[NEohioPAL] They're Playing Our Song opens Friday!

[Jan Harcar]

 Weathervane Playhouse Opens its 2010-2011
Mainstage Season with the delightful musical comedy

'They're Playing Our Song' 

 

Show about Musical and Romantic Collaboration
Opening Night -- Friday, September 10 8 p.m.
 

Weathervane Playhouse's 76th Mainstage season opens with a delightful mixture of comedy and music with the Tony-nominated They're Playing Our Song.
 
A wisecracking and successful pop-music composer meets a slightly zany aspiring lyricist. Will they make beautiful music together? Inspired by the real-life partnership of Marvin Hamlisch and Carole Bayer Sager, They're Playing Our Song celebrates the ups and downs of a musical and romantic coupling. 
 
Vernon Gersch is a successful pop-music composer with a luxury New York City apartment. In between winning awards for his songs, the somewhat buttoned-down Vernon lives the good life and nurses his urban neuroses. When the free-spirited Sonia Walsk breezes into his life and declares her urge to write lyrics with him, Vernon discovers the possibility of finding a partner in both music and romance. 
 
But the uptight Vernon and the kooky Sonia discover that their opposite personalities might not create romantic harmony. Will the songwriting team's professional success be matched only by personal disaster? Vernon and Sonia confront an obstacle course of personal hurdles and challenges - all the while singing and dancing their way through Manhattan in the late 1970s - as they chart the course of the beginnings of a romantic relationship.
 
They're Playing Our Song is the product of a Broadway trifecta of talent. The musical comedy showcases the music of award-winning composer Marvin Hamlisch, the lyrics of the prolific Carole Bayer Sager and the wise and witty words of the legendary Neil Simon.
 
 
Weathervane Playhouse's production of They're Playing Our Song is directed by Jacqi Loewy. The show's musical director is Jonathan Swoboda.
 

The They're Playing Our Song Cast and Their Hometowns
 

William Kist (of Akron) .Vernon Gersch

 

Diana Nabring (of Cuyahoga Falls) .Sonia Walsk

 

Daniel Caraballo, Josh Hughes and Aaron Schoonover.The Voices of Vernon

 

Amy Spencer, Miriam Henkel-Moellman and Rebecca Wolfe.The Voices of Sonia

 

About the Show's Director 
 

JACQI LOEWY returns to Weathervane after winning several of the Playhouse's Chanticleer Awards and after serving at the helm of such WCP productions as Man of La Mancha, Little Shop of Horrors, The Fantasticks, The Rocky Horror Show, The Full Monty, The Last Five Years, Proof and The Laramie Project. Now in her third decade as a full-time theatre professional, she is the Artistic Director of Charenton Theater Company, the Board President of the Cleveland Theater Collective joined the faculty of Notre Dame College this past fall. Her direction has been seen at the Cleveland Play House, Dobama Theatre, Cleveland Public Theatre, Ensemble Theatre, TrueNorth Cultural Arts, the Youngstown Playhouse, the University of Akron, Case-Western Reserve University and three seasons at Lyric Opera Cleveland. She is also a commissioned playwright, a busy radio/television/film talent and the creator of two social-issue pieces: Mr. Lewis Rules: Stories from the Juvenile Justice System (born here at Weathervane with Myron Lewis) and Both Sides of the Family (an interfaith marriage play now booking nationally). As a performer, she appeared on the Weathervane stage in Six Degrees of Separation and Prelude to a Kiss and has also performed on Broadway and at many of the professional venues here in Northeast Ohio. She was the Artistic Supervisor for Cleveland's longest-running show (Tony 'n Tina's Wedding at PlayhouseSquare) and she holds a B.F.A. in dance/musical theatre and an M.A. (University of Akron) in theatre arts.



About the Show's Musical Director 
 

JONATHAN SWOBODA serves as the Music Director for the Kent State University School of Theatre and Dance. He has just completed his second year on the faculty. In addition to teaching, Jonathan has music directed KSU's productions of A New Brain, Jane Eyre, Rent and Oklahoma! as well as Porthouse Theatre's productions of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, Annie Get Your Gun, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee and Bye Bye Birdie. He is a graduate with High Distinction from the University of Michigan School of Music and holds a Masters degree from the University of Nebraska. He has music directed more than 75 productions throughout the country including numerous national tours. He was an Assistant Director for Purdue Musical Organizations, at Purdue University, directing numerous vocal and instrumental ensembles. As a pianist, he is equally at home in the classical world as both a soloist and accompanist. More recently, he spent three years as a Resident Music Director for PCPA Theaterfest in California did, and he toured as the Featured Keyboard Artist for the internationally known performing ensemble Mannheim Steamroller. 



The They're Playing Our Song Backstage Team and Their Hometowns

 

Stage Manager - Jonathon Hunter (of Akron)

 

Costume Designer - Jasen J. Smith (of Akron)

 

Lighting Designer - Kevin Ford (of Cuyahoga Falls)

 

Sound Designer - David Ruggles (of Cuyahoga Falls)

 

Properties Co-Designers - Robyn Cooper (of Uniontown) and Jennifer Maxson (of Akron)

 

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

 

Assistant Technical Director - Kathy Kohl (of Akron)

 

About the Show and its Creators
 

About the Show
 

They're Playing Our Song premiered in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre in December of 1978 prior to its Broadway run at New York City's Imperial Theatre, where it opened Feb. 11, 1979, after playing 11 preview performances. For the 1978-1979 Broadway season, the show received four Tony Award nominations and five Drama Desk Award nominations. In spite of losing all these awards to other shows and performers, They're Playing Our Song enjoyed a healthy run in New York. The original Broadway cast featured Robert Klein as Vernon and Lucie Arnaz as Sonia. (Eventually, Klein and Arnaz left the production, and some of their replacements were Victor Garber, Tony Roberts, Diana Canova and Stockard Channing.) After 1,082 performances, the Broadway production closed on Sept. 6, 1981. A production in London's West End theater district opened Oct. 1, 1980, at the Shaftesbury Theatre and ran until May 8, 1982.

 

About the Composer
 

Composer MARVIN HAMLISCH's own Web site (www.MarvinHamlisch.com) boasts that he has won virtually every major award that exists: three Oscars, four Grammys, four Emmys, a Tony and three Golden Globe awards - not mention the awards bestowed upon him for his groundbreaking show, "A Chorus Line," for which he received the Pulitzer Prize.

 

He is the composer of more than 40 motion-picture scores including his Oscar-winning score and song for The Way We Were and his adaptation of Scott Joplin's music for The Sting, for which he received a third Oscar. His prolific output of scores for films include original compositions and/or musical adaptations for Sophie's Choice, Ordinary People, The Swimmer, Three Men and a Baby, Ice Castles, Take the Money and Run, Bananas, Save the Tiger and The Informant. 



Hamlisch - who was born in New York City in 1944 - now holds the position of principal pops conductor for the National Symphony Orchestra, Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony and San Diego Symphony.

 

He was the musical director and arranger of Barbra Streisand's 1994 concert tour of the United States and England as well as of the television special, Barbra Streisand: The Concert (for which he received two of his Emmys).

 

Hamlisch is a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music and Queens College (where he earned a bachelor of arts degree). He believes in the power of music to bring people together. "Music can make a difference," he declares on his Web site. "There is a global nature to music, which has the potential to bring all people together. Music is truly an international language, and I hope to contribute by widening communication as much as I can."

 

About the Lyricist
 

Lyricist CAROLE BAYER SAGER's songbook spans almost 40 years and contains some of the period's most popular and successful songs. From the Grammy-winning "That's What Friends Are For," the Oscar-winning "Arthur's Theme," and the Oscar-nominated "The Prayer," to "Don't Cry Out Loud" and "On My Own," her songs have become pop standards.

 

Born in New York City in 1947, she began her songwriting career while still a high school student. She wrote her first No. 1 hit, "A Groovy Kind of Love," for the English group The Mindbenders in 1966. Phil Collins re-recorded it, taking it No. 1 and the most performed radio hit of 1990. Neil Diamond included it on his 1993 "Up on the Roof" album. 

 

On her own Web site (www.CaroleBayerSager.com), she highlights her 10-year collaboration and close friendship with Peter Allen. They wrote dozens of songs together including the No. 1 single "Don't Cry Out Loud," "I'd Rather Leave When I'm In Love," "Everything Old Is New Again" and "There's a Lady On Stage," which were immortalized in the Broadway musical biography of Allen starring Hugh Jackman, The Boy From Oz. Bayer Sager and Allen co-wrote nine of the musical's songs and she was the "musical consultant" on the play as well as a presenter at the 2004 Tony Awards (when Jackman won the award for Best Performance by a Lead Actor in a Musical for his role). 

 

Honors for her work include an Academy Award, a Grammy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, a Tony Award, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a Songwriter's Hall of Fame induction, a Distinguished Alumni Award from the New York University Alumni Association and being honored by the L.A. Chapter of the Recording Academy. Such artists as Barbra Streisand, Michael Jackson, Frank Sinatra, Whitney Houston, Ray Charles, Dolly Parton, Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler, Celine Dion and Reba McEntire have recorded her songs. 

 

About the Book Writer
 

Book writer Neil Simon - born in the Bronx, in New York City, on the Fourth of July in 1927 - remains one of America's most productive and popular dramatists.

 

Simon's first play, Come Blow Your Horn, opened on Broadway in 1961 and was a modest hit. After writing the book for composer Cy Coleman's musical Little Me (1962), Simon's next play was Barefoot in the Park, which ran on Broadway for four years (1963 to 1967). His third play, The Odd Couple, opened in New York in 1965 and introduced two soon-to-be-famous characters, Felix and Oscar, two men with failing marriages who move in together to save money and find that they have the same problems living with each other as they did with their wives.

 

At one point in 1966, four of Simon's plays were running on Broadway at the same time: Sweet Charity, The Star-Spangled Girl, The Odd Couple and Barefoot in the Park.



Simon followed up these hits with plays that began to treat serious issues with comic touches. He presented works such as The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1969), the story of a married man in a mid-life crisis who has a series of affairs; The Gingerbread Lady (1970), in which a one-time singer, who is now an alcoholic, struggles to make a comeback; and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1971), which witnesses the nervous breakdown of a recently fired business executive. 

 

Well into the 1970s, Simon continued to create characters who struggle to handle their feelings in difficult situations and who release tension with humor. He began to share more of himself and his life, including boyhood dreams of escaping from his family problems and the difficulty of coping with his first wife's terminal illness. During this period he wrote The Sunshine Boys (1972), The Good Doctor (1973) and California Suite (1976). In Chapter Two (1977), the main character, a widower, feels guilty over falling in love and remarrying - plot twists that mirrored Simon's own life. 

 

Simon took his signature mixing of honesty and humor to new levels in the 1980s. Brighton Beach Memoirs (1983), the first in his trilogy of semi-autobiographical plays, tells the story of a middle-class Jewish-American teenager growing up in a troubled family. Biloxi Blues (1985) deals with the boy's coming of age and confrontation of anti-Semitism while in the army. The third piece of the trilogy, Broadway Bound (1986) takes audiences into the boy's young adulthood, as he struggles to establish his career and sees the problems in his parents' relationship more clearly. 

 

Simon's Lost in Yonkers (1991) delivered a painfully funny story about the effect an abusive mother has on her grown children. The play earned Simon the Pulitzer Prize for drama. When Simon's third marriage broke up, he wrote Jake's Women (1992), in which he introduces "ghosts" - good and bad experiences of two marriages and their effect on the third. Laughter on the 23rd Floor (1993) - inspired by Simon's early years as a writer for the golden age of television - offers a behind-the-scenes look at writing comedy by committee, as a group of men shout one-liners, each trying to top the other. 

 

Simon has also written several screenplays, including The Goodbye Girl, which was nominated for an Academy Award in 1977. He has also adapted many of his stage plays into both motion pictures and made-for-TV movies.

 

Among his many honors and awards are two Emmys, four Tonys, one Golden Globe, six Writers Guild of America Awards and one Pulitzer Prize. He was inducted into the American Threatre Hall of Fame in 1983, was a 1995 Kennedy Center honoree, and was honored with the 2006 Mark Twain Prize for American Humor.

 

Ticket and Performance Information
 

They're Playing Our Song plays on the Weathervane Playhouse Founders Theater stage between Sept. 9 and 26, 2010

 

The low-cost preview performance is Thursday, Sept. 9 at 7:30 p.m.; the official opening-night performance is Friday, Sept. 10 at 8 p.m.

 

>From Sept. 10 to 26, 2010, 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. 9 preview performance only are $18. Tickets for performances after Sept. 9 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. 9. Discounts for groups of 12 or larger are also available.

 

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 2010-2011 season sponsors:

89.7 WSKU-FM

The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company

Omnova Solutions Foundation

Sisler McFawn Foundation

Akron Community Foundation

Kenneth L. Calhoun Charitable Trust

The Margaret Clark Morgan Foundation

Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation

 

 

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