Friday, December 31, 2010

standing o for best of theater

standing o for best of theater


ANNUAL 'MAC' AWARDS HONOR COURAGE, INTENT, EXCELLENCE

standing o for best of theater

Kathleen Allen Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Friday, December 31, 2010

Award: Best Actress, Drama
Elizabeth Leadon-Sonnenfelt nailed the difficult, complex character in Beowulf's "Blackbird." She was riveting, and she takes the Mac.

Award: Best Director, Drama

David Harrower's "Blackbird" needs a director with a sensitive touch and a keen intelligence to make the provocative piece palpable and moving. Laura Lippman did just that.
For her work and her courage on this difficult piece, she snags the Mac.

Award: Best Drama

Beowulf's thoughtful production of Harrower's "Blackbird" was a powerful, provocative piece of theater. It was proof that stellar theater doesn't necessarily need big bucks to make a big impact. It takes the Mac for Best Drama.


Nomination: Best Actor, Drama

Art Almquist gave you the creeps and broke your heart in the disturbing "Blackbird," staged by Beowulf Alley Theatre.

Nomination: Best Actor, Drama
In another Beowulf production, "Shining City," David Greenwood had a mammoth job as John, a nonstop talker with a lot of problems. He handled it with grace and a flawless Irish brogue.
------------------------------

Read the entire AZ Daily Star article here: standing o for best of theater

Wednesday, December 29, 2010

BEOWULF ALLEY HAS MORE IN STORE

BEOWULF ALLEY HAS MORE IN STORE

By Chuck Graham
TucsonStage.com

If you thought "Blackbird" was good, playwright Sarah Ruhl is up next with her surreal adaptation for the stage of "Eurydice!"

The Beowulf Alley production is directed by Lydia Borowicz.

This surreal modernization for the stage brings the Orpheus myth of his descent into Hades straight into the New York subway system, an apt metaphor if there ever was one.

Ruhl first captured our attention with "The Clean House" in 2004, then landed on Broadway with honors in 2009 with "In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)." In the middle was "Eurydice," in which she complicates the mythology of gender by introducing her father. We remember, Orpheus was about to marry Eurydice when she died.

Screaming his angry frustration with the gods, Orpheus rushed into Hades to snatch back his bride literally from the jaws of death.

Ruhl wonders what might have happened if Eurydice didn't want to go with Orpheus.

Performances are 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, running Jan. 21-Feb. 6 at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave. For details and reservations, (520) 622-4460, or visit www.beowulfalley.org

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Don't Miss MAYOR BOB WALKUP in Old Time Radio Theatre's "A Christmas Carol"

Don’t Miss Beowulf Alley’s Old Time Radio Theatre with
MAYOR BOB WALKUP!

Monday, December 20

Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 South 6th Avenue, (between Broadway and Congress)

Two wonderful holiday stories, The Great Gildersleeve Christmas Show (December 22, 1948) and A Christmas Carol (December 24, 1934),FEATURING MAYOR BOB WALKUP will be presented for a family holiday treat.

 The Great Gildersleeve ran on radio from 1941–1957 and was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton P. Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and MollyThe Great Gildersleeve enjoyed its greatest success in the 1940s. Actor Harold Perry played the character during its transition from the parent show into the spin-off and later in a quartet of feature films released at the height of the show's popularity.

 On Fibber McGee and Molly, Peary's Gildersleeve was a pompous windbag who became a consistent McGee nemesis. "You're a haa-aa-aa-aard man, McGee!" became a Gildersleeve catch phrase. The character was given several conflicting first names on Fibber McGee and Molly, and on one episode his middle name was originally revealed. Gildy admits as much at the end of "Gildersleeve's Diary" on the Fibber McGee and Molly series. In this episode, Gildy invites the Judge to Christmas dinner, and a simple dinner turns into the party of the year.

Tickets are still available online http://www.beowulfalley.org/html/tickets.html#OTRT, or the box office, 520-882-0555.

Admission is $8 cash at the door for adults, $5  for children 6-13 years and children under 6 are free. And something new! Tickets purchased at least one day in  advance online only via PayPal and Google will receive a $1 discount on each adult ticket purchased. The box office phone number is (520) 882-0555.

Directed by Sheldon Metz, the OTRT Ensemble Company includes:  Ryan Amstutz, Jon Benda, Janet Bruce, Butch Bryant,  Gerri Courtney-Austein, Laura Davenport, Samuel De Jesus, Evan Engle, Sydney Flynn, Vince Flynn, Audrey Ann Gambach, Barbara Glover, Bill La Pointe, Elizabeth Leadon, Butch Lynn, Steve McKee, Whitney Morton, Joan O'Dwyer, Shannon Brooke Rzuildo, Mike Saxon, Jeff Scotland, Danielle Shirar, Ina Shivack, Terry Thune, Pat Timm, Jared Stokes, Brian Wees and John Vornholt .

 

Back before television, a holiday season tradition in America was listening to A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens as performed on radio by Lionel Barrymore and narrated by Orson Welles with the Mercury Theatre group. The music was composed and conducted by the legendary Bernard Herrmann. Few actors ever gave more meaning to the character of miserly Ebenezer Scrooge than Lionel Barrymore who first took on the radio role in 1934.

Originally aired live on Christmas Eve, December 24, 1934, this radio broadcast will live in the memories of those that heard it for a lifetime. If you remember listening, and want to recapture those magical days of your childhood Christmas, or have never heard it, but want to experience the magic of live radio theatre and create new memories for you and your family, Beowulf Alley Theatre presents this special holiday treat and allows you and your family to use your imagination in recreating one of classic literature’s most read pieces.  “God bless us, everyone.”

ARRRRGH, THEM BE SANTA'S ELVES AS PIRATES

ARRRRGH, THEM BE SANTA'S ELVES AS PIRATES

By Chuck Graham,
Let the Show Begin
TucsonStage.com

 

Check out the new Active Imagination company's production for children of "Elves Gone Bad," energized by an exceptionally lively cast and a very fine Santa Claus, downtown at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave. It isn't just theater for children we're talking here.

This Christmas, the gift of imagination is definitely on the list.

 

Read Chuck’s entire review here: http://tucsonstage.com/LINKS/Beowulf_Alley_Reviews/ARRRRGH__THEM_BE_SANTA_S_ELVES/arrrrgh__them_be_santa_s_elves.html

 

THE MOST MAGICAL CHRISTMAS STORIES ARE ON THE RADIO

THE MOST MAGICAL CHRISTMAS STORIES ARE ON THE RADIO

By Chuck Graham,
Let the Show Begin
TucsonStage.com

Mayor Bob Walkup will be introduced as a guest artist reading right along with the Old Time Radio Theatre players.

 

Read Chuck’s preview here: http://tucsonstage.com/LINKS/Beowulf_Alley_Reviews/Mayor_Walkup_in_Old_Time_Radio/mayor_walkup_in_old_time_radio.html

 

 

Friday, December 17, 2010

2011 Winter-Spring Live Performances including Music and Theatre

Beowulf Alley’s 2011 Winter-Spring Live Performances including Music and Theatre

 

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents its schedule of programming for the winter and spring through April 2011. Additional programming will be announced as the season progresses.

 

 

  Main Stage

 

Reservations recommended. Plays suitable for 13 years and older.

 

 

Eurydice by Sarah Ruhl, Directed by Lydia Borowicz, (lydia.borowicz@gmail.com, (262) 339-6032) January 21-February 6, 2011

 

Ms. Ruhl re-imagines the classic myth of Orpheus through the eyes of its heroine, with characters you might meet on a NY subway, quirky plot twists, and breathtaking imagery … a magical dip in the flow the unconscious.

 

 

 

The Beauty Queen of Leenane by Martin McDonagh, Directed by Sheldon Metz, (thedrektor@gmail.com, (310) 367-5640) February 25-March 13, 2011

 

“… a proper, perfectly plotted drama…” that looks at the malevolence of people leading hopeless lives, loaded with savage irony, surreal humor and a touch of melodrama. The play is a blend of black comedy, melodrama, horror and bleak tragedy. The story is set in an Irish village, Leenane, Connemara in the early 1990s.

 

 

Ticket Prices:

$23

-

At door/by phone, VISA, MC, Discover, local check, cash

$18

-

Thrifty Thursdays

$15

-

Preview Performance (Night before official opening)

$12

-

Student/Military/Senior 60+ Rush Ticket (cash at-door, ID Proof of Status required, 5 min. before curtain)

 

-

ONLINE ONLY DISCOUNTED SINGLE TICKET FOR EVERYONE at www.beowulfalley.org.

  Use any credit/debit card accepted by PayPal and Google. (not available by phone or at the door)

 

Performance Times and Box Office Information:

7:30 p.m.

-

Thursdays – Saturdays Curtain (no late seating)

2:30 p.m.

-

Sunday Curtain (no late seating)

 

 

Box office volunteers are available by phone Tuesday – Friday, noon to 4 p.m. and in person 45 minutes prior to each performance at the box office when the lobby doors open.

 

 

All tickets are held at will call and not mailed.

 

 

All sales are final.

 

 

  Late Night Theatre, LNT@the Alley

 

No advance reservations, cash at the door, Mature audiences

 

Late Night Theatre at Beowulf Alley presents original, cutting edge theatre for the up-late crowd. Whether new plays or classic literature with a twist, Late Night Theatre at Beowulf Alley challenges, intrigues, charms and shocks. Winter-spring productions currently under consideration. Announcements will be made as rights are secured.

 

INTERROGATING THE NUDE by Doug Wright, directed by Scott O’Brien, Jan. 28, 29, Feb 4, 5, 2011.

A play about Marcel Duchamp and his famous painting "Nude Descending a Staircase" that so shocked and horrified the public at the 1913 Armory Show in New York City. The play stars Duchamp himself and the photographer Man Ray, as Duchamp turns himself in to the police station, confessing that he has murdered Rose Selavy, whom he claims is his sister and who has been having an affair with Man Ray. The play is surreal, fluid, and very visual, with excellent stage directions that allow the reader to see the play clearly in the mind's eye. The playwright has managed to create in a drama what Duchamp created on canvas, a new way of perceiving a well-known subject. INTERROGATING THE NUDE is a lively, funny, and fascinating experimental play that is clear enough to grab any reasonably intelligent audience yet complex enough to intrigue the more demanding viewer.

 

Ticket Prices, Performance Times and Box Office Information:

$8

-

All Tickets – At the door the night of performance

10:30 p.m.

-

Fridays – Saturdays Curtain, Doors open 45 minutes before

 

 

All sales are final.

 

 

Old Time Radio Theatre, directed by Sheldon Metz

 

Family-Friendly, portability allows the troupe to perform in off-site venues, giving us a vehicle for outreach to the community.

 

Presenting an hour of radio classics from the 30's, 40's and early 50's, PLUS a few newly-written "Old Fashioned" radio shows, presented in conjunction with Old Pueblo Playwrights and other local writers. Please check our website, www.beowulfalley.org, for specific performances.

 

Ticket Prices, Performance Times and Box Office Information:

$8

-

Ages 13 and older

$5

-

Ages 6-12 –First two children, other children free

7:00 p.m.

-

Usually the First and Third Tuesdays but check our online calendar at www.beowulfalley.org for more information each time.

Doors open 45 minutes before curtain

 

 

All sales are final.

 

 

Active Imagination Theatre, directed by John Vornholt

 

Family-friendly. Portability allows the troupe to perform in schools, museums, and other off-site venues, giving us a vehicle for outreach to the community.

 

Participatory, improvisational theater for children, ages 4-8. Each play is developed by AIT’s actors. Children in the audience are invited to participate in scenes with only a bag of silly hats and costumes for props, allowing for the most fun, flexibility, and creativity. Portability allows the troupe to perform in schools, museums, and other off-site venues, giving us a vehicle for outreach to the community. A great way to have a birthday party! Please check our website for specific performances.

 

THE DAY SOMETHING HAPPENED IN TUCSON, January 22, 23, 29, 30, February 5 & 6, 2011

 

While playing in the desert, a youngster named Ashley runs across a hideous space monster whose ship has crash-landed.  Snork looks big and ugly, but he's really quite friendly -- and he has come to save Earth  from a really nasty alien who wants to destroy the planet. This evil alien, Bozco, is a shape-shifter who prefers to take the form of a kitty, a pony, a goat, or something equally innocent, so he will be very hard to find.  Can Snork avoid capture by misguided humans long enough to help Ashley find the evil alien and save Earth from destruction?

 

           

Ticket Prices, Performance Times and Box Office Information:

$5

-

Children 4-11 (3 and under free in parent’s lap)

$8

-

Children and Adults 12 years and Older

12:00 noon

-

Saturdays and Sundays, check the website at www.beowulfalley.org.

Doors open 20 minutes before curtain

 

 

All sales are final.

 

Special Event  - Amber Noorgard Concert, http://www.ambernorgaard.com/,

January 30, 2011, 7:30 p.m.

 

One of Tucson’s great musical trailblazers…”  Tucson Lifestyle Magazine

“…the emotions are heartfelt, delivered with a quiet passion and authenticity.” Tucson Weekly 

“Her lyrics don't paint a picture they grab your arm."  The Iowa Entertainer

Ticket Prices, Performance Times and Box Office Information:

$12

-

Advance sale (online at www.beowulfalley.org or by phone at 882-0555)

$15

-

Day of performance, by phone or at door

 

 

All sales are final.

 

 

Fronting the Order by Warren Bodow, directed by Sheldon Metz,

(thedrektor@gmail.com, (310) 367-5640), April 8-23, 2011. (A co-production of Beowulf Alley Theatre and Wellangood Productions)

 

Summer, 1959. The Eisenhower era is drawing to a close while the U.S. feels the sting of space dominance as the Russians launch Sputnik. Americans are determined to take back world leadership. The solution? Education, say many: better schools, bigger libraries, education in the home will ensure that we regain leadership in everything!  So on a rainy August Friday afternoon, a crew of four encyclopedia salesman set about the task to sell knowledge to the families of our future leaders. We witness the humorous and bombastic interplay of the four salesmen, as we feel the underlying tensions festering in late-50s America. We witness how the men represent their wares to their prospects. Even as we laugh, our sense of right and wrong is buffeted as the play forces us to consider whether deception must always be negative, or in the service of a greater good, it is simply a handy tool.

 

 

Events may be subject to change. We will provide press releases or media advisories of activities as the season progresses. Please refer to our website or contact us for confirmation or questions.

Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Pirate Elves! | Review | Tucson Weekly

Pirate Elves! | Review | Tucson Weekly

Pirate Elves!

Beowulf Alley hopes to expose children to theater with their new Active Imagination program

Friday, December 10, 2010

Silence punctuates riveting 'Blackbird' at Beowulf Alley


Kathleen Allen Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Friday, December 10, 2010

.. a powerful play that grabs you by the throat and the heart from the first moments and doesn't let go until the curtain comes down... it's meaty, provocative theater that will remind you how thrilling, and how disturbing, going to see a good play can be.

And this play is good.

Thankfully, it is given powerful treatment by Laura Lippman, a director who honored the material, and two actors who were willing to be raw and emotionally naked, Art Almquist and Elizabeth Leadon-Sonnenfelt.

Almquist and Leadon-Sonnenfelt were so fearless and so deeply rooted in their complex characters that it was impossible not to understand the trauma, the angst, the sorrow and love that Ray and Una had experienced.


BEOWULF ALLEYArt Almquist portrays Ray, who went to prison for a relationship with underage Una. As an adult, Una, played by Elizabeth Leadon-Sonnenfelt, seeks out Ray in "Blackbird."

Wednesday, December 08, 2010

'Blackbird' Sings | Review | Tucson Weekly

'Blackbird' Sings | Review | Tucson Weekly

'Blackbird' Sings

Beowulf Alley's harrowing drama goes straight into the heart of darkness

Monday, December 06, 2010

Active Imagination Theatre Presents "Elves Gone Bad"

Beowulf Alley’s Active Imagination Theatre Presents

Elves Gone Bad

Beowulf Alley Theatre at 11 South 6th Avenue presents a holiday tale for 4-8 year-olds (and kids at heart), Elves Gone Bad. Performance dates are December 16, 17, 18, 19,23, 24, 26, 30, January 1, and 2 at 12:00 noon and one special New Year’s Eve performance at 5:30 p.m.

 

Tickets are $5 for children 4-12 and $10 for ages 13 and older. $2 OFF every Adult Ticket purchased ONLINE at www.beowulfalley.org using PayPal or Google before December 16th. Enter coupon code AIT1011.Children 3 and under, seated in parents’ laps, are free.

Estimated Run Time: 40 minutes

We can accommodate a maximum of 3 wheelchairs per performance with advance notice.

When the reindeers go on strike and children only want video games, Santa closes down the North Pole toy factory and lays off the elves.  The elves take an old pirate ship that was abandoned in the ice and turn to a life of piracy (after going to a pirate boot camp), but they end up having to save Christmas after all.

Under the supervision of adult actors, children 4-8 years old from the audience will be invited to participate in stories created to inspire imagination and story-telling skills. Children and their parents are invited to share this exciting performance and be a part of the action.

Sunday, December 05, 2010

Review: "BLACKBIRD" SEEKS THE LIGHT AT BEOWULF ALLEY


"BLACKBIRD" SEEKS THE LIGHT AT BEOWULF ALLEY

by Chuck Graham

Let The Show Begin

www.tucsonstage.com

It has always been my belief we only use a small part of our personality. Just like with the brain itself, most of our personalities stay submerged in our subconscious, percolating along, unseen but always influencing our behavior.

“Blackbird” by Scottish playwright David Harrower wants to dive into the part of this submerged personality that is not only unseen but rarely considered. And when this part of personality is examined, it is always with the most blunt of instruments.

Brave little Beowulf Alley Theatre, downtown behind its new façade at 11 S. Sixth Ave., earns a huge round of Christmas applause for having the courage to mount “Blackbird” with an exceptional cast that never looks back. This is not a happy play with a heartwarming ending.

Think of “Blackbird” as the secular antidote to all that sentimental holiday sugar. A terrific place to get in out of the compulsive yuletide optimism and away from all those tight-jawed shoppers. The title, by the way, is British slang for jailbird.

Art Almquist as Ray and Elizabeth Leadon-Sonnenfelt as Una are the cast. Laura Lippman directs what is essentially a sword fight, or maybe a mental wrestling match, as these two confront each other in a trashy shipping warehouse lunch room.

They haven’t seen each other for 15 years. But when he was 40 and she was 12, they had a sexually consummated love affair. Was it really love? She thought it was. At the time it was something they both wanted.

But he spent three years in prison for it, being continually taunted and tortured by other inmates. Her life was ruined because she had to keep growing up in the same neighborhood where everyone knew what she had done. It felt like being invisible, she remembered, because no one would look at her.

Now as the play opens, she is 27. He is 55, living under another name in a different part of the country, with a responsible job in warehouse management. Out of nowhere she has popped back into his life, has tracked him down among the metal folding chairs and food wrappers scattered around this cluttered communal dining table.

We immediately know both are uncomfortable with this meeting. We just don’t know why. Slowly the tawdry facts come out one by one and we wonder. Was he using her for sex? Is she out for revenge?

Harrower wants to shatter the stereotyped black-and-white assumptions that Ray was evil and Una’s life was destroyed by his sexual abuse. Then we must decide about the aftermath. Was she a precocious adventurer who did truly love him? Is the heart bound by the restrictions of our own Christian culture?

In other countries, in other civilizations, girls who reach puberty are whisked into marriage. Why wait? If Una had been born into a different culture, her embrace of sex would have been applauded by the entire community.

So just how valid is our own rush to judgment? Harrower wants to take a longer view. Ray and Una, through exceptionally fine performances by Almquist and Leadon-Sonnenfelt, provide windows into aspects of the human spirit that need more light.

Harrower is particularly careful not to make excuses for Ray’s behavior, nor to blame Una for being a latter-day Lolita. Situational ethics may be a controversial attitude, but some situations stay draped in such heavy taboos there is little understanding for those unfortunate enough to be caught under the covers.

“Blackbird” continues through Dec. 19 in performances at 7:30 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, in the Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave. Tickets are $21 online, $23 at the box office, with other discounts available. For details and reservations, 882-0555, or visit www.beowulfalley.org


Blackbird opens to raves from the audience...

What patrons were saying on opening night ...

“This was truly a brilliant piece of theatre, so well acted and directed. All of the elements fit beautifully.”

“This is the best piece of theatre that I’ve seen in Tucson – and I’ve lived here a long time!”

“One of the things I like about Beowulf is its courage to offer theatre beyond the mainstream.”

“We have been debating this play and I don’t think we’ll find any resolutions tonight – or ever!”

Friday, December 03, 2010

Tension key to play based on a true story

Tension key to play based on a true story

'BLACKBIRD' OFFERS A LOT TO PONDER AFTERWARD

Tension key to play based on a true story


Kathleen Allen Arizona Daily Star | Posted: Friday, December 3

This is how Laura Lippman likes her theater:

"I like to lean forward and be tense," she explained.

It isn't surprising, then, that Lippman is directing David Harrower's "Blackbird," a play that will definitely make you lean forward and be tense.

It'll also give you food for thought and discussion.

"It taps into feelings of abandonment and feelings of loss," says Lippman, who is fairly new to the Old Pueblo but brings more than a decade of directing experience to Beowulf.

"Because one character understands what happens one way and the other character understands in a different way, when they finally stand in the same room together and hear the other side of the story, it's like piecing parts of a puzzle together."

Harrower is a hot Scottish playwright. He was little known before "Blackbird" snagged the coveted Olivier, London's version of the Tony, back in 2007. When it traveled across the Atlantic and opened in New York City, it became a darling of the critics.

Read the entire preview here: Tension key to play based on a true story

BEOWULF ALLEY THEATREElizabeth Leadon-Sonnenfelt and Art Almquist in Beowulf Alley Theatre's production of "Blackbird."