Salem Theatre Company blog

With Strong Performances, The Real Thing Debates Love and Infidelity

salemtheatre — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 12:53:57 +0000

Tom Stoppard’s “The Real Thing,” now playing at The Salem Theatre Company, is a challenging play. It’s a complicated riff on infidelity and its consequences, and it ends with a difficult question: Can you still be committed to a mate who feels no guilt at betraying earlier marriage vows?
The play begins onstage, at the end of a play within the play. Our main character has discovered his wife is cheating on him, and responds with an ironic detachment to hide his pain. In the next scene we discover that this character, Max, is married to another woman, an actress, and that Charlotte, the woman who played his wife, is married to the playwright.
All four of them, at breakfast following the performance, debate the honesty of Max’s response onstage. Where was his outrage, his authentic feelings? And where do we, the audience stand? How would we react if our partner returned from a trip abroad, having taken her diaphragm with her and left her passport behind? And how would we feel, if in return, we were charged with an invasion of privacy for having checked on the objects’ whereabouts?
Stoppard’s play offers the audience various permutations of love and lust, guilt and innocence, commitment and self-indulgence, until, midway through the second act, you become suddenly aware that our playwright, Henry, is truly suffering. Beset by a storm of conflicting emotions, he struggles to discover whether his commitment to his wife depends upon her behavior or operates independently. If his love is actually “the real thing,” what does it demand of him? And is her love, as she so deftly defines it, “real” or not? The audience itself is left to debate these questions on the way home.
Mark O’Donald becomes Max with ease, embodying one of those loving, but dull husbands whose devotion becomes boring after a while. Joseph O’Meara, as Henry, is just right as a snobbish intellectual cut off from his real feelings, until he morphs, heart-breakingly, into someone who isn’t. Cbarlotte, played by Jenn Parkos, is reassuringly shallow, preferring a wide variety of sexual encounters to all this romantic trash, and Max’s wife Annie, played by Sarah Carlin, is fully believable as a seductress, despite her wholesome first impression. Her dazzling smile and physical grace go a long way toward explaining why men find her attractive. Will Neely has the requisite good looks and confidence to play Billy, the young actor who woos Annie, and Sebastian Konarski is perfect as the oafish Scot and clueless political activist whose script about his crime and imprisonment becomes background for much of the action. Henry and Charlotte’s world-weary, rebellious daughter Debbie, played by Audrey Claire Johnson, gives us the newest generation’s take on love.
Ruth Neeman’s set is marvelously flexible. One loveseat, variously covered, and three background panels, shifted and turned, become a series of places – from a theater stage to three different apartments, while three theater seats become the interior of a train. The intimacy of the tiny space the Salem Theatre Company occupies on Lafayette Street brings you almost close enough to touch the actors, creating a shared emotional space that works well for this play.
Tom Stoppard’s play is, despite its various awards and prizes, very wordy, and the sheer volume of words in Henry’s various rants are difficult to fully understand; the speed at which much of the dialogue is delivered does not make comprehension any easier. Still, the arc of the story line is easy to follow, and the questions the play raises are questions you will be pondering long after you leave the theater.
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Linda Weltner’s weekly column, “Ever So Humble,” appeared in the At Home section of the Boston Globe for 19 years. She is presently host of the cable show, “Changing Our World,” on MHTV in Marblehead.

Happy New Year from STC! Revisit your favorite moments – or find out what you missed in 2011!

salemtheatre — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 12:34:34 +0000

STC PRESENTS A BENEFIT CABARET TO TOP OFF THE SEASON

salemtheatre — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:37:10 +0000

Molly Gachignard heads up eight talented singers for STC year-end Benefit Cabaret - WICKED VOCAL.

Salem Theatre Company tops off the holiday season with a very special cabaret performance entitled WICKED VOCAL which features local and national talent on Thursday & Friday, December 29 & 30 at 7:30 p.m. in the intimate STC Theater. Molly Gachignard, currently serving as assistant conductor for the national touring company of the Broadway Musical Wicked, will sit at the piano and accompany eight local vocal talents including Peter Adams, Amanda Arruda, Donny Codden, Alex Grover, Bobby Kerrigan and Alex Newell, who recently was a finalist in the reality TV show, The Glee Project, winning a role in two episodes of the popular FOX series. In addition,SalemHigh School students Joe Forristall and Meryl Schultz will join Molly on stage. Both are members of the SHS A Cappella Group, WitchPitch?.

“Salem Theatre Company has done so much to enrich the culture of its community and I wanted to contribute to that cause, “said Molly Gachignard, on break from the current tour of Wicked. “It was really important to me to showcase the outstanding talent we have right here on the North Shore. I feel fortunate that I’m able to combine the work that I do on the road with the wonderful people I grew up with, all in order to support an organization I really believe in.”

The evening will consist of mash-ups of popular show songs. Girls may sing songs usually performed by males and vise versa, typically slow tempo songs may get some caffeine. STC promises a fun evening which will be a fitting end to the season. Ticket price includes a post-show reception where members of the audience can meet and talk with the artists.

Tickets are $50 and available now online at www.salemtheatre.com or can be reserved for pick up at the box office before the performance by calling 978-790-8546 or emailinginfo@salemtheatre.com. Online ticketing ends 24 hours in advance of each performance.

STC OFFERS TWO CLASSES WITH SCOTT FORTIER TO BEGIN LATE JANUARY

salemtheatre — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 00:26:38 +0000

Scott Fortier was the Artistic Director of Catalyst Theatre in Washington, DC.

The Salem Theatre Company will offer two theatre classes taught byScott Fortierbeginning late January. All classes will be held at the STC Theater,90 Lafayette Streetin downtownSalem.

Theatre for Kids (6 to 8 years of age) will be offered on Saturday from 11 a.m. to noon beginning on January 21. Students will use their bodies, voices, minds and imaginations to explore stories and scenarios. Classes encourage creative expression and promote confidence and self-esteem while working on skills such as active listening and sharing. Connections to stories are made through dramatic play, music, and movement. Cost of the 8 week course is $150.

Beginning Acting for Adults will be offered on Monday evenings from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. starting on January 30th and focus on the development of each student’s unique imagination, using improvisation as a tool for actors to explore their creativity, rather than as a performance end in itself. A great class for actors, and others, who want to develop their full power of creative self-expression on stage or in real life. Cost of the 8 week course is $175.

Scott Fortier is the founding Artistic Director of Catalyst Theater Company in Washington, DC and was trained by William Graham, Jim Petosa, and Halo Wines. Scott founded Catalyst in 2001 and shortly into the Company’s first season, the Washington Post dubbed Catalyst “a troupe to watch,” and the following year the Washingtonian Magazine described Catalyst as “one of the hottest upcoming theaters in town.” Scott’s individual achievement at Catalyst was also quick to obtain critical recognition. Scott was featured as a “person to watch” in the December 2004 issue of the Washingtonian Magazine. As an actor, he received two Helen Hayes Award nominations for his as John Merrick in Bernard Pomerance’s The Elephant Man and as Gregor Samsa in Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis. He received the Canadian-Washington Partnership Award for Artistic Directors in 2005. Scott and his family moved to Salem in 2010.

For more information, or to register for the classes, visit www.salemtheatre.com and follow the “Classes” link, or e-mailinfo@salemtheatre.comor call 978-790-8546.

Hollinger’s AN EMPTY PLATE IN THE CAFE DU GRAND BOEUF at STC is a Feast!

salemtheatre — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 19:14:31 +0000

: Sebastion Konarski, Andrew Winson and Dann Maurno in Michael Hollinger’s An Empty Plate in the Cafe du Grand Boeuf at Salem Theatre Company.

By Linda Weltner

You’ll find a delicious holiday feast at Salem Theatre Company’s latest production, Michael Hollinger’s “An Empty Plate in the Café du Grand Boeuf.” Don’t let the fancy title fool you. This is comedy of the rib-tickling, laugh-out-loud kind, even if it takes place in the best restaurant inParis.

Here is the plot. Victor, a tall, handsome American millionaire played byAndrew Winson, has set up a restaurant that caters entirely to his taste buds. An incomparable chef, a subservient waiter, a comely waitress, and the newly hired busboy have but one purpose – to meet his gastronomic needs – but horrors! Monsieur has arrived with tie askew, his shirt unfurled, his face a mask of despair. And without the love of his life on his arm.

Worst of all, although he’s willing to sit, he refuses to eat. He plans to starve himself to death in the company of his staff, the only friends and family he has left.

Why has Victor lost his will to live, or more precisely, his will to eat? What are his “friends,” whose very lives depend on Victor’s appetite, willing to do to get food down his gullet? The answer is as spicy as wild game consommé, as whimsical as leg of pheasant, as lunatic as vodka tomato sorbet, as delectable as chateaubriand, and as tempting as, what proves to be, an irresistible crème brûlée. That food, described in loving detail, is designed to prompt a little hunger for life, but instead prompts petit confessions from the staff, giving each of the characters a touching human dimension in the midst of the general hilarity.

Claude, the waiter played by Dann Anthony Maurno, presides with perfect obsequiousness over the proceedings. Brian Casey as Gaston, the clueless chef, lends a heart-warming Three Stooges touch as he maniacally tries to play God. Sebastian Konarski as Antoine, the new kid on the block, does his musical best to fill in for Pierre, a beloved former employee, now deceased. As Mimi, the waitress with a heart full of longing, Emma Cavaliere displays the requisite empathy as Claude’s long-suffering wife, and the sudden appearance of Sara Maurno, the mystery woman who holds the key to Victor’s happiness, adds the appropriate touch of sophisticated glamour to the topsy-turvy ending.

All doesn’t end well for the cast, but for the audience, it’s a different story.

Director Gary LaParl has the timing down pat, as do the actors whose faces telegraph their conflicting emotions without words. The set, designed by Nathan Bertone, (amazingly, a senior at Salem High School), is as inviting as any 5-star restaurant in the Michelin Guide, and the tiny space that is the Salem theater creates an intimacy befitting diners at the next table at the Café du Grand Boeuf itself.

In this rushed and harried season, this is a night out you deserve to give yourself, an evening of laughter that will fill you up with enough holiday cheer to get you through to New Year’s Eve. Don’t miss it.

The production runs December 1-17, Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and Sundays at 3:00 p.m. at the Salem Theatre Company at 90 Lafayette Street, Salem. Tickets are available online at www.salemtheatre.com or can be reserved for pick up at the box office by calling 978-790-8546 or emailing info@salemtheatre.com. Online ticketing ends 24 hours in advance of each performance. Regular ticket prices are $22 for adults, $18 for seniors, and $12 for students.

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Linda Weltner’s weekly column, “Ever So Humble,” appeared in the At Home section of the Boston Globe for 19 years. She is presently host of the cable show, “Changing Our World,” on MHTV in Marblehead.

Eerie “Woman” features strong performances

salemtheatre — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 12:56:44 +0000

David Allen George and Allen Vietzke perform THE WOMAN IN BLACK through October 15 at STC

By Linda Weltner

The Salem Theater Company kicks off Salem’s Halloween season with an eerie production of “Woman in Black,” a classic Victorian ghost story. An elderly solicitor and gentleman, Mr. Kipps, has a story to tell about an event in his past that has blighted his life. He hires a young actor to help him reveal this life-altering incident to family and friends, and eventually his inarticulate presentation becomes a reenactment that may have terrifying consequences for both actor and audience.

Stephen Mallatratt’s adaptation of Susan Hill’s novel starts slowly, but gains power due to an extraordinary performance by Salem State professor of Theatre Arts David Allen George. Embodying in turn a tormented man, a slobbering clerk, an aristocratic lawyer, a mute pony cart driver, a local landowner, a fearful agent, and a waiter, George’s transformations are flawless. What might have been confusing about a series of swift on-stage changes, becomes absolutely clear as George slips into character with a new hat, a new posture, a new accent, a new personality. As narrator, he also acts as a mirror to Allen Vietzke, a teacher of performance art at Emerson College, as this talented actor takes on Kipp’s personality and endures a similar fate onstage. Watching Vietzke, who allows his initial stance as critic to vanish as he becomes drawn deeper and deeper into the tale, is an increasingly scary experience, which leads the audience to an unexpected and disarming finish.

By the way, according to the program, there is no Lady in Black. Or is there?

The set, designed by Bruce Greenwald, is stark in the extreme. On the darkened stage sit two chairs and two trunks, which are artfully transformed from their mundane reality into desks, pony traps, and seats on a train. Director Catherine M. Bertrand has skillfully used sound (designed by John Fogle) as an additional character, allowing the pounding of horse’s hoofs, the chatter of a London crowd, and the rhythmic thumping of a rocking chair to add to the eerie atmosphere. Doors that are not there close with a thud; marsh gasses appear as a cloud of dry ice seeps in from a crack in the stage. After you root for Kipps, struggling to save a little dog being devoured by quicksand, it is not difficult to imagine yourself trapped by the tide on the wrong side of Nine Lives Causeway as the solid black scrim behind stage is illuminated to reveal . . . Ah, that you will have to see for yourself.

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The Woman in Black is the second longest running play in the history of Britain’s West End, and transfers beautifully to Salem as a beginning to this haunting season. It will be playing in the small intimate theater at 90 Lafayette Street, Salem, Wednesday through Saturday, until October 15. Performances are Wednesday through Saturday at 7:30 pm and Sundays at 3 pm. Tickets are available by calling 978-790-8546, going online at www.salemtheatre.com , or by e-mailing info@salemtheatre.com.

STC Raffle will send lucky winner and guest on a $5,000 London Theater Trip!

salemtheatre — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:10:44 +0000

The Salem Theatre Company has kicked off a $5,000 Gala London Theater Trip contest, a fund raising raffle that offers the winner a trip to London for two, including roundtrip airfare, 3 nights accommodations, two theatre tickets to two different performances of the winner’s choosing, and $500 to cover meals and other expenses.

Only 250 tickets will be sold at $100 each, and the drawing will take place at the Salem Theatre Company, 90 Lafayette Street, Salem, MA on Saturday, May 28, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. The winner does not need to be present to win.

“This is a very exciting way for people to support local, live theatre and help the Salem Theatre Company set up a financially secure and exciting Season Nine,” explained Executive Director Gary LaParl. “And limiting the number of tickets to be sold gives every ticket holder a great chance at winning, and in taking a once-in-a-lifetime trip into the heart of one of the world’s foremost theatre venues.”

The winner will have up to 1 year to redeem the prize. The value of this prize may vary slightly due to seasonal airfares and hotel rates; however the maximum value is capped at $5,000.00.

Raffle tickets will be for sale at The Art Corner, 264 Washington Street in Salem (Phone 978-745-9524), from Board and Staff of the theater, the STC Theater Box Office (90 Lafayette Street) one hour before show times on all show dates for Painting Churches (May 12 through June 4) and online now at www.salemtheatre.com.

For complete raffle rules and more information, visit

SALEM THEATRE COMPANY PRESENTS “TRIPPING LILY” ACOUSTIC FOLK

salemtheatre — Sun, 27 Mar 2011 19:56:01 +0000

Folk Pop Quartet next up in the STC Music & More Series April 9

Salem Theatre Company’s acclaimed “Music & More” series continues with the foot-tapping stylings of the acoustic folk pop quartet Tripping Lily.

Called “a genre unto itself” by the Boston Globe, the group takes the stage for one night only at Salem Theatre Company’s STC Theater, 90 Lafayette Street on Saturday, April 9, at 7:30PM. Tickets are just $15 and are available now at www.salemtheatre.com/tickets, or you may reserve tickets for pick-up at the door by calling 978-790-8546 or e-mailing info@salemtheatre.com. Only cash and checks are accepted at the box office.

Tripping Lily’s music has been featured on Showtime’s “The Big C” and went to #1 on WUMB in Boston. The quartet also appeared at Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in 2010.

Described as a string band with pop music sensibilities, or perhaps a cutting edge vocal quartet with acoustic instruments, the group features Demetrius Becrelis (guitar/vocals/ukulele), Alex Becrelis (mandolin/vocals), Monica Rizzio (fiddle/vocals/ukulele), and Laird Boles (stringed bass).

Touted as fresh, energetic, and alive, Tripping Lily’s pop-rock groundwork is cross-fertilized with folk music and cutting edge vocal harmonies. The band’s unique ability to absorb traditional music while speaking to the here and now is proof of their versatility as contemporary musicians.

STC Main Stage now available for Schools/Organizations

salemtheatre — Sat, 26 Feb 2011 12:38:34 +0000

Judith Black in Bittersweet Midnight

Judith Black’s Bittersweet Midnight, STC’s Season Eight Main Stage opener directed by Artistic Director John Fogle, is now available for private performances.

A nationally acclaimed storyteller living in Marblehead, MA, Black explores local history and hysteria with walks alongside accused witch Mammy Redd on Marblehead’s Old Burial Hill. Bittersweet Midnight transports audiences to a time when the Calvinists caused havoc on the land. Black is not only a stellar storyteller, but a clever chameleon as she introduces you to and tells this tale of adventure, love, loss and hysteria.

Judith Black, winner of storytelling’s most prestigious award, The Oracle Circle of Excellence, has been featured seven times at the National Storytelling Festival and performed her original stories on NPR, at the Smithsonian Institute, The Montreal Comedy Festival, and at theaters and festivals throughout the nation for 30 years. Commissioned to create original stories for the US Department of the Interior, The Mass Foundation for the Humanities, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts and many others her stories have brought audiences around the world to standing ovations.

View the Trailer for Bittersweet Midnight at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8lN06t4Vdg.

For more information about Ms. Black’s work and classes, visit www.storiesalive.com.

STC MUSIC & MORE SERIES IN FEBRUARY – Humor and Jazz

salemtheatre — Mon, 24 Jan 2011 13:24:47 +0000

The Salem Theatre Company’s popular and budget-friendly “Music & More Series” continues with two exciting musical offerings for February. All performances are the STC at 90 Lafayette Street in Salem; tickets are $15 and are available at www.salemtheatre.com or at the box office prior to the performance.

Don White comes to STC on February 18

On Friday, February 18 at 7:30pm singer/songwriter Don White returns to the STC stage, with opening act Jeff Savlon. White has emerged as a leading musical and comic talent, who can take audiences from laughter with “I’m From Lynn, What Can I Say?” to tears with “I Know What Love Is” within minutes. The Boston Herald writes, “…there is an honesty and self-deprecating wit in his material that is an immediate tonic.” Says the Boston Globe, “No artist on the coffeehouse circuit today is better than Don White at combining the heartfelt aesthetics of the singer-songwriter with side-splitting laughs…Even his silliest jokes shimmered with emotional truth.”

The next day, Saturday, February 19 at 7:30pm the critically-acclaimed Laszlo Gardony Trio offers their soulful and elegant jazz stylings. Gardony, who has won the Great American Jazz Piano Competition, has been praised as “a great pianist” by Dave Brubeck and called “one of contemporary music’s truly original voices” by Jazz Times. Gardony, now a Professor of Piano at Berklee College of Music in Boston, is joined by bassist John Lockwood and drummer Yoron Israel.