Ensemble Theatre of Chattanooga Produces Original, “Silent Christmas”

Reporting: Monessa Guilfoil

Directed by Garry Lee Posey

Music Direction by John Thomas Cecil

Stage Managed by Seth Wilson

Set Designed by Christy Gallo

Featuring: Marianna Allen (Short Attention Span 2010), Jamie Goodnight (Furry Tails), Ellen Poole (Deadlies), Ryan Laskowski (Mixed Media), Bill LaPoint, Morgan Robbins, & Kalena Wood

ETC also offers “Furry Tails… With a Twist,” a touring show for youth written by Jennifer Hickok DeFratis:

The premise of the play is simple.  Two actors show up at a school to perform three famous children’s stories.  However, within the first three minutes of showing up, their script gets out of order and the intern that typed it forgot to add page numbers.  Not only did this intern forget to add page numbers but she made some very interesting typos.  Improvising, the ways the actors skillfully know how to do, they start the show “as written” only to discover that certain props and costumes were not packed.  EEEK!  But the two actors survive, the audience assists with stories and lessons are learned about recycling, story structure and being kind to animals.  A hilarious hoot through to the end!

Listen to the Audio with Director, Garry Posey about “Silent Christmas,” the original production by ETC:

Holiday Home Show on December 11, 2010

Come enjoy a little holiday cheer & shop for unique hand crafted art away from the traffic and frenzy of the malls.  Find that perfect present or indulge yourself with an original piece of art.

Time:
Saturday, December 11 · 12:00pm – 5:00pm
Location:
Brick House Studio
204 Hillcrest Ave
Chattanooga, TN 37411

Featuring:
Janet Campbell – Jewelry
Jeanie Holland – Mixed Media
T.R. Reed – Kinetic Sculpture
Thomas Spake – Blown Glass
Traci Batchelor Paden – Hand Painted Silk

For more information please contact Janet Campbell at jmcmetals@gmail.com or 423-314-0164.

 

“Times Square Angel” On-Stage for Circle Series at Chattanooga Theatre Centre

Reporting: Monessa Guilfoil

The Theatre Centre Circle Series continues this Holiday Season by offering a play for adults written and originally performed by Charles Busch and company in 1987.       The following comes from CTC’s Press Release:

Charles Busch’s campy melodramedy is a satire of the Hollywood fantasy films of the 1940s such as It’s A Wonderful Life and The Bishop’s Wife with a bit of A Christmas Carol thrown in there, from the playwright who gave us Psycho Beach Party. An alternative adult holiday entertainment. It’s the story of Irish O’Flanagan, a street urchin who has her dreams dashed by cruel fate, grows into a big burlesque star, and chooses financial security over true love, closing off her heart until the fateful Christmas Eve when she gets one last chance to make things right. Like a steaming lilac-scented bubble bath or an embarrassingly large molten chocolate dessert, the best way to enjoy Times Square Angel is to sit back, turn off the plot-following part of your brain, and just let the sweet, sweet cheesiness flow over you. Suddenly you’ll realize that Irish O’Flanagan and her chorus boy are singing a medley of Christmas carols in which they impugn each other’s age, appearance, talent, and virtue, exactly like a couple of Ann Miller and Debbie Reynolds impersonators on a sketch comedy show. And it won’t be a bad holiday after all.

I read in Theatre Mania that Charles Busch plans to perform a staged-reading of his play as part of a Twelfth Annual event in New York.     He will once again dawn the role of Irish O’Flanagan, the “tough-as-nails nightclub chanteuse in 1940’s Manhatten who makes Scrooge look like a sentimental sap,” according to Dan Bacalzo who did the write up.

Busch has a website at CharlesBusch.com with what may be the original play poster for “Times Square Angel” shown below.      Here’s some more facts related on his website:

Times Square Angel was first performed at the Limbo Lounge in December, 1984.
It was performed Off-Broadway at the Provincetown Playhouse, November 1985.

Listen to the Story:

“The Producers” by Mel Brooks to open on Theatre Centre’s Main stage

Reporting: Monessa Guilfoil

“The Producers” opens Friday, August 13th, 2010 at the Chattanooga Theatre Centre.     Magge Hudgins directs this classic Brook’s musical comedy starring Chattanoogan’s, Allan Ledford in the role of Max Bialystock and Zach Cavan as Leo Bloom.      Here’s the write up from the Theatre Centre webpage:

The Mel Brooks Musical Adapted by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meehan. Lyrics by Mel Brooks; Music by Mel Brooks and Glen Kelly.

Adapted from the 1968 Mel Brooks movie by the same name, The Producers is the story of two theatrical producers who scheme to get rich quick by overselling interests in a Broadway show sure to be a flop. But when the show turns out to be a rousing success, things get complicated. The original production opened in 2001 on Broadway starring Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick and received a record 12 Tony Awards.

Nancy Shute wrote about “The Producers” for US News & World Report in 2001 in an article entitled, “20 Mel Brooks, His Humor Brings Down Hitler and the House.” Here’s an excerpt:

When the movie of The Producers debuted in 1968, many critics panned it as crude. But the film is now considered a classic, and when the stage version opened on Broadway earlier this year, it was an instant hit, sweeping the Tony Awards. It also sparked fresh complaints about its gleeful mockery of Nazis, Jews, and homosexuals.

Mel Brooks was well aware of Hitler’s tragic follies, Shute’s article continues:

Brooks, who is Jewish, saw the results of Hitler’s handiwork firsthand, while serving in the Army in Europe in World War II. “I didn’t see the camps, but I saw streams of refugees. They were starving. It was horrible.” Brooks attacked that horror with the only weapon he had–his wit.

Mel Brooks

Listen to interview with Magge Hudgins, Zack Cavan and Allan Ledford: