[NEohioPAL] Sondheim's "Putting It Together" at Weathervane

Wed Sep 9 14:30:14 PDT 2009

Weathervane Playhouse's Celebrates the Opening of its

75th Season by Showcasing the Musical Genius of

Stephen Sondheim

Musical revue on stage from Sept. 10 to 27, 2009

Weathervane Playhouse celebrates the opening of its 75th anniversary season with Putting it Together, a delightful salute to legendary Broadway songwriter Stephen Sondheim.

A cast of four men and four women serves up a merry, musical mix that celebrates the man behind such terrific Broadway musicals as Company, Follies, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, "Little Night Music and Sweeney Todd.

With more than two dozen songs from his personal Hit Parade, Putting it Together showcases Sondheim's sophisticated Broadway songbook. Putting it Together promises an enchanting night at the theater with musical numbers witty, wise, wistful and wonderful.

The musical revue's title comes from a song from the composer's 1984 musical Sunday in the Park with George, which was inspired by a painting by the 19th century French painter Georges Seurat.

Among his peers and his critics, Sondheim enjoys a reputation as the most innovative, most influential and most important composer and lyricist in modern Broadway history. Among his many honors and accomplishments, Sondheim has won seven Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, two Grammy Awards and an Oscar. 

Weathervane's production of Putting it Together is directed by Terry Burgler, the co-artistic director of Ohio Shakespeare Festival. Mr. Burgler's other directorial credits for Weathervane include A Midsummer Night's Dream (2009) and Ragtime: The Musical (2008).

John Ebner is musical director.

The "Putting It Together" Ensemble and their Hometowns

Tim Anderson (Broadview Heights)

Amanda Davis (Akron)

Greg Emanuelson (North Canton)

Alan Scott Ferrall (Cuyahoga Falls)

Rachel Fichter (Streetsboro)

Stephanie Newport (Canton)

Melissa Owens (Akron)

Scott Shriner (Akron)

About the Putting It Together Creative Team 

TERRY BURGLER (director) - a Northeast Ohio-based professional director, actor, writer and educator - returns to Weathervane after previously directing A Midsummer Night's Dream (2009) and Ragtime: The Musical (2008). He has performed on the Globe Theatre stage in London, and has acted and directed at numerous regional theatres across the country, including McCarter Theatre, the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, Stage/West and TheatreVirgina, where he served for 13 seasons and still ranks as the most successful Artistic Director in that theatre's 50-year history. For four years he was Artistic Director at Porthouse Theatre on the grounds of Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, presiding over record-breaking seasons that garnered significant critical praise as well. He resigned his position there to be able to pursue his passion for Shakespeare as one of the two founding artistic directors of the Ohio Shakespeare Festival. He holds a B.A. degree with Honors from Princeton University and an M.F.A. degree from the University of Virginia. He is a member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society and Actors' Equity Association. As an actor, his previous Shakespearean roles include Polonius, Falstaff, Prospero, Touchstone, Sir Toby Belch, Mercutio, Bottom and Iago.

JOHN EBNER (musical director, conductor, keyboards) is glad to be back at Weathervane Playhouse. His last appearance was as Musical Director for Ragtime in which he was awarded both a Chanticleer and a Marquee Award. He has also worked extensively as a keyboardist, rehearsal pianist and musical director for the Ohio Shakespeare Festival, Coach House, Carousel Dinner Theater, the Players Guild of Canton and Kent State University. John has been a music teacher for more than 30 years, teaching in the Plain Local Schools for the last 22 years. He has performed with Arthur Fiedler of the Boston Pops Orchestra and the Academy Award-winning Paul Williams. John has a bachelor's and master's degree in music from The University of Akron, with further study at Ashland University and Kent State University.

The Putting it Together Backstage Team and their Hometowns

Stage Manager - Barbie Trotter (Akron)

Assistant Stage Manager - Mike Groom (Barberton)

Scenic Designer/Technical Director - Alan Scott Ferrall (Cuyahoga Falls)

Costume Co-Designers - Adam Thatcher and Jasen J. Smith (both of Akron)

Lighting Designer - Mike Sferro (Medina)

Sound Designer - Robyn Cooper (Uniontown)

Properties Designer - Todd Dieringer (Wadsworth) 

Assistant Technical Director - Kathy Kohl (Akron)

About the Musical Revue and its Songwriter/Composer

The Show

In the early 1990s, English theater producer Cameron Mackintosh persuaded composer Stephen Sondheim to create a sequel of sorts to his popular revue Side by Side by Sondheim, which had played in London and on Broadway in the late 1970s. The new revue came to be known as Putting It Together, and it opened at the Old Fire Station Theatre in Oxford, England in London in the winter of 1992 with a cast that featured Diana Rigg (from TV's "The Avengers"). 

Next, the show crossed the Atlantic Ocean when Manhattan Theatre Club produced the show at New York City Center in the spring of 1993. Starring Julie Andrews, this off-Broadway production ran for 96 performances. Sondheim continued to tinker with the show, cutting a few songs and adding others - and in the fall of 1998, the show played in its newest incarnation at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, California. This time, the cast included Carol Burnett, who would continue with the show when it journeyed next to Broadway. In the fall of 1999, Putting it Together opened at Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York and played for a total of 101 performances. 

The Creator

Born in New York City in 1930, composer and lyricist Stephen Sondheim studied piano from a very young age. His parents divorced when he was 10 years old, and he and his mother moved to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where a close neighbor was the playwright, lyricist and theater producer Oscar Hammerstein II, who had a son Stephen's age.

Here, the older Hammerstein served as a role model for the budding young composer; he tutored Sondheim in writing for the theater all the way through his student years at Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. After graduation, he studied with the avant-garde composer Milton Babbit while attempting to secure a job in the theater. He did find jobs writing for television and was soon introduced to two playwrights - Burt Shevelove and Arthur Laurents - who would play large roles in his developing career.

At the age of 25, he secured the job of writing lyrics to go with Leonard Bernstein's music for what would become a landmark Broadway musical, West Side Story, which featured a script by Laurents and stage direction by Jerome Robbins. Fresh from the success of this show, Sondheim next wrote the lyrics for composer Jule Styne's songs for Gypsy, another hit show with a book by Laurents and stage direction by Robbins.

Sondheim's first show as both composer and lyricist was the 1962 musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which won the 1963 Tony Award for Best Musical and enjoyed a two-year run on Broadway. Sondheim's 1971 musical Company - a biting, realistic look at love and marriage in modern New York City - represented a sort of historic breakthrough for Sondheim as an artist. The show broke away from Broadway's past and initiated Sondheim as one of the most innovative and adventurous composers in musical theater.

Over the next 30 years, Sondheim continued to create, innovate and re-invent the Broadway musical with such shows as Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street (1979), Merrilly We Roll Along (1981), Sunday in the Park with George (1984), Into the Woods (1987), Assassins (1990) and Passion (1994). 

Practically peerless in his accolades and accomplishments, Sondheim has won seven Tony Awards, a Pulitzer Prize, two Grammy Awards and an Oscar. In 2008, Sondheim received a special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement from the American Theatre Wing. Meanwhile, on Broadway at the time, two of his shows - Gypsy and Sunday in the Park with George - were enjoying successful, critically praised revivals.

Ticket and Performance Information

Putting it Together plays on the Weathervane Mainstage between Sept. 10 and 27, 2009.

The low-cost preview performance is Thursday, Sept. 10 at 7:30 p.m.; the official opening-night performance is Friday, Sept. 11 at 8 p.m.

Between Sept. 10 and 25, performance days and times are Thursdays at 7:30 p.m., Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2:30 p.m.

Tickets for the Sept. 10 preview performance only are $18. Tickets for performances after Sept. 10 are $24. 

$21 tickets for seniors and college students are available for Thursday and Sunday performances. Tickets for children ages 17 or younger are $19.50 at all performances after Sept. 10.

For tickets, call the Weathervane Box Office at 330/836-2626 or connect online to www.weathervaneplayhouse.com.

* * *

Weathervane Playhouse and its dedicated volunteers offer vital performing arts resources for the people of Northeastern Ohio. We create exciting and thought-provoking shows with impressive production values. Through educational programs and volunteer opportunities for people of all ages and backgrounds, Weathervane serves the theater community, our patrons and our volunteers.

The Ohio Arts Council helped fund this program with state tax dollars to encourage economic growth, education excellence and cultural enrichment for all Ohioans.

Additional 2009-2010 season sponsors:

1590 WAKR

89.7 WSKU-FM

The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

Janis Harcar
Director of Advancement
Weathervane Playhouse
330-836-2323 X16
www.weathervaneplayhouse.com
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