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 ...
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...
Cast of Characters
(in order of appearance)
Mrs. Darling/Minerva…Ryan Hanley
John Darling…Jonathan Gerald
Michael Darling…Scarlet Holvenstot
Wendy Darling…Ryan Niebrugge
Liza…Amber Furnee
Mr. Darling/Captain Hook…Robert Brown
Peter Pan…Emma Walker-Silverman
Tinkerbell…Morgan Fansler
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
The news we get out of Africa is generally one-sided and not good. In America, “Africa” spells “t-r-o-u-b-l-e”: AIDS, malaria, genocide, impasse in Zimbabwe, fighting in the Congo, slavery in West Africa. Although the continent is comprised of 54 distinct countries, we tend to think of it as a monolith conjoined to the word “darkest,” suggesting a backward, dangerous, remote corner of the world where hope disappears in dense jungles. But hope is not dead – far from it. Signs of hope are headed our way in the form of The African Children’s Choir.
