[NEohioPAL] ACTORS' SUMMIT Announces 10th Season

[Neil Thackaberry]

For Immediate Release

For additional information contact: 
Neil Thackaberry (330) 342-0800
Hudson, Ohio 

 

Actors' Summit Announces

Its Tenth Season

 

Eight shows, over 100 performances, one world premiere, two English
language premieres, and the return of Ohio's favorite theater duo are
some of the ingredients that make up the Tenth Season at Actors' Summit
in Hudson. The season will run from September 18 through May 31, 2009.

 

Ticket Prices

            The cost of Season Subscriptions and Good-Time-Any-Time
Coupons will stay at the same prices as last year. Individual ticket
prices have yet to be announced. Season subscriptions range from as
little as $56 for students to see all eight shows. Good Time Any Time
Coupons are available in books of 8 for $20 per ticket. Individual
tickets will go on sale two weeks prior to the first performance of each
show.

            "Our Preview Subscription continues to be our most popular,"
said MaryJo Alexander, Associate Artistic Director. "Seniors can see all
ten plays for only $10 a show." The Box Office Phone number is
330-342-0800.

 

Main Travelled Roads       Musical Comedy                   September 18
- October 5

            Music by Paul Libman         Book & Lyrics by Dave Hudson

            Directed by Sasha Thackaberry

            Main-Travelled Roads, the winner of the 2007 Richard Rogers
Award, is a bright, funny, romantic musical based on the short stories
of Hamlin Garland. Garland was born 7 years before and a few miles south
of Laura Ingalls Wilder. Set in turn-of-the-century Wisconsin, the warm
and honest portraits of life in the rural Midwest are lively, touching,
heartfelt, and timeless.  Regional Premiere!

Hamlin Garland was born in West Salem, Wisconsin, in 1860. After moving
with his family to a succession of homesteads in Iowa and South Dakota,
he went to Boston in 1884, determined to embark on a literary career.
His first success was Main-Travelled Roads, a collection of short
stories published in 1891. He moved to Chicago in 1893, lectured widely
on literary topics, and agitated for a realistic American literature
through a number of essays, some of which were revised into his 1894
manifesto, Crumbling Idols.

 

Nixon's Nixon                     Comedy
October 23 - November 9

            By Russell Lees

            Directed by Constance Thackaberry    Starring Neil
Thackaberry as Richard M. Nixon, & Terry Burgler as Henry Kissinger.

Nixon's Nixon is a jazz riff on contemporary history. It's one
playwright's speculation about what went on at a meeting between the
embattled president Nixon and his closest advisor, Kissinger, the night
before the president's historic resignation. The play uses this occasion
to create a small, vivid political satire that confirms, authenticates,
and humanizes the participants. 

 

Sanders Family Christmas          Musical
December 4 - 21

Written by Connie Ray   Conceived by Alan Bailey    Musical Arrangements
by John Foley and Gary Fagin.

            Directed by MaryJo Alexander

The musical Sanders family returns to Mount Pleasant, NC, home of the
Mount Pleasant Pickle Factory. It's Christmas Eve, 1941, and Pearl
Harbor is on everyone's mind. Reverend Oglethorpe has invited the
Sanders to the Baptist Church to sing and witness. It's a challenge to
get the holiday spirit soaring before the boys head off to fight World
War II. More than two dozen Christmas carols, many of them vintage
hymns, and hilarious yuletide stories from the Sanders family will keep
you laughing, clapping, and singing along with bluegrass Christmas
favorites.

 

Russians in Love               Comedy
January 15 - Feb 1               By Anton Chekhov in a new translation
by George Malko

Directed by Neil Thackaberry

            Two one-act farces (The Bear & The Proposal), and the
English language premieres of a monologue "In the Spring," and a comic
sketch "The Dimwit" presented on a single evening make up the bill of
fare. These brilliant short pieces are theatrical proof of Chekhov's
laugh-out-loud comic genius. In "The Proposal" a well intentioned, but
very nervous young man, comes to ask a young woman to marry, but gets
embroiled in a real estate dispute. The "Bear" has come to collect a
debt from a widow with whom he falls in love.  

            "The Bear" and "The Proposal" premiered at the Nora Theatre,
in Cambridge, Mass. as part if its 1995-96 season. The Nora also
commissioned George Malko to create a new translation of The Cherry
Orchard, to premiere in early 2009. George Malko is fluent in English,
Russian, French and Italian, and has worked as a writer in all of those
languages. His screenplays have been produced by major studios and
television networks.

 

The Year of Magical Thinking                  Drama            February
12 - March 1   

            By Joan Didion

Starring MaryJo Alexander

In this dramatic adaptation of her award-winning, bestselling memoir,
Joan Didion transforms the story of the sudden and unexpected loss of
her husband and their only daughter into a stunning and powerful
one-woman play. In passionate and poetic language she takes us through
the process of acceptance to a conclusion that is uplifting and life
affirming.

 

 

Spoon River Anthology                Folk Play with Music March 12 - 29


By Edgar Lee Masters     Production conceived, adapted and arranged by
Charles Aidman.

Directed by MaryJo Alexander

Spoon River, in rural Illinois, produced one of America's great poets --
Edgar Lee Masters. In the town's weekly paper he created brief dramatic
portraits of his fellow citizens by having them speak from the grave.
Alternately comic, poignant, romantic, and mysterious, we are introduced
to over 60 characters. Young lovers, preachers, teachers, old married
couples, Civil War heroes --- each take their turn to reveal the secrets
that they took to their grave. Performed by five versatile actors and
accompanied by classic American folk music, the play thrills, moves, and
tickles.

(Special weekday matinees for school groups.)

 

 

Tremont                                            Dramedy
April 16 - May 3                    By Robert Thomas Noll & Pamela V.
Noll        

Directed by Neil Thackaberry

            A World Premiere! Set in a neighborhood bar in the Tremont
area of Cleveland in the early 1960's, the play is a snapshot of a
culture in transition. The steel mills that allowed immigrants to buy
homes and cars are closing. The young people are moving to Parma, and
the old folks are lost in a changing landscape. After her home is broken
into, Eva seeks refuge with family friend Zoltan who owns the Silver
Bush bar. Long absent relatives return and a new equilibrium is found,
at least for the moment.

Tremont will be Robert Thomas Noll's 26th produced play. His plays have
been performed in every U.S. state, including six off-off Broadway
productions, and in many countries. Six are published. His plays have
also been produced in Northeast Ohio at such theatres as The Cleveland
Play House, Playhouse Square Center, The Beck Center, Dobama, Cassidy
Theatre, Willoughby Fine Arts, Berea Summer Theatre, Youngstown
Playhouse, Kent State University Theatre, and at John Carroll
University, where he teaches in the Communications & Theatre Department
and is adviser to their award-winning newspaper, The Carroll News.  As a
TV producer/writer, he has won many awards including nine Emmys and a
Silver Medal from the International Film and TV Festival of New York.
For NBC, he served as producer/writer for their syndicated children's TV
series, "Hickory Hideout." He has worked professionally at the Cleveland
Play House, Hanna Theater, Kenley Players, Cleveland Ballet, Playhouse
Square Center, Great Lakes Theater Festival and Musicarnival. He is a
member of the Dramatists Guild.

Pamela V. Noll is a writer who has won awards for her dramas and
comedies. She has had plays produced off-off Broadway, at the Cleveland
Play House, at the Cleveland Public Theatre and at the Roxbury Center
for Arts in Boston. As a film writer, she's produced one short film for
which she wrote the script. She was also a finalist at the British
Filmmaking Institute competition in London and won the first place award
from the Gloria Film Festival in Utah. Her love of writing developed
after writing her research-of-literature for her dissertation in
psychology. As a psychologist, her specialty is happiness. Later she
wrote book reviews for professional journals. Her portfolio includes six
films and ten plays. 

 

Laughter in 3 Languages, Part II
May 14 - May 31                  Conceived, written, directed and
performed by Dorothy & Reuben Silver.

            Following up on their wildly successful presentation of
stories in English, Yiddish, and Yinglish at Actors' Summit in 2004,
Dorothy and Reuben are back with new stories, and a few classics. Join
us for an evening of fun, laughs, and a fresh look at the way language
changes the way we think.

 

Tickets
Season Subscriptions & Good-Time-Any-Time Coupons can be purchased by
phone at (330) 342-0800.  


Web site


Actors' Summit Theater can be found on the web at www.actorssummit.org. 


 

 

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