[NEohioPAL] TIME IS RUNNING OUT TO SEE FPAC'S CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED COMPANY!

[lydia hall]

FPAC'S CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED COMPANY CLOSES MAY 14TH



MAYFIELD VILLAGE, OH—Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory’s
Professional Wing presents Company, onstage at the Mayfield Village Civic
 Center through this Saturday only: closing performance May 14, 2011. Thursday,
Friday and Saturday evening performances begin at 7:30
 PM. Located at the corner of Wilson Mills and SOM Center
Roads, the Mayfield
 Village Civic
 Center (6622 Wilson Mills Road in Mayfield Village,
  OH),
is the home of Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory (FPAC)’s theatrical
productions. 



Order tickets on-line at FAIRMOUNTCENTER.TIX.COM or call 440-338-3171. Tickets range from $14 -
$25. Discounts are available for Mayfield
  Village
residents. Group rates are available for parties of 10 or more persons. Adults
and Seniors will get a $5 per ticket discount when purchasing tickets for Company
and A Little Night Music as a package.



Company is the first in a two-part “Tribute to Stephen Sondheim”
presented by FPAC’s Professional Wing. Notable director Fred Sternfeld directs Company
this spring, with a return engagement in the fall, mounting Sondheim’s A Little Night
Music, October 27-Novermber 13, 2011. A Little Night Music
will feature the talents of Equity Actors Matthew Wright as Fredrik
Egerman and Tracee Patterson as Desirée Armfelt. The legendary Dorothy
Silver will appear as Madame Armfeldt. Desirée and Madame Armfeldt were the
roles played by Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch,
respectively, in the recent Broadway revival which closed January 9, 2011.
Sternfeld, whose numerous and award-winning directing credits include Baby
(TrueNorth Cultural Arts Center),
The Sound of Music, Fiddler on the Roof and Oliver!
(Cain Park), Ragtime and Man of LaMancha at the JCC, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at
Beck Center and many productions with the Fairmount Center, is also the
Artistic Director for FPAC and Director for the School of Theatre at the
Fairmount Center for the Arts.

ABOUT COMPANY



Songwriter Stephen Sondheim, playwright George Furth and director/producer Hal
Prince are the triumvirate responsible for creating Company, the
1970 Tony-winning Broadway smash that introduced audiences to the perpetual
bachelor, thirty-five year old Bobby, and all his crazy married friends who
sing and dance their six-legged way through such memorable numbers as, “Getting
Married Today,” “Another Hundred People,” “The Ladies Who Lunch” and “Being
Alive.” In an interview with British director Sam Mendes, composer and lyricist
Sondheim, who typically receives all the credit for the piece, explained that
what eventually became Company began as seven disparate one-act
plays, each involving three characters: a couple and an outsider. Furth
had approached Sondheim, who passed the information to Prince. It was Prince
who suggested combining the plays, reconfiguring them into a single
entity, and making a musical of it. What resulted was a series of vignettes,
described by Sondheim as, “the first commercial, non-linear musical,” featuring
the outsider, Bobby, as the central character acting as the red thread
connecting all the various pairs, and including a series of unfulfilled
relationships for the romantically-challenged hero.



Company, created in 1969, debuted on Broadway the following year and
came out of, according to Sondheim, the end of an era. Traditional ideals about
marriage and the marriage model from the previous generation were breaking
down; the sexual revolution and the freedom so intrinsic to the fabric of the
late ‘60s and early ‘70s inform the piece. The seeming stability of post-war,
1950s America and the
images of “Father Knows Best” and “Leave It To Beaver” were beginning to
acquire an antique patina and looked to the younger generation to be relics of
the past. Company, as it represented middle-aged Americans in the
framework of the sexual revolution and the changing tide of values, addressed
and illustrated the themes of commitment, non-commitment and the fear of
commitment, ideas recognizable by anyone involved in human relations.



Set during Bobby’s 35th birthday celebration, the action, as the
creators of Company intended, takes place internally. The FPAC
production honors that intention, and places Bobby, the single man, at the
center. All of the couples are spokes in the wheels turning in Bobby’s mind as
he faces mid-life and examines his choices and options. Eastman School of Music
alum Connor O’Brien appears as the affable, but conflicted, Bobby, and
joins his considerable breadth of performance experience with that of Company’s
company in this FPAC Professional Wing production. A collection of performers
with impressive credentials comprise the couples who populate Bobby’s life and
memory. Akron-based performer and Pittsburgh native Megan
Elk and Cleveland Shakespeare Festival Production Manager Aaron Elersich
are Sarah and Harry, who deny their penchants for rich food and strong
cocktails, channeling those energies into living room martial arts expositions,
impossibly stringent diet regimens and turbulent rides on the wagon. Kent State University
student Michael Glavan and AEA-actress Ursula Cataan appear as
Amy and Paul, a couple on the threshold of that ultimate declaration of
commitment: marriage. Paul feels confident and content, while Amy has some
strong concerns about entering into holy matrimony. Larry, third husband of the
acerbically-witted Joanne, is portrayed by the recently-returned-to-Cleveland James
E. Jarrell. Tracee Patterson, also a member of Actors’ Equity
Association, becomes Joanne, perhaps the most jaded and relationship-worn of
all of Bobby’s friends. Ivy League Peter and southern belle Susan, played by
new-to-Cleveland Abigail Allwein and Actors’ Summit and
convergence-continuum company member Shawn Galligan, share an evening
with Bobby overlooking the Hudson, almost, on their terrace. They want Bobby to
be the first to know about how their relationship is evolving. Lydia Hall
and Rick McGuigan play straight-laced but sweet Jenny and her husband
David, who seems to be chaffing a little at the confines of marriage, an
admission that surfaces during the threesome’s evening of recreational
activities. Bobby’s revolving door love life includes three “special ladies”: a
ditzy flight attendant named April, played by Kent State student Erin Diroll;
Kathy, Bobby’s on again-off again girlfriend who seems ready to get off the
merry-go-round, played by area performer and choreographer Sarah Clare;
and Marta, the high-intensity Manhattan-ite who Bobby describes as “fun,”
brought to life by Point Park University alum and FPAC instructor Natalie
Green.



Company’s creative team is helmed by FPAC’s Artistic Director and
Director of School of Theatre, Fred Sternfeld, and includes
musical director Jonathan Swoboda, choreographer Bebe Weinberg Katz,
scenic designer Trad A. Burns, lighting designer Ben Gantose,
costume designer Craig Tucker, sound designer Carlton Guc,
technical director Paul Gatzke and stage manager Rebecca Adams.
Company is presented through special arrangement with Music
Theatre International (MTI). Fairmount Center for the Arts receives
generous support from The Ohio Arts Council and The Lake Geauga Fund. 


Critics Agree: FPAC
Production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company


Not to be Missed

 

The reigning
opinion—sung in choral unison by the major voices of greater Cleveland’s
theater reviewers, is that, in the words of Times theater critic Roy Berko, “Company
is go-see theatre at FPAC.” Luckily, and also urgently, audiences have five
remaining opportunities to go and see for themselves before Company packs its bags on May 14th.


This rendition of Stephen
Sondheim and George Furth’s groundbreaking
1970 Broadway smash, locally offered by the Adult Professional Wing of The Fairmount
Performing Arts Conservatory, under the auspices of The Fairmount Center for
the Arts, has received high praise regarding every aspect of the production:
from Ben Gantose’s lighting design to Bebe Katz’s “miraculous”, “very clever” choreography; from Trad A. Burns’ scenic
design to Jonathan Swoboda’s musical direction.

Bob Abelman of the News-Herald said
of the production, “This is a Company
chock-full of talented actors who
can sing, dance and generate rich, interesting characters, brought
together by a director who marries Sondheim’s style with Furth’s
storytelling.”  Of leading man Connor
O’Brien, Abelman raved, “[O’Brien’s] immediately
endearing, absolutely adorable
Bobby find[s] all the lyrical and melodic complexities in Sondheim’s work and
the voice to effectively express them.” In a word, he described O’Brien’s Bobby
as “captivating.” Abelman went on to
commend the company of Company as
“[An] exceptional cast of players”
and stated that, in the FPAC production, “Sondheim’s brilliantly conceived
songs become showcases for performers willing to take creative risks; they
become showstoppers when performers dare to go out on an emotional edge.
This FPAC production is filthy with showstoppers.”

Fran Heller, contributing writer
for The Cleveland Jewish News, said:

“This solid, first-class
production of Company presented
by the Fairmount Performing Arts Conservatory proves that the landmark musical
remains strikingly contemporary in its examination of modern-day marriage. Fred
Sternfeld’s sterling direction, a prime cast and innovative staging deliver a show worthy of legendary composer-lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s genius….This
is the kind of ‘company’ you will embrace with joy.”

 

 

 

 

Donald Rosenberg,
classically-trained musician, longtime Sondheim aficionado and highly respected
music and dance critic for The Plain Dealer wrote this headline: 

When it comes to Sondheim’s Company, Fairmount Performing Arts
Conservatory best the New York Phil

referring to the recent New York
Philharmonic’s gala concert of the musical. The Big Apple event, which took
place at Avery Fisher Hall on April 7, 2011, boasted a cast including such
luminaries as Neil Patrick Harris, Patti LuPone, Stephen Colbert, Jon Cryer,
Christina Hendricks and Martha Plimpton. Paul Gemignani, typically
engaged to maneuver the baton in Sondheim’s music, conducted the NY
Philharmonic, using, as FPAC does, Jonathan Tunick’s orchestrations.

Rosenberg said, “…imagine my
surprise to have enjoyed the intimate
Fairmount Center version far more than the glitzy, Philharmonic incarnation….At
The Fairmount Center, director Fred Sternfeld has put together a uniformly strong cast that negotiates
Sondheim’s songs with expressive and rhythmic aplomb….The Fairmount cast and a
fine small offstage orchestra are alert to the wry twists of phrase, soaring
lines and cheeky urban references,” adding that, “the actors’ proximity to the
audience is a major factor in the production’s fresh appeal….Everyone deserves a round of applause.” Rosenberg
concluded, “Anyone who savors Sondheim is advised to take the short trek to the
Fairmount Center.” 

Better than New York theater,
right in your own back yard. Who could ask for more?

Fairmount Performing Arts
Conservatory’s Company, now through
May 14, 2011 at The Mayfield Village Civic Center, 6622 Wilson Mills Road in
Mayfield Village, Ohio. Order tickets online: fairmountcenter.tix.com or call
440-338-3171. Performances run Thursday, Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30 PM.
Special Mother’s Day matinee on Sunday, May 8th at 2:00 PM, with
discounted tickets available for all mothers.



More information can be found by visiting: www.fairmountcenter.org and http://fredsternfeld.com/company.htm
or by contacting Lydia Hall, Public Relations and Marketing Specialist: lydiahall at hotmail.com / 617.680.7663 		 	   		  
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