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Rebekah Diaddigo,
Sugar Plum Fairy

Thanks to the gift of memory, we make Nat “King” Cole rituals of the holidays. Folks dressed up like Eskimos build frosty snowmen. As chestnuts roast on an open fire, we sit squinched into a favorite armchair staring at presents piled high under a tree. Suddenly, magically, a little girl becomes a leggy pre-teen gawking at sugar plums dressed like fairy queens. In cities around the world,’tis the season of “The Nutcracker” ballet.

Locally, the Telluride Dance Academy, under the direction of artistic director/choreographer Valerie Madonia, is mounting its “Nutcracker” production this weekend at The Palm on Friday, December 12, 7 p.m. and on Sunday, December 14, 3 p.m.

The event features a large cast ranging in age from 3 – 50+, including local notables such as Jeb Berrier as the Rat King, Buff Hooper as Madam Bonbon, Ashley Boling as Uncle Drosselmeyer, the mysterious Merlin of a man, who has traveled the world gathering exotic gifts and stores beyond imagining. It is Drosselmeyer who gives Clara the present of a Nutcracker.

09 December, 2008 /

The Telluride Choral Society's annual WinterSing concert series celebrates the Holiday Season with a eclectic program of Holiday music old and new. Join us for an evening of warmth, laughter, and cheer! All adult and children groups to perform. Times:Wed 12/10   7pmFri 12/12   ...

09 December, 2008 /

On Sunday afternoon Susan and I were privileged to watch Valerie Madonia rehearsing some of the principals in the Telluride Dance Academy's upcoming production of "The Nutcracker". Watch for further posts about this event.  Rebekah Diaddigo, Suger Plum FairySummer Templin Culp, Assistant to Valerie MadoniaKaty...

08 December, 2008 /

IMG_0803 Today she is a wife, mother and beloved director/mentor but growing up, Jen Nyman Julia was a theatre brat. Her parents ran Starflower Productions in her hometown of Winslow, Maine, where actors from all over the country visit to appear in the Nymans’ musicals. 

05 December, 2008 /

In 1905, Maude Adams played Pan. Jean Arthur flew in the 1950s production. In the 1990s, former champion gymnast Cathy Rigby made Pan her signature role. But it was Mary Martin whose name became identified with Pan: the peerless performance in the 1954 production, in which she starred, was directed by choreographer Jerome Robbins.  This became the paradigm.

05 December, 2008 /

Before it was a play, “Peter Pan” was a small story in a book written by Scottish novelist James Matthew Barrie. Later Barrie himself turned “The Little White Bird” into a play, “The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up.” Initially the script was rejected by producers because the production was thought to be too elaborate: in addition to numerous and elaborate set changes, in 1904, plays generally did not call for special effects such as flying.

04 December, 2008 /

Ten years ago, when a starry-eyed go-getter named Jen Nyman (now Julia) arrived in town to build a young people’s theatre program at the historic Sheridan Opera House, Telluride pulled its Missouri stunt: “Show me, “ we said. Jen did. Big time.

Her response to the skeptics – “Really, we have Mudd Butts, who needs more kid’s theatre” – was to make like the lead of her first ever production, “Peter Pan”: pointing to the second star to the right, Jen led the way into the future.

04 December, 2008 /

Kicker: 2009 season features “The Sound of Music” and “Taming of the Shrew”

When the New York Shakespeare Festival staged its adaptation of Shakespeare’s “The Taming of the Shrew,” the director had Petruchio and Kate go toe-to-toe against the backdrop of the Wild West. Coincidently, the misogynistic romp opened on Broadway in July 1990 at almost exactly the same time a new theatre company was born in a small Western town that had long ago shed its chaps and buckskin – save for a few crusty old goats and cowboy wannnabes.

Nineteen years later, in June, 2009, the Telluride Repertory Theatre plans to mount its version of the sassy battles of the sexes, reinserting a linchpin in the town’s summer entertainment calendar: Free Shakespeare in the Park.

22 November, 2008 /

Once upon a long time ago, her former husband, Bunzy Bunworth,
tried to convince his brand new bride to leave the East coast and head West to a ski town in the mountains. Reading up on her prospective new home, Suzan Beraza was pleased to discover that Telluride had a theatre. Being an ambitious and hardworking young actress, she decided to jumpstart her new life by sending along an 8x10 head shot and a resume.

15 November, 2008 /