[NEohioPAL] "The Mystery of Edwin Drood" Opens at Rabbit Run Theater

[RRCAA]

FOR:               Rabbit Run Community Arts Association

                        P. O. Box 235, 49 Park St.

                        Madison, OH  44057

 

CONTACT:     Karen Ziegler, Director of Marketing

                        440-428-5913

 

DATE:             August 14, 2012

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – The Mystery of Edwin Drood Opens at Rabbit Run
Theater

 

A Dickens of a Summer at Rabbit Run Theater ends with a bang with the
production of the rollicking and zany The Mystery of Edwin Drood.  This
musical murder mystery by Rupert Holmes opens Friday, Aug. 17 and runs
through Saturday, Sept. 1.

 

The Mystery of Edwin Drood is the last in a series of shows produced this
summer at Rabbit Run based on the life and works of Charles Dickens in
celebration of his 200th birthday. 

 

A show within a show, Drood opens with the Music Hall Royale acting troope
playfully mingling with the audience as they make their way to center stage
to perform their flamboyant rendition of this play with no ending.

 

John Jasper, a choirmaster with a Jekyll and Hyde demeanor, is madly in love
with his music student, the young and beautiful Rosa Bud.  Jasper’s nephew,
Edwin Drood, is also in love with Miss Bud and is, in fact, her fiancée.
Enter brother and sister, Neville and Helena Landless, exotic emigrants from
Ceylon.  Neville, too, falls for the fair Miss Bud.  A dinner party is
arranged, wine is served, tempers flare, and not long after Drood
disappears, for good.  

 

Who done it?  No one knows, for Charles Dickens died before revealing the
culprit to the world.  In true music hall tradition, the play is thrown open
to the audience as the acting troope, amidst much mayhem, leads the audience
in determining who the villain really is.    

 

“Playwright Rupert Holmes has taken a somewhat dark literary work and turned
it on its head by placing it in a turn-of-the-century English musical hall”,
said Brint Learned, director.  “The show is just plain fun for the audience
as well as the cast.  I believe Dickens would have cheered with the end
result.  He was the consummate showman and would have loved the pure
theatricality and light-hearted irreverence of the production.”

 

“It has been a pleasure this summer to be able to welcome Equity actor
George Roth to the Rabbit Run family.  He has performed in our last three
productions, and at every turn has shared his immense talent and experience
to help to make this season the best it could be.”


Roth portrays the Chairman who serves as a master of ceremony and narrator
as well as doubling, with the switch of a hat, as Mayor Sapsea.  Roth
studied theater at Yale University and at the Central School for Speech and
Drama in London and has appeared professionally on stage and screen over the
past 25 years including the feature film Batman (1989) and television’s
Murphy Brown and for the National Theatre of Great Britain.  His regional
theatrical appearances include The Cleveland Playhouse, Actors’ Summit in
Akron and True North in LaGrange. 

 

Edwin Drood is played by Kelly Smith.  Smith recently performed at Rabbit
Run  as Madeline Bray in The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby.  She
is a junior at Baldwin Wallace University with a double major in theatre and
business. 

 

Brian Altman is portraying the quasi-villainous John Jasper.  Altman has
performed at The Beck Center for the Arts, Lakeland Civic Theatre and Erie
Playhouse as well as appearing in numerous shows at Rabbit Run.

 

Other appearances include Heather Arata as Rose Bud; David Malinowski as the
butler Bazzard; Tom Hill as Durdles; Sandy Kosovich Peck as Princess Puffer;
Kyle Lorek as Neville Landless; Kelsey Bowens as Helena Landless; Jason
Goldston as the Deputy and Carl Simoncic as the Reverend Mr. Crisparkle.

 

Tickets are available on line at www.rabbitrunonline.org
<http://www.rabbitrunonline.org/>  or at the box office at 440-428-7092,
Wednesday through Sunday, 3 to 7 p.m.  Tickets are $19/adult and $17/senior,
student.  For group ticket sales call 440-428-5913.

 

An added bonus this summer at Rabbit Run Theater is a season-long online
ticket lottery.  Individuals, both adults and students, may register online
to win a pair of tickets to one of the Dickens productions this summer.  The
online ticket lottery is supported in part by the Ohio Humanities Council
and through the generosity of a private donor.  To enter this free ticket
lottery, visit www.rabbitrunonline.org <http://www.rabbitrunonline.org/> .
One entry per person per week.

 

Rabbit Run Theater is one of the few barn theaters still in operation in
Ohio and is located at 5648 W. Chapel Rd., Madison.  Rabbit Run operates
under the auspices of Rabbit Run Community Arts Association, a
comprehensive, non-profit fine arts association in Madison.  

 

RRCAA receives partial funding from the Ohio Arts Council, the Ohio
Humanities Council and the Lake Geauga Fund of the Cleveland Foundation and
the Lake County Visitors Bureau.  Corporate and foundation sponsors include,
ideastram, WCPN, the Behm Family Foundation, Fredon Corporation, McDonald’s
Damon Morgan Corporation, Phoenix Residential Centers, Inc. and Regal
Vineyards.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.neohiopal.org/pipermail/neohiopal-neohiopal.org/attachments/20120814/37d2f505/attachment-0004.htm>