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CT Rep Gets Historical For 2018-19; Downtown Cabaret Announces Season

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Connecticut Repertory Theatre’s has announced its 2018-19 season, and there’s a distinct historical theme, with several wars in the background, but there’s also a newish play set in a dystopian otherworld.

The season opens Oct. 4 to 14 with Frank Galati’s dynamic, ensemble-driven stage adaptation of the required-high-school-reading classic “The Grapes of Wrath” by John Steinbeck. Longtime UConn drama faculty member Gary English directs the Dust Bowl saga.

The first of two Studio Workshop shows at CT Rep is Tracy Thorne’s “Good Children,” directed by UConn Director of Theatre Studies Michael Bradford Oct. 25 through Nov. 4. The theater describes the script thus: “In a dystopian world, young Val doesn’t know how to comfort his traumatized mother. He longs to overcome the constant fear of losing the people closest to him. But in this upside-down society, the ones who protect you the most are the ones you should fear the most.”

From Nov. 29 through Dec. 9, CT Rep marks the holiday season with “A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration.” The large-cast history/holiday pageant — set in and around the White House in 1864 and featuring such historical figures as Elizabeth Keckley, Ulysses S. Grant and Mary Todd Lincoln — is ideal for a large college-based company. Paula Vogel’s play premiered in 2008 at the Long Wharf in New Haven and has had major productions around the country and in New York. There was an ambitious community-based production in New Haven in 2009 organized by New Haven Theater Company. The show typically requires a cast of 12 to 15 people. Elizabeth Van Dyke, who’s affiliated with Ensemble Studio Theatre and New York Theatre Workshop, will direct.

“The Crucible” at Connecticut Repertory Theatre this past season.

CT Rep does a musical mid-season for a change: Paul Mullins (whose previous shows at the theater include “The Crucible,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Urinetown”) directs “The Mystery of Edwin Drood,” Feb. 28 through March 10. Rupert Holmes’ 1985 Broadway hit attempts to seek closure for Charles Dickens’ final, unfinished mystery novel of the same title. The whodunnit is ultimately solved by a vote from the audience.

The second show in the Studio Theatre series is Erin Shields’ “If We Were Birds,” March 28 through April 7. The 2010 play takes an incident from Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” the rape of Philomela by her brother-in-law Tereus, and mines it for modern social and psychological significance. Helene Kvale, who did “Eurydice” for CT Rep in 2017, will direct.

The season ends April 25 through May 5 with “Henry IV.” The two-part William Shakespeare drama will be adapted into a single evening, directed by Madeleine Sayet (who did “She Kills Monsters” for CT Rep this past season).

Connecticut Repertory Theatre is offering season subscription packages, available now. Single ticket sales will begin Sept. 1. Details at 860-486-2113, crt.uconn.edu.

Lesli Margherita in “Who’s Holiday!” The off Broadway hit, which has roots in a TheaterWorks one-act, may be Broadway-bound.

Where Are They Now?

“Who’s Holiday!,” Matthew Lombardo’s full-length “Grinch Who Stole Christmas” parody which grew out of a single scene Lombardo concocted for TheaterWorks’ “Christmas on the Rocks, may be Broadway bound. The show’s original off-Broadway run was stalled by a lawsuit from Dr. Seuss Enterprises. After “Who’s Holiday!” was legally vindicated as a parody (rather than a copyright infringement), the show ran for six weeks off Broadway last season.

Tina Landau, the Yale grad who directed “Deathless” at Goodspeed’s Norma Terris Theatre last summer, will see her Broadway show “SpongeBob SquarePants” close Sept. 16. The show announced its closing date last week. The New York run for the show (which Landau not only directed but co-conceived) was way shorter than hoped, but you know this one’s gonna endure for decades thanks to small theater and school productions.

Tazewell Thompson, who’s directed several shows at TheaterWorks and was the artistic director of Westport Country Playhouse from 2006-08, has written an opera with composer Jeanine Tesori (“Fun Home”). “Blue” will have its premiere next season at New York’s Glimmerglass Festival. A press release states that “the opera focuses on a black family in Harlem: the father, a police officer; the mother, loving and fearful for her child; and their son, a politically active teenager.”

Bloomfield native Anika Noni Rose (Broadway’s “Caroline or Change,” Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog” plays the title role in Classic Stage Company’s revival of the musical “Carmen Jones.” The show’s run has been extended through Aug. 19. “Carmen Jones” is directed by John Doyle, CSC’s artistic director. Doyle’s touring production of “The Color Purple” was at The Bushnell this past December.

Bloomfield native Anika Noni Rose in “Carmen Jones” at Classic Stage Company in New York. The show’s run has been extended through Aug. 19.

Downtown Cabaret’s 2018-19

The 2018-19 season at Downtown Cabaret Theatre in Bridgeport will include “Legally Blonde,” Sept. 21 through Oct. 14; “Annie” Nov. 30 through Dec. 30; the season’s sole nonmusical, “1984,” Feb. 1-17; “Sister Act” March 15 through April 7; and “The Full Monty” April 26 through May 19. The theater’s popular children’s theater series will include “Little Witches” (Oct. 6-28), “The Christmas Elf 2” (Nov. 10 through Dec. 23), “Rumplestiltskin” (Jan. 12 through Feb. 10), “The Princess and the Frog” (Feb. 23 through March 31) and “Snow White” (April 13 through May 19. Details at dtcab.com

Downtown Cabaret Theatre’s recent production of “Priscilla, Queen of the Desert”

Let Us Spray

Seeing “In the Heights” at Playhouse on Park got me dizzy, from something I wasn’t smelling. The show opens with a graffiti artist wielding a can of spray paint… but holding off from actually painting with it. The reticence just doesn’t seem in character. Fumes are clearly the problem; stinking up the stage can unnerve even the most enthusiastic audiences. I inquired at a few art supply stores, who told me that even the new sugar-based and environmentally friendly spray paint brands aren’t completely odor-free. There have been some fun dialogues in theater chat rooms about the exact challenges posed by “In the Heights.” Solutions range from using spray mist (to give the illusion that the actor is painting) to hairspray (which reminds us of another musical with an aerosol problem) to the use of projections and even ultraviolet “invisible ink” effects. Bringing street art indoors is one problem the American theater may never be able to solve.

“In the Heights” at Playhouse on Park. Note the pre-sprayed graffiti in the background.