Goodspeed Musicals has announced the cast of its new production of “Oliver!,” scheduled for June 19 through Sept. 8. The show is directed by frequent Goodspeed director Rob Ruggiero, who also happens to be the producing artistic director of TheaterWorks.
Elijah Rayman will star as Oliver Twist, with Donald Corren (one of Harvey Fierstein’s successors as Arnold Beckoff in the original mid-‘80s production of “Torch Song Trilogy”) as Fagin, Brandon Andrus (“Annie Get Your Gun” and “Camelot” at Goodspeed) as Bill Sikes, EJ Zimmerman as Nancy, and Gavin Swartz (Nigel in “Matilda” on Broadway) as the Artful Dodger.
Considering themselves in the ensemble: Miranda Gelch (as Bet and Charlotte), Jordana Grolnick (from Goodspeed’s “Chasing Rainbows”), Richard R. Henry (as Mr. Bumble), Joy Hermalyn (Mrs. Corney), Shannon Lee Jones (Old Sally), Jamie LaVerdiere (Mr. Sowerberry and Dr. Grimwig), Megan Loomis (from the national tour of “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder”), Andrew Mayer (Noah Claypole), Karen Murphy (from Goodspeed’s “Guys and Dolls” and “Show Boat,” as Mrs. Sowerberry and Mrs. Bedwin), Blue Man Group veteran Russell Rinker, Alex Stewart (Goodspeed’s “Oklahoma!”), Owen Tabaka (Charley Bates) and James Young (Mr. Brownlow), plus swing performer Dace McNally.
“Oliver!” marks the beginning of a new endeavor, The Goodspeed Kids Company. It’s a summer musical theater training program whose participants get to perform in Goodspeed shows. The students who will be in “Oliver!” are EmmaRose Arelt, Gordon Beck, Owen Bryan, Alexa Calegari, Ava Cannan, Logan Erwin, Avital Goldberg-Curran, Lauren Greco, Brendan Harris, Riley Kuever, Ava Loughlin, Meghan Pratt and Colin Soto. Details on all things “Oliver!” are at goodspeed.org.
Will’s New Dad
The current Goodspeed Opera House show, “The Will Rogers Follies,” has made a big casting change. David Garrison, who’s been playing Will’s father Clem in the show, has left to play Irving Berlin in “Come Back Like a Song” at Berkshire Theatre Group, which begins performances at the end of this month. The play-with-music by Lee Kalcheim is sort of a Tin Pan Alley “Million Dollar Quartet,” dramatizing a songwriters summit meeting of Irving Berlin, Jimmy Van Heusen and Harold Arlen in 1956.
The new Clem in “Will Rogers Follies” is William Parry, who started June 3 and will see the show through the end of its run, June 21. Parry was last at the Goodspeed Opera House in “High Button Shoes,” and has done four shows at the Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre in Chester: “The Circus in Winter,” “The Gig,” “Good Sports” and “Blanco!” His most recent Broadway credit was as Jenson in “Groundhog Day.” Parry played Mr. Simmons in the national tour of “Memphis” that played The Bushnell in 2012. Details at goodspeed.org.
Tony Time
CBS is televising the 2018 Tony Awards June 10 at 8 p.m. The categories that have Connecticut written all over them are the revival ones: “The Iceman Cometh” is by Eugene O’Neill, whose boyhood home in New London is now a historic site. “Three Tall Women” is by Edward Albee, who went to Choate Academy (and was expelled from Trinity College). “My Fair Lady” and “Carousel” both had their original pre-Broadway out-of-town try-outs (in 1945 and 1956 respectively) at the Shubert in New Haven.
Edgerton Awards Build New Plays
The first round of the Edgerton Foundation New Play Awards has been announced, and you should recognize quite a few of the names on the list. The awards, bestowed by the national organization Theatre Communications Group, provide funding for regional theaters to extend their rehearsal periods when developing new plays.
One of the plays receiving an Edgerton awards is “The Engagement Party” by Samuel Baum, which Dark Tresnjak will be directing at Hartford Stage Jan. 10 through Feb. 3 Another is Mark St. Germain’s adaptation of the John Updike novel “Gertrude and Claudius,” to be produced at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater; St. Germain’s “Relativity” premiered at TheaterWorks in 2015. Other recipients: Eliza Clark’s “Quack” at Center Theatre Group; Lauren Gunderson’s “The Wickhams: Christmas at Pemberley” at Marin Theatre Company; Sharyn Rothstein’s “Landladies” at Northlight Theatre; Ike Holter’s “Rightlynd” at Victory Gardens Theater; and three shows at Williamstown Theatre Festival: the musical “Lempicka” by Carson Kreitzer and Matt Gould; Adam Rapp’s “The Sound Inside”; and James Anthony Tyler’s “Artney Jackson.” Kreitzer is a Yale grad who has received a play commission from Yale Rep’s Binger Center for New Theatre.
Theater Reads
Those of us who dug Elizabeth Egloff’s locally rooted historical drama “Ether Dome” at Hartford Stage in 2014 should get a kick out of Michael Downs’ new novel “The Strange and True Tale of Horace Wells, Surgeon Dentist.” Downs’ book covers much the same ground as Egloff’s play – how a dentist in Connecticut developed the first medical anesthesia, and how his career was undone by his success, his bad business relationships and the reaction to his discovery. Both works involve characters that present-day Hartford citizens know as names of streets or as statues in the park.
“Saving Central Park: A History and a Memoir” by Elizabeth Barlow Rogers (founder of the Central Park Conservancy), gives over only a few paragraphs to New York Public Theater founder Joe Papp and his Shakespeare in the Park crusade: “Papp, a child of the slums, was a skilled street fighter with a passionately democratic artistic vision: free Shakespeare. He was able to garner extraordinarily favorable press and, like the playground mothers, took [New York City Parks Department Commissioner Robert] Moses to court.” Rogers’ rangy, emotional yet well-researched text lives up to its “history and memoir” label, especially when she discusses her gardening and her travels to other famous parks around the world. The book also contains beautiful color photos. (For the full story of Papp’s showdown with Moses, read the breezy 2010 tome “Free for All” by Papp and Kenneth Turan.)
Where Are They Now?
Acclaimed Yale-based new-music composer Martin Bresnick, whose chamber opera “My Friend’s Story” premiered at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in 2013, has written “Fanfare for 125,” which will premiere Oct. 4 as the New Haven Symphony Orchestra celebrates its (you guessed it) 125th anniversary. The NHSO has a few theater, dance or opera-based selections in its 2018-19 season: Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” prelude Oct. 4; Orff’s “Carmina Burana,” Tchaikovsky’s “Music from Sleeping Beauty” and Weber’s “Overture to Oberon” Nov. 8, and a “Wicked Divas” showtunes pops concert Feb. 14. Details at newhavensymphony.org.
Agatha Christie, whose “Murder on the Orient Express” was adapted by Ken Ludwig for Hartford Stage this past season, was a playwright herself. Thirteen of her lesser-known scripts (including “Butter in a Lordly Dish” and both the indoor and outdoor versions of “Towards Zero”) have just been made available through the performance rights company Samuel French — which already handles the rights to a dozen Christie plays, including “Witness for the Prosecution” and “The Mousetrap.”
Andre De Shields (Hedley in “Seven Guitars” at Yale Rep), Donna McKechnie (“Carefree: Dancin’ With Fred & Ginger” at the Garde Arts Center in 2016, “Annie Warbucks” and “Mack & Mabel” at Goodspeed) and Georgia Engel of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” lead the cast of the new musical “Half Time,” playing through July 1 at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse. The show concerns “ten ordinary seniors with extraordinary dreams who audition to dance at halftime for a major basketball team.”
