Every day, a child played by Sadie Reese, comes from the unknown Godot, and evasively puts the big arrival off until tomorrow.
Due to mature themes, the production is recommended for middle school students and older.
There is no admission charge for NCC students with a current ID who make a donation of a non-perishable food item to NCC’s H.O.P.E. Food Bank.
“Waiting for Godot,” 7:30 p.m. Nov. 21-21 and 25; 2 p.m. Nov. 24, Norman Roberts Lab Theatre, 3835 Green Pond
Road, Bethlehem. Tickets: $5. Info: 484-484-3412, ncctix.org.
Festival hosts 2 world premieres
Six Muhlenberg College senior directing students will present their work as part of Muhlenberg’s “New Voices | New Visions” Festival — a showcase for directors and playwrights, featuring innovative short plays.
Four plays will be presented together Nov. 20-24, in Muhlenberg’s Studio Theatre including two world premiere plays written by Muhlenberg students Patrick Daly and Caroline
Dunn, as well as short plays by established playwrights Kenneth Lonergan and José Rivera.
The fifth show will be offered in a new late-night slot, and will feature selections from The Neo-Futurists’ avant-garde audience participation show “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind.”
“The festival is an opportunity for our upper-class directors to work in a fully produced environment,” says Charles Richter, the festival’s artistic director. “All directors have a strong sense of concept. They have very specific creative visions for their plays and know how to present them to contemporary audiences.”
Daly’s “Family Values” looks inside a mid-’90s sitcom, where raw emotions fight for attention beneath laugh-track superficiality.
Daly says he initially wrote the play as a passion project to explore the American sitcom. He says he was fascinated to find clips on YouTube of beloved sitcoms like “Friends” or “Full House” but without the laugh track.
Daly says he has enjoyed the process of collaborating with director Nora Germani.
Germani says “Family Values” is the first live theater productions she’s aware of that features a pre-recorded laughtrack. She says she’s looking forward to seeing how it affects the reactions of a live audience.
Lonergan’s “Beauty Runs on Light Feet” offers a compelling snapshot of family life, in which a husband and wife struggle painfully to express what matters most.
“Lonergan is able to capture human complexity in such a compelling way,” says director Jacob Wahba. “He’s a naturalistic writer. I’m drawn to plays that depict realistic behavior.”
Wahba says that Lonergan’s hyper-realistic writing style demands spontaneity from the actors.
Dunn wrote “Holy Sh*t” which pits a single mother against her old nemesis, the nun in charge of her daughter’s school, and asks whatever happened to good old Catholic forgiveness.
“It comes down to a sort of verbal tennis match between the characters,” she says.
Dunn and director Heather Nielsen were brought together by their passion for producing work that highlights the female experience.
“It’s an entirely female-identifying team: the playwright, director and actors,” Nielsen says. “Women’s voices need to be heard more, and I’m excited to be contributing to that.”
“Lessons for an Unaccustomed Bride” follows a naive young bride-to-be as she seeks help from the town witch, who knows more than the girl expected.
Rivera incorporates his experience as a Puerto Rican artist into his work. His plays often emphasize family, sexuality and spirituality.
Director Frederick Marte has been working with the actors to highlight the play’s elements of magical realism. Although the play is written for just two characters, Marte cast an ensemble of actors who help create the play’s spiritual and supernatural world through movement and music.
“The actors embody spirituality in themselves,” Marte says. “I have the ensemble embodying two clashing belief systems.”
Marte says the language within the play itself has a musicality to it. The actors have been working with dialect coach Roger Ainslie to help them with their accents and with the rhythms of the play.
“Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind,” by the NeoFuturists, a Chicago-based experimental theater group, will be presented as a separate “After Hours” event, an avantgarde theatrical performance, in which the action on stage is determined by the luck of the draw.
Audience members select short plays at random, to be performed from a repertoire of 30 possibilities. The plays range from existential slapstick to soul-baring monologue.
“It’s an hour-long theatrical marathon,” says co-director Ben Goldberg. “We’re going to see how many of them we can get through. Each night the order of performance will depend on what the audience picks.”
The directors say the show is sort of like alien sketch comedy — sometimes funny, more thought-provoking than you expect, sometimes hitting close to home.
“New Voices | New Visions” 8 p.m. Nov. 20-22, 2 aand 8 p.m. Nov. 23 and 2 p.m. Nov. 24; Tickets: $15, $8 students.
“New Visions After Hours” 11 p.m. Nov. 20-23, 5 and 8 p.m. Nov. 24. Tickets: $5. Studio Theatre in Trexler Pavilion for Theatre & Dance, Muhlenberg College, 2400 W.Chew St., Allentown. Info: 484-664-3333, muhlenberg.edu/theatre.