Hartt At The Cape; Reading At Playwrights Conference

Two of the creators of the Tony Award-winning musical “Spring Awakening” are trying out a different kind of show with music as part of the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterford in July.

“No One’s Sonata” by Steven Sater features music by Mahler and Beethoven, re-imagined by composer Duncan Sheik. Featured in the cast are Laila Robins (Broadway’s “Heartbreak House,” TV’s “Homeland”) and Tony Award-winning Frank Wood (HBO series “Flight of the Conchords”).

Wendy C. Goldberg, artistic director of the conference, will stage the show, which also features Kieran Campion, Kristen Sieh and Amy Spanger. The readings will be July 10 at 7:15 p.m. and July 11 at 8:15 p.m.

In other casting news at the conference, seven-time Emmy Award nominee Jane Kaczmarek (TV’s “Malcolm in the Middle”), Tony Award-winner Michael Beresse (director-choreographer of “[title of show]”) and Tony nominee Reed Birney (Broadway’s “Casa Valentina”) are cast in the Wendy MacLeod’s “Slow Food” on July 24 at 7:15 p.m., and July 25 at 8:15 p.m. Kent Nicholson directs.

A founding program of the O’Neill, the playwrights conference began in 1964 as a retreat for playwrights eager to write new work and has since been a launch-pad for hundreds of new works for the stage. Information: 860-443-1238 and theoneill.org.

Hartt To The Cape

Some Hartt School theater students are spending their summers on Cape Cod, working in the summer stock company at Monomoy Theatre in Chatham, Mass.

The Hartt School at the University of Hartford earlier this year became the primary sponsor at the theater, taking over from Ohio University, which had managed the 250-seat theater for 57 years.

University of Hartford President Walter Harrison said the arrangement will give students “the experience of seeing what it’s like to perform at all aspects of a busy summer stock company.”

“They also get a chance to work in an intense theater environment where they’re playing one role in a current production and they’re rehearsing a totally different play in an entirely different theater production,” he said in a statement announcing the affiliation.

The picturesque, gray-shingled theater’s sets are built in an adjacent barn and costumes are sewn in a nearby carriage house. Rehearsals take place in a large tent set up on a wooden platform in the adjacent woods.

The University of Hartford has been involved with Monomoy for years, serving as a secondary sponsor, working with the University of Ohio.

Alan Rust, Hartt’s theater division director, has been Monomoy’s artistic director for 36 years.

Harrison says the university hopes to eventually partner with another college or two in New England, but for now is running the theater alone.

The 38-member theater company includes 12 actors and actresses along with stage managers, and assistant directors from the university. Students and faculty members from other colleges with expertise in costumes, makeup, set design, and other areas round out the company along with Equity guest actors.

Adding a summer stock theater to The Hartt School’s offerings will help with its student recruitment, Rust said. The Hartt School also has professional artistic partnerships with Hartford Stage and the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam.

Monomoy’s lineup this summer is the musical “Damn Yankees,” Agatha Christie’s “The Hollow,” Ken Ludwig’s “Lend Me a Tenor,” Steve Martin’s “The Underpants,” the musical “The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee,” “Pride and Prejudice,” Neil Simon’s “Biloxi Blues” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Dramatic Moments

It was an emotional time at two theaters on the night of June 26, following the Supreme Court decision legalizing same sex marriage and President Barack Obama’s rendition of “Amazing Grace” ending his eulogy for slain Charleston church pastor Clementa Pinckney.

“You could feel the electricity,” says Rob Ruggiero, director of “La Cage Aux Folles,” which had its first preview performance at Goodspeed Opera House the night of the Supreme Court decision.

“It was one of those extraordinary nights in the theater that are rare and unforgettable. Although to me the show is about a non-traditional family and has no innate political agenda, it surely was ‘kismet’ that we had our [first preview] performance on this special day for all Americans. There were several times — such as the singing of “I Am, What I Am” — that nearly stopped the show.

“When the audience lept to its feet at the curtain call it was incredible but you also knew it was bigger than the experience of the play. It was a night I will treasure always… a moment where the connection between life and art was inevitable and powerful.”

The reaction was similar during the preview performance on Broadway for the new musical “Amazing Grace,” which received a workshop production at Goodspeed Musical’s Norma Terris Theater in 2012.

“The cast — and audience — sang the song that night with extra awareness [that night] and a deeper feeling knowing the president had used it in one of the saddest occasions in our country,” says producer Carolyn Rossi Copeland. “Our show couldn’t have opened at a more appropriate time for our country because the song is the perfect healing balm.”

The show, which has a pre-Broadway run in Chicago last year, opens in New York on July 16.

Elizabeth Wilson Remembered

Remembrances from actor Meryl Streep and former Long Wharf Theatre artistic director Arvin Brown were read Monday afternoon at the memorial celebration for stage, film and television actor Elizabeth Wilson.

Actors Fritz Weaver, John Glover, Cherry Jones, Reed Birney, directors David Saint and Casey Childs and playwright A.R. Gurney were among those who spoke of Wilson, who died in May at the age of 94. The Tony Award-winning actor lived for many years in Branford, with her sister, who died two weeks later.

From Streep’s remarks: “Elizabeth Wilson was sly and shy which is a particularly feminine combination of graceful and dangerous. Her disarming laughter and sparkly eyes betrayed a wit that was never pushed upon the group. She projected the diplomacy of good manners — an ancient art — but had her raunchy side and loved a nasty joke. She laughed longest and hardest at Mike Nichols’ wickedest lines. … I took many lessons from her about hard work and not complaining about it, and about patience with the process — and each other. … [She was] a teacher, though she might not have known it, and a delight. …The theater world mourns a great, great gal.”

From Brown (who directed her in Long Wharf’s “Dinner at Eight” and “Ah, Wilderness!”): “I can think of no American actress as brilliant as my dear friend..at playing women of limited horizons. The wit, intelligence and vulnerability she brought to her gallery of repressed spinsters, hilariously self-absorbed society women or myopic suburban housewives raised these marginal creatures to near mythic proportions. [But] her own boundaries were virtually limitless. “

Also attending were screenwriter/playwright Paul Rudnick, Carol Kane. Maureen Anderman, Jack Gilpin and director Jack Hofsiss.

Short Takes

>>Sue Ann Collins, senior vice president and chief actuary at TIAA-CREF, is the new board president of Hartford Stage. Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America is a life insurance organization with $250 billion of assets. Collins succeeds Jill Adams, who served as Hartford Stage board president for the past three years. Newly elected to the board are Sharon Jepson, Erin Keith, Amy Leppo Mandell, Dawn C. Morris, Joshua R. Newton, and Don C. Sikes.

>>The run of the musical “La Cage Aux Folles” has been extended a week to Sept. 10 at the Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam, Information: goodspeed.org.