Dessert in Other Cities

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Bruce Miller

After learning we’d barraged the world with emails promoting next spring’s production of Other Dessert Cities, a sweet play if ever there was one, I decided to compile a list of townships that might fit the misspelled bill.  Other Desert Cities may be the correctly notated name of Jon Robin Baitz’s wonderful family drama that we’ll be producing a year from now, but anyone’s list of Other Dessert Cities would surely include:

Cheesequake, New Jersey
Chocolate Bayou, Texas
Pie Town, New Mexico
Sugar City, Idaho
Cookietown, OK
Ding Dong, Texas

and on a healthier note
Fruitland, California
Fruitland, Georgia
Honeydew, California
Orange, California
Strawberry, California
Strawberry, Arkansas
Orangeville, Vermont
Grape Corner, Nevada
Peach Bottom, Pennsylvania
Peachbottom, Virginia
Cherry Hill, New Jersey

and being somewhat less literal,
Lick Fork here in VA and in NY

North Carolina has Shoofly (the first half of Shoofly Pie)
Tennessee has Finger (the second half of Ladyfinger)
Massachusetts has Boston (a third of Boston Cream Pie)
Mississippi has Chunky (a fourth of Chunky Monkey Ice Cream)
Pennsylvania and Virginia have Moon (half of Moon Pie)
West Virginia has Crum (almost half of Crumb Cake)
Maine, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, South Dakota and Virginia all have Bath (half of Bath Buns)

and

all you have to do is release an “au” to arrive at E Claire, Wisconsin.

Now if that doesn’t make you hungry for Other Desert Cities, what will?

Posted in Artistic Director, Signature Season 2013 - 2014 | 1 Comment

To Life!

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Bruce Miller

In Spanish, you shout “Salud!”, in Polish “Na zdrowie!”, in Hungarian “Egészségedre!”– all rousing toasts meaning, roughly, “Here’s to your health!”  The Chinese, I’m told, prefer the more direct “Gan bei!” (meaning “Dry the cup!”); in like manner the plainspoken Inuits raise a glass and holler “Imeqatigiitta!” (meaning “Let us drink together!”).  Thirsty Georgians toast to victory–”Gaumardshos!”  But elsewhere in the world, the most common toast is simply “To life!”

Brazilians shout “Viva!”, Serbs wish each other “Ziveli!”, and Irishmen who relish their gift of gab proclaim in Gaelic “Fad saol agat, gob fliuch, agus bás in Eirinn!” (translated “Long life to you, a wet mouth and death in Ireland!”). 

It is this toast that Tevye shares with Lazar Wolf as he agrees to the match with his daughter Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof.  “Here’s to our prosperity,” he says, “our good health and happiness.  And most important, to life!”

It is this toast I offer in announcing Virginia Repertory Theatre’s 2013-14 Season — a celebration of life in all its joy, fullness and complexity.  We are very excited, and I hope you’ll join us for each production. 

The five shows in our 2013/14 Signature Season will be performed in our historic November Theatre.  We will open in September with the American classic, To Kill a Mockingbird, directed by Rusty Wilson and starring Adrian Rieder.  For the holidays, we shift from Harper Lee’s 1930s Alabama to Tsarist Russia in 1905, as brought to life in the stories of Sholem Aleichem and adapted into the triumphant Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof, directed for us by Richard Parison.

In February, I will direct a 350th Anniversary production of Tartuffe, Molière’s highly entertaining masterpiece that was censored by King Louis XIV after its 1664 premiere, probably on orders from the archbishop of Paris.  Ryan Bechard will play the title role, a decidedly unholy man who feigns pastoral piety for financial gain.  Chase Kniffen will direct our spring production of Jon Robin Baitz brilliant new family drama, Other Desert Cities, shortlisted for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize. The Signature Season will end with Chase’s staging of the soul-stirring, hand-clapping rouser, The Color Purple. 

The four shows in our 2013/14 Barksdale Season at Hanover Tavern are pure entertainment.  Scott Wichmann will open the season portraying the legendary comedian George Burns in the hilarious, heartwarming bio-play, Say Goodnight Gracie.  Our World Premiere musical, A Lug Nuts Christmas, will fill the Tavern with the classic sounds of 60s doo wop in December.  Then just try not to laugh yourself senseless as we revive the Off Broadway musical comedy smash, Olympus on My Mind in the winter and spring of 2014.  Finally, in the summer, we’ll debut the World Premiere of Bo Wilson’s heartfelt and hilarious The Charitable Sisterhood of the Second Trinity Victory Church.

The three shows in our 2013/14 Theatre Gym Season are all inspiring, contemporary and bold, in keeping with the mission of Cadence Theatre, producer of the Theatre Gym Season in partnership with Virginia Rep.  First up is Good People by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Lindsay-Abaire, directed by Anna Johnson, artistic director of Cadence.  Clybourne Park, by Bruce Norris, will mark the return of director Keri Wormald to our intimate Theatre Gym, after her hugely successful production of August: Osage County.  Detroit, by Lisa D’Amour, premiered at Chicago’s acclaimed Steppenwolf Theatre in 2010 and will finish up the Theatre Gym season in the spring of ’14.  Detroit was shortlisted for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize, which was won by Clybourne Park.

For children and their families, we proudly present our Children’s Theatre of Virginia season at Willow Lawn.  The first show, in October, should not be missed by anyone of any age who cares about theatre.

Internationally acclaimed puppet master Joseph Cashore has been designing and performing his remarkable marionettes for over 30 years.  One of the world’s foremost puppeteers, he has been recognized by the Henson Foundation and is a recipient of the UNIMA Citation of Excellence–the highest honor a US puppeteer can receive.  In 2010 he was featured on the cover in the Spring/Summer issue of Puppetry International.  In October he will bring his amazing work to our intimate Willow Lawn facilities, in two different productions, one for children and one for adults.  Please view his work at http://cashoremarionettes.com/promos.php, and be enthralled.

Three more shows in our five-show family season are ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas (book, music and lyrics by yours truly), Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad (book and lyrics by Douglas Jones, music by Ron Barnett), and Go, Dog. Go! (adapted from the book by P. D. Eastman by Allison Gregory and Steven Dietz).  Dietz was the playwright of last season’s Becky’s New Car at Hanover Tavern.

One of the most blockbusting titles on any of our seasons is the regional premiere of Shrek the Musical which we expect to ignite the box office phone lines next spring.  This fantastical Broadway tuner is a hip, hilarious adaptation of the film, with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire, who is also the playwright of Good People which we will be producing in our Theatre Gym.

When Tevye sings “To Life!” in Fiddler, he adds, “Life has a way of confusing us, blessing and bruising us.”  If you add “amusing us” to the mix, I think you have an apt descriptor for our 2013/14 season.  Filled with vitality, diversity and discovery, the season is a celebration of the good reasons we all have for loving the theatre. 

So, To Life!  I hope you’ll join us by subscribing soon.

Season Announcement from our eNewsletter

Posted in Adrian Rieder, Artistic Director, Barksdale Season at Hanover Tavern 2013 - 2014, Cadence Theatre Company, Cast, Chase Kniffen, Children's Theatre of Virginia 2013 - 2014, Directors, Scott Wichmann, Seasons, Show Director, Signature Season 2013 - 2014, Theatre Gym Season 2013 - 2014 | Comments Off

“In movement there is life; in change there is power.”

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Bruce Miller

The words in the title of this blog post emerged from my fortune cookie last week, literally, and they felt empowering.  As we prepare to launch year two of Virginia Repertory Theatre and celebrate the 60th Anniversary of Barksdale Theatre, everything seems to be about movement and life and change, and the vitality of it all, like the artistic impulse itself, feels like power.

I was leading a tour Wednesday morning of our historic Virginia Rep Center, which includes not only the oldest major theatre in the Commonwealth (the November, built in 1911) but also Richmond’s first cinema (next door to the November, originally known as the Little Theatre, built in 1912).

The 20 to 30 good people taking the tour, all of whom were my age, were students in Ed Slipek’s VCU continuing education class focusing on Richmond’s several wonderful theatres–and by “theatres” I mean buildings and companies.

The students asked great questions.  Two of my favorites were: “How do you select the plays that will appear on your seasons and who’s involved in that process?” and “Describe the tensions inherent when one chooses to engage in both art and commerce.”

The answers to these two questions, of course, are joined at the hip.

An artistic director’s major work as an artist is curatorial.  It’s my job to select the plays to be produced and the leading artists who will bring these plays to life.  I don’t do this alone, but I am the “buck stops here” guy.

My secondary job is that of “producer.”  In partnership with Phil Whiteway and our Board of Directors, I work to ensure that enough money comes in the door through ticket sales and sponsorships to attract the high caliber of professional theatre artists with whom we are privileged to work.  Again in partnership, I make deals with these artists to encourage them to work for compensation we can afford to pay.

Once in a while I have the opportunity to direct and once in a while I’m a playwright.  But those artistic endeavors are icing on the cake.

My success or failure is based on picking the perfect mix of comedies, dramas and musicals that will:

  • celebrate and illuminate the art form;
  • provide a balanced and fulfilling diet for our artists and audiences;
  • honor the classics and embrace the new, providing equal doses of comfort and challenge; and
  • sell enough tickets and encourage enough in sponsorship to cover the costs of artist and staff salaries, mortgage and utility payments, educational programs, sets and costumes and lights and sound, royalties, marketing, and all other operations.

Early next week on this blog I will be announcing our 2013-14 Seasons, and I couldn’t be more excited by what’s in store.  In the days that follow, I’ll be writing about each play individually, and explaining how each title rose to the top during our play selection process.

On Tuesday, June 11, the subject of our free monthly Coffee & Conversations event will be Choosing the Season: How We Pick the Plays We Produce.  Doors and the coffee bar will open at 9 a.m., and the one-hour program will begin at 9:30.  All Coffee & Conversations events are held in our “living room” at Willow Lawn.  We’d love to have you join us—no reservations required.

Until then, stay tuned for next week’s season announcement.  There’s some powerful work in store!

Posted in Artistic Director, Barksdale Season at Hanover Tavern 2013 - 2014, Children's Theatre of Virginia 2013 - 2014, Seasons, Signature Season 2013 - 2014, Virginia Repertory Theatre | 1 Comment

In Memoriam: Burt Edwards

Posted on March 7, 2013 by Bruce Miller

Burt EdwardsBurt Edwards, longtime Barksdale actor and stalwart friend, died on February 25 at his home in New York City.  He was 85 years young.  To say that Burt was a “Barksdale favorite” would be a colossal understatement.  He was a cornerstone.  In the middle years of a national career that included Broadway, Off Broadway, television and film, Burt spent just over two decades (1958 – 1979) spending his daytimes at a desk at Triple A and, in the evenings, lighting up stages all over Richmond—especially Hanover Tavern.

Technically, Burt was not a “founder” of Barksdale, but he was “part of the nuclear circle,” as Ales Rowe stated so well in the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  Barksdale Theatre was founded by Tom Carlin, Stu Falconer, Pete and Perky Kilgore, Muriel McAuley and Pat Sharp in 1953.  Helen Jervey and Miriam Simmons became irreplaceable regulars in ’54; Nancy Masters, later to be Nancy Kilgore, showed up in ’56 and never left.  Marjorie Arenstein and Bernard Schutte joined the troupe in 1957.

Burt Edwards arrived at Hanover Tavern in 1958, the game-changing year when Barksdale co-founders Tom Carlin and Stu Falconer split off to start their own theatre, the Renaissance, located in Bon Air at the intersection of Buford Road and Midlothian Turnpike.  A third Barksdale co-founder, Pat Sharp, also left at the end of that same year to get married.

Two other “cornerstones” arrived with Burt in 1958—Jay Lundy and Lalla Rolfe.  Considering Burt, Jay and Lalla, Muriel McAuley wrote: “Though never ‘residents,’ they’ve contributed as much to Barksdale as anyone.”  Those of us who’ve been here for a while … when we think of Barksdale, we can’t help but think of Burt.

Burt’s Hanover Tavern credits included upwards of 25 shows.  Among the highlights were O Mistress Mine (1958, revived in ’59), Rev. Hale in The Crucible (1959, revived in ’60), Jack in Where’s Charley? (1959), Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1961), Prince Dauntless in Once Upon a Mattress (1962), Littlechap in Stop the World … (1966, later transferred to Barter Theatre), Rev. Shannon in The Night of the Iguana (1967), Felix Unger in The Odd Couple (1973), and the World Premiere of Red Hot and Cole (1977, later transferred to Los Angeles).

After moving to L. A. with Red Hot and Cole, Burt stayed there for a few years to try his hand in television and film, landing small roles in Belle Starr (1980), Trapper John M.D. (1982), Cagney & Lacey (1982), Dynasty (1982), and Tales of the Gold Monkey (1983).  Burt moved to New York in ‘83, but continued landing TV work in Ironclads (1991), Law & Order (1993 – 1995), In the Blink of an Eye (1996), and Father Gaudio’s Confession (2000).  He also immediately was cast on Broadway in a supporting role in The King and I.

His big NYC break came in 1988 when he was cast as the first replacement for the patriarchal lead in the Off Broadway hit, The Cocktail Hour.  He starred opposite Nancy Marchand, and later reprised his role at the prestigious Paper Mill Playhouse, Cleveland Play House (opposite Tammy Grimes), and the Pittsburgh Public Theatre (opposite Kim Hunter).  He also honored us by performing the role at Barksdale (Willow Lawn) in the early 2000s.

Burt Edwards is further proof that Richmond’s finest actors can (and do) make it anywhere.  We will forever miss is talent, charm and flair, and loyalty to Richmond (and Barksdale) as his theatrical home.  Every year when we visit New York, we visit Burt to hear his latest stories of life in the Big Apple.  We were set to visit him last week when we led our annual Covington Travel group to New York, but instead we received the sad news of Burt’s passing the day before we left town.

In honor of Burt and our singular 50-year friendship, we will be dedicating our summer Hanover Tavern production of Steel Magnolias to his memory.

Posted in Artistic Director, Barksdale Theatre, Barksdale's History, In Memoriam, Steel Magnolias, Virginia Rep's Barksdale Season at Hanover Tavern 2012-2013 | 1 Comment