William from Mount Vernon, NY, just won a date combo to Chelsea Opera’s The Ballad of Baby Doe as well as a $25 dining certificate on a harbor Spirit Cruise. New dates coming soon. We love giving stuff away!May 1, 2008
On the morning of May 1st, our web server suffered a serious system failure that kept us offline all day. We have now recovered the site and are back to serve you. We apologize for any inconvienence.
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Seeing Stars: The Aspern Papers interview: playwright Martin Zuckerman April 25, 2008 |
Kelly King as Walter Cozen and Elisabeth Grace Rothan as Tita Bordereau play cat and mouse in The Aspern Papers
This month Turtle Shell Productions is presenting a new stage adaptation of Henry James’ novella The Aspern Papers. Former mathematics professor and now busy playwright Martin Zuckerman reads between the lines of James’ story of 19th century literary skullduggery to make it live and breathe on stage. United Stages wanted to know…
What was it about The Aspern Papers that made you go “Aha!”
The complex interrelationships among the three main characters. Each wants something from the other two, but is conflicted by countervailing emotions that result in a web of deceit, longing, and torment.
Is it hard to write dialogue from a novella?
There is so much good dialogue in this (The Aspern Papers) that it was tempting to use it all. In the end I took some lines from the novella, modified others or used them in entirely different contexts, and omitted the rest. The hardest thing was to write other dialogue and make it sound like James.
Do you like attending rehearsals?
I do enjoy the rehearsal process, and the rewriting, though I am not quite as happy about
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Seeing Stars: Mill Fire interview: Playwright Sally Nemeth and actor Mike Mihm April 12, 2008 |
Marlene (Lauren Kelston) with her mill-working man, Champ (Mike Mihm).
Photo by Kristen Vaughan
Playwright Sally Nemeth and actor Mike Mihm are two kinds of story tellers working in complimentary disciplines and each, in their own way, is inspired and informed by early experiences in mill towns. In Retro Productions’ revival of Ms. Nemeth’s play Mill Fire, Mr. Mihm portrays the leading role of Champ, a high school football star who opted for steel mill work. Starting with the playwright, United Stages wanted to know…
Was there a specific event that inspired you to write Mill Fire?
Sally Nemeth: No specific event, just a life of living in steel towns. When I was small, we lived in the Indiana Dunes, near the Indiana Harbor and Gary, and my dad worked as a shift manager at Inland Steel. Then we moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where he was the rolling mill manager at Phoenix Steel. When we first moved there we lived in company housing that was right across the street from the steel mill, and we could always see and smell it. As young as five years old, Dad would slap a hardhat and a mill coat on me and
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Seeing Stars: We Call Her Benny April 8, 2008 |
Benny’s bedfellows (clockwise from bottom left): Tim Smallwood, Bob Celli, Bob Brader, Morgan Lindsey Tachco, Judy Krause, Anna Bridgforth, Nathan Faudree, Danny Wiseman, Einar Gunn and Candice Owens. Photo by Scott Wynn
Suzanne Bachner and Bob Brader of The John Montgomery Theatre Company are in love with storytelling, artistic collaboration and…each other. This New York theater power couple keeps it real by presenting stories that dig deep and get personal. With their company’s newest show We Call Her Benny playing in April, United Stages wanted to know…
How’d you get your name, who runs the company and who is the bossiest?
Suzanne: The John Montgomery Theatre Company (JMTC) was founded in England by Patrick Hillan in 1994 and named after John Montgomery Hillan, Patrick's dead dad. Patrick and I got married and moved here. We ran a theater space in Chelsea for four years producing both classics and original work, moved to LA, came back to New York and found an artistic home at Horse Trade. The first show we co-produced there was my play Circle, which moved to an Off-Broadway contract and ran for five months at The Kraine.
Bob: Man, this is getting long.
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March 12, 2008
Like many New York theater stars, Ramirez and Amboyer find multiple uses for their United Stages playbill. Photo by Bruce Glikas/Film Magic
Ahem, yes, that’s right, seeing is believing and now that United Stages’ playbill has made the March national tabloids Star magazine, Life & Style Weekly and the Daily News’ Side Dish gossip column (and, oh yeah, Sara Ramirez and Dan Amboyer are in the photos, too) we can finally join the chorus of paparazzi-chased celebrities who publicly grumble but secretly relish the attention. Note to self: Will New York small-venue shows, producers, playwrights and stars ever again be allowed their privacy? We hope not. BTW we caught a performance of David Bell’s comedy The Play About the Naked Guy a couple weeks back. Very funny and “inside.” Word is it’s coming back in the fall.
