Thursday, May 31, 2012

An evening of musical and "sketch" comedy with Dave Fitzsimmons and Tom Potter

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents

Dave Fitzsimmons and

Tom Potter

In an evening of musical and “sketch” comedy

 

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents Dave Fitzsimmons and Tom Potter in an evening of musical and “sketch” comedy at

7:30 PM Friday, June 15th at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. 6th Avenue in downtown Tucson. Tickets are $12, $10 for seniors, military and teachers. Our student price is only $8.

 

Dave Fitzsimmons, the editorial columnist for The Arizona Daily Star, and blues-playing humorist Tom Potter give Tucson an evening of laughter, music and some sketchy business.

 

For more information, call 520 882 0555 or email at theatre@beowulfalley.org.

 

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents Joan is Burning

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents

Joan is Burning

A new play devised by The Next Theatre at Beowulf Alley

 

Beowulf Alley Theatre presents Joan is Burning at 7:30 PM Friday and Saturday, June 22nd, 23rd, and 29th at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. 6th Avenue in downtown Tucson. Tickets are $18. $15 for seniors, military and teachers. Our student price is only $8.

 

Joan is Burning is a satirical comedy of the near future. In 2018 New Orleans, Joan works for a public relations firm and has created a program that can sell anyone anything.  Her love life in shambles, her only healthy relationship is with her phone/computer, her employer an avaricious, unprincipled executive, Joan must decide what she ought to do with such a newfound power. All the while an anonymous protest for the rights of women shadows her. Will Joan join the fight?

 

A multi-cultural, multi-media presentation that includes extensive use of film, created by Josh Parra, and original music by Skads Muskie and Tristyn Tucci, Joan is Burning is part of The Next Theatre at Beowulf Alley’s mission to effect relevant, entertaining themes with new models of narrative presentation. Portions of the proceeds to this production will go to benefit Disappeared Women, a women’s health advocacy group.

 

For more information, contact Michael Fenlason at Beowulf Alley Theatre, theatre@beowulfalley.org, 520 882 0555.

 

 

Auditions for two new plays

Beowulf Alley Theatre announces

Auditions

For two new plays

 

Beowulf Alley Theatre will be holding auditions for Eugene O’Neill’s “new” play Exorcism and a new play by Jem Street, Hope, Monday, June 4th at 7:00 PM to 8:30PM at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. 6th Avenue, in downtown Tucson. Auditions will consist of readings from the scripts.

 

Needed:

 

Exorcism:

Two men (20’s)

Three men (30-60)

 

Hope

Two women (30-45)

One African-American woman (20’s)

One woman (20’s)

Two men (35-50’s)

 

Exorcism is a one-act play about a troubled young man and his difficult relationship with his family. It is something of a palimpsest for Long Days Journey Into Night, as the main character Ned is reminiscent to Jamie Tyrone. The play was performed by the Provincetown Players in 1920 and then quickly withdrawn. It is speculated that O’Neill was too uncomfortable with such an honest portrait of himself and his father. Recently rediscovered, this production will run Friday and Saturday, July 6th, 7th, 13th, 14th at 7:30PM and Sunday July 8th at 2:30PM.

 

Hope by Jem Street is a new play and part of her graces trilogy that includes Faith and Love. Street’s work meditates on American life in the first part of the new millennium with humor, candor and a sense of history. Hope is the story of Joe Chandler, a Tennessee businessman being courted to run for the U.S. House of Representatives. Chandler must look back over his life and determine if he has “been a good enough man to be a politician.” In flashback his history with romantic relationships, a stormy relationship with his racist father, and all that he has been must be seen through this ironic prism. This is a full-length play and the performance dates are Friday and Saturday July 20th, 21st, 27th, and 28th at 7:30 PM and Sunday July 22nd at 2:30 PM.

 

For more information contact Michael Fenlason at 520 882 0555 or at theatre@beowulfalley.org.

 

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Audition for Wimsey at Beowulf Alley Theatre

Call for Actors

When: Mon., May 21st at 6:00-7:30 PM

 

Auditions are being held at 6:00 p.m., Monday, May. 21st, for  Joan O'Dwyer's adaptation of the first Peter Wimsey book by Dorothy Sayers. This production runs in August at Beowulf Alley Theatre and will be directed by Esther Almanzan, If available, please bring a headshot and resume (If you auditioned at the Beowulf season auditions, it will not be necessary to bring a resume). Prepared monologues are welcome. Auditions from the script is also available. All are welcome. 

 

Beowulf Alley Theatre

11 S. Sixth Ave.

882-0555

 

Friday, May 11, 2012

Very different families: A drinking comedy and a druggie tragedy | Live Theatre Workshop / Beowulf Alley Theatre Company

Very different families: A drinking comedy and a druggie tragedy | Live Theatre Workshop / Beowulf Alley Theatre Company:


Very different families: A drinking comedy and a druggie tragedy
'The Cocktail Hour' is acerbic and amusing; 'Sins of the Mother' is dark and engaging
Posted May 10, 2012

At Beowulf Alley Theatre Company, surprising drama emerges from “Sins of the Mother.”  …

Hal Melfi seemed suitably damaged as Bobbie, the none-to-bright elder of the band, shattered in Vietnam…
Anthony Saccocio is surprisingly effective through the twists and turns of young Dougie, especially given that this is his first full-length stage appearance. He is able to project both innocence and menace over his character’s significant arc...

Ken Beider plays both weak, sleazy Frankie and then his more complex, nuanced twin, Phillie. Beider claims an eight year absence from the stage, which is in no way apparent from his luscious embrace of two very different characters.

Jim Ambrosek is also effective as Dubbah, providing emotional context for the unspeakable sins, past and present. Director Vince Flynn starts the gritty story slow, punctuated by sudden outbursts during the discovery phase. He builds on that with a smoldering tone during Acts II and III to heighten the sense of malevolence, so that the subsequent retributions are a plausible extension of the first act’s violence.


Ken Beider, Anthony Saccocio, Hal Melfi and Jim Ambrosek in 'Sins of the Mother.'
Tristyn Tucci/Beowulf Alley


READ THE ENTIRE REVIEW HERE: http://www.tucsonsentinel.com/arts/report/051012_comedy_and_tragedy_review/very-different-families-drinking-comedy-and-druggie-tragedy/

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Working-Class Heroes | Review | Tucson Weekly

Working-Class Heroes | Review | Tucson Weekly:


Working-Class Heroes 

Actor Ken Beider redeems Beowulf Alley's dark tale about dockworkers


Beider also handles the role of Philly, and it's a treat to watch him create a new character halfway through the evening. An eccentric businessman, Philly wears his hair slicked back and insists on keeping his sunglasses on when inside. ("Light-sensitive," he claims.) Costumer David Swisher puts him in a suit with a few garish touches: a yellow shirt and purple socks. The outfit works, reflecting Philly's odd mixture of savvy, sensitivity and cruelty. Philly hates his father, yet takes advice from Oprah on forgiveness; he's manipulative, with deep-running loyalties and hatreds...
Ken Beider, Anthony Saccocio, Hal Melfi and Jim Ambrosek in Sins of the Mother. 
Ken Beider, Anthony Saccocio, Hal Melfi and Jim Ambrosek in Sins of the Mother.

Sunday, May 06, 2012

Sins of the Mother

GRITTY "SINS OF THE MOTHER"
by Chuck Graham, "Let The Show Begin"
If you believe the sins of the parents are visited upon their children, you will find common ground in the riveting Beowulf Alley Theatre production of "Sins of the Mother" by Israel Horovitz.
This ensemble performance by a quartet of men bursting with erratic testosterone motivations continues the much-welcomed comeback of the downtown theater company.
Chuck-Sins of the Mother

Horovitz loves the gritty side of domestic conflict, told through dialogue so tightly woven you couldn't slip another thought in sideways. Such compact writing might be considered an acquired taste, but "Sins of the Mother" provides exactly what the title implies.
Douggie Shimmatarro (Anthony Saccocio), a guy in his 20s, comes back to his hometown of Gloucester, Mass., looking for work in a dying town of closed-up fish packing plants and grizzled stevedores who can't find employment. It's the Japanese, we are told, who sucked out all the jobs that closed the plants.
Bobby (Hal Melfi), Dubbah (Jim Ambrosek) and twins Frankie Verga and Philly Verga (both played by Ken Beider) are from older generations who feel their lives slipping away.
There is no place for them in this digitized world and they are damn angry about it. Filled with Luddite pride, one brags about never watching TV and refuses to buy a cell phone.
Long on canny intelligence and short on diplomacy, these are men who settle arguments with brawn. Simple and direct. The guys for whom those cable television documentaries are made that describe in detail the most dangerous jobs in the world.
Life-threatening jobs that they could do, too, if someone would just give them a chance.
Innocently Douggie steps into this den of tattered and short-tempered warriors with raw nerves, hoping to find out some history about his mom. They are only too happy to tell Douggie that his mom was rather….promiscuous. Only, the language these older men used wasn't nearly so polite.
From there the whole conversation spirals straight down in a series of festering conflicts over long-contested disputes stretching back for decades. More violence erupts, and it isn't even intermission.
Act Two begins with a casket in the middle of the stage. Nobody's happy about that, either.
This production is also a showcase for some commanding new talent. Melfi, the local veteran, is back after a long absence to set the pace and hold everything together.
But Beider and Ambrosek, after lengthy theater careers in other cities, have chosen this play to make conspicuous returns to acting. The same can be said of the director, Vince Flynn.
Beider fills his character of Philly Verga with a deadly gangster charisma that no other Baked Apple actor could do. Ambrosek with a less showy role is equally convincing.
Saccocio in his 20s has little theater experience. What he has in spades is an easy charm that promises a bright future in our own theater community.
"Sins of the Mother" continues through May 27 with performances at 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2:30 p.m. Sundays, at Beowulf Alley Theatre, 11 S. Sixth Ave.
Tickets are $20 general admission; $18 for seniors, teachers and military; $8 for students with current ID. For tickets and reservations, 520 -882-0555, or visit www.beowulfalley.org

Link: Sins of the Mother: