From Shakespeare to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, New Jersey theaters offer a summer of excitement.
Related Story:
Operatic
Efforts – Scott and Lisa Altman eat, sleep and breath New
Jersey Opera Theater, the fledging nonprofit company the Plainsboro couple founded
in 2002.
By: Matt Smith
!["image"]("/local/Z/ZWIRE1091/zwire/images/2004-05-26-tTO-SHAKESPEARE_0528.jpg")
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Very Old Man with Enormous Wings, adapted by Nilo Cruz, will be performed on the outdoor stage (top) at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey June 22 to July 11. |
The hot summer months bring myriad distractions beach
trips, baseball games and blockbuster movies at air-conditioned multiplexes.
Still, there is nothing that cools an overheated spirit like a theatrical trip
to Elizabethan England, and no better tour guide than William Shakespeare.
Each summer, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey brings
the Bard to the campus of Drew University in Madison. Its promising 2004 season
gets underway with Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost June 8 and concludes
in December with Illyria, a musical version of Twelfth Night.
Other notable work includes the rarely performed history play Richard II
(Aug. 10 to 29), and an outdoor production of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s A
Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (June 22 to July 11) adapted by Pulitzer
Prize-winning playwright Nilo Cruz (Anna in the Tropics).
"We try to do things that aren’t done as much," says Bonnie
Monte, entering her 14th season as artistic director. "’Richard II’ is such
an apt play for these times, as it’s about a very problematic ruler… (‘A Very
Old Man’) is beautiful, gorgeous, very poetic, an extraordinary story, written
in 1955. It’s been kicking around for a while in its original form. This is
like a second work of art inspired by the first."
Ms. Monte will direct A Very Old Man and the great
Shakespeare tragedy Macbeth (Oct. 19 to Nov. 19), in addition to her
demanding artistic-director duties.
"It’s an exhausting job and a very high-pressure job and a
very frustrating job," she says. "It’s not easy sustaining a classical theater
in this day and age, and being a teaching theater that’s very dedicated to that.
As you get older, and a little bit of idealism wears off, and knowledge of the
reality of the world weighs on you, it just gets harder. Yet my stubbornness
in doing it certainly gets stronger and my dedication never wanes. I love it."
Princeton Summer Theater is gearing up for another season
on the Princeton University Campus. Jed Peterson, who just finished his sophomore
year in the Ivy League, is serving as artistic director. It is a post, in all
seriousness, that was his destiny.
"I’ve been entertaining the idea for most of my life," says
Mr. Peterson, "because my parents actually met working on theater in Princeton.
My father was general manager of Princeton Summer Theater (then called Summer
Intime) in 1968."
The 2004 edition opens June 17 with the madcap The Complete
Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), moves on to David Auburn’s math-themed
family drama Proof, then Private Lives by Noel Coward, and finally
A.R. Gurney’s Scenes From an American Life.
Mr. Peterson will act in three plays and direct the other,
Proof. "It’s just such a good script," he says. "The relationship between
characters is nicely drawn. With Catherine, there’s a great strength behind
her. She’s able to take care of her ailing father but at the same time she’s
very passive. She has to be very sensitive and vulnerable."
In addition to Princeton students, the 13-member ensemble
includes students from The College of New Jersey, SUNY-Purchase, the University
of Maryland and the Moscow Art Theatre School, where Mr. Peterson studied for
two years before returning to Princeton for his sophomore year. They will be
joined by children ages 7 to 12, who will participate in four weekly workshops,
as well high-school students from the inaugural PST: Second Company. Those young
actors will cap a three-week intensive with a performance of the family show
The Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood.
"It’s show after show," says Mr. Peterson. "We’re rehearsing
one while performing another, rehearsing two while another is in performance.
Really, it’s non-stop from June through August, and we just have to keep at
it."
Princeton Summer Theater is offering its audience a taste
of the Bard with The Complete Works, but just across town the venerable
Princeton Repertory Shakespeare Festival is staging two audience-pleasers at
Pettoranello Gardens, Romeo and Juliet (June 3 to 27) and Much Ado
About Nothing (July 15 to Aug. 8). The Open Air Theatre in Washington Crossing
State Park is also getting into the Shakespearean act, opening its 41st season
with a Shakespeare ’70 production of Twelfth Night.
Mark Saxton is the new general manager of the Open Air Theatre.
Mr. Saxton was just appointed to the post a few weeks ago but brings a wealth
of experience, including his daytime job as program director for Historic Philadelphia
Inc., where he produces Revolutionary War-era plays and interpretations.
The Bristol, Pa., resident is head of a theatrical family
that includes wife Drucy McDaniel, who acts frequently in Philadelphia, 17-year-old
daughter Mianna, also an actress, and 14-year-old son Charlie, who just finished
a five-month run in the Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Working
with the personalities from the community-theater groups at the Open Air Theatre
won’t be a problem for Mr. Saxton.
"Everybody has different needs and different approaches to
doing theater," he says. "My approach is to take as much stress and strain off
the people performing the plays and the directors so they can be free to create.
"I like challenges," Mr. Saxton continues. "We’re basically
doing street theater, outdoor theater, which is not something foreign to me.
You have to deal with the weather. You never know when a deer might come wandering
onstage, or some other woodland creature."
SUMMER
PREVIEW: ON STAGE
Actors’ NET of Bucks County
Heritage Center
635 N. Delmorr Ave.
Morrisville, Pa.
(215) 295-3694
www.actorsnetbucks.org
Sweeney Todd, June 3-20; 1776, July 2-4; The
Man Who Bought a Country, July 22-Aug. 15.
Bristol Riverside Theatre
120 Radcliffe St.
Bristol, Pa.
(215) 785-0100
www.brtstage.org
Musicale series: Always, Patsy Cline, June 10-20; Over the
Rainbow, July 8-18; Showstopper Broadway, Aug. 5-15.
Bucks County Playhouse
70 S. Main St.
New Hope, Pa.
(215) 862-2041
www.buckscountyplayhouse.com
Jeckyll & Hyde, through June 6; Man of La Mancha, June
9-20; Fiddler on the Roof, June 23-July 4; A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum, July 7-11; Nunsense, July
14-18; Nunsense II, July 21-25; Kiss Me Kate, July
28-Aug. 8; Grease, Aug. 11-29; children’s theater: Aladdin,
June 25-26; Alice in Wonderland, July 2-3; The Wizard
of Oz, July 9-10, 16-17; Cinderella, July 23-24; Sleeping
Beauty, July 30-31; The Little Mermaid, Aug. 6-7; Rapunzel,
Aug. 13-14; Beauty and the Beast, Aug. 20-21; Shrek,
Aug. 27-28.
Center Players
Center Playhouse
35 South St.
Freehold
(732) 462-9093
www.centerplayers.org
Barefoot in the Park, July 9-Aug. 8.
Forum Theatre Company
314 Main St.
Metuchen
(732) 548-0582
www.akidsforum.com
Children’s theater: Alice in Wonderland, through June 5; James
and the Giant Peach, June 29-July 7; Rapunzel, July 20-Aug.
7; The Wizard of Oz, Aug. 10-28.
Hunterdon Hills Playhouse
88 Route 173 West
Hampton
(800) 447-7313
www.hhplayhouse.com
Everybody Loves Opal, through June 30; Heat Wave, July
6-Aug. 28.
Kelsey Theatre
Mercer County Community College
1200 Old Trenton Road
West Windsor
(609) 584-9444
www.kelseyatmccc.org
Children’s theater: Two Marys, Five Jacks, and One Very Big Show, July
9-10; The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, July16-17;
Nosing Around with Baked Oranges, July 23-24; The Elves and
the Shoemaker, July 30-31; Jack and the Beanstalk, Aug.
6-7.
Langhorne Players
Spring Garden Mill Playhouse
Tyler State Park
101 Swamp Road
Newtown, Pa.
(215) 860-0818
High Dive, June 4-19; The Laramie Project, July 9-24;
Educating Rita, Aug. 13-28.
McCarter Theatre
91 University Place
Princeton
(609) 258-2787
www.mccarter.org
My Fair Lady, through June 27.
New Hope Arts Commission
Make Believe Players
New Hope-Solebury High School
180 W. Bridge St.
New Hope, Pa.
(215) 862-5496
(215) 862-1699
Children’s theater: The Little Mermaid, Aug. 6-7; Brundibar,
Aug. 13-14.
New Jersey Opera Theater
Hamilton Murray Theater
Murray-Dodge Hall
Princeton University
(609) 919-1767 (info)
(609) 258-5155 (tickets, after June 1)
www.njot.org
The New Jersey Opera Theater 2004 Summer Vocal Institute, July 26-Aug. 22.
Mainstage operas: Don Giovanni, Aug. 16, 20; Albert Herring,
Aug. 17, 21; L’enfant et les Sortilèges/Ba-Ta-Clan, Aug.
18, 22; Concert series, Aug. 8-22; Master classes, July 29-Aug.
4 (Woolworth Center, Princeton University).
New Jersey Performing Arts Center
1 Center St.
Newark
(888) 466-5722
www.njpac.org
Les Misérables, June 9-13.
Off-Broadstreet Theatre
5 S. Greenwood Ave.
Hopewell
(609) 466-2766.
Murder By the Book, through June 19; A Class Act, July
2-Aug. 14; children’s theater: Robin Hood and His Merry Men, June
4-5; Rumpelstiltskin, July 9-10; Cinderella, Aug.
13-14.
Open Air Theatre
Washington Crossing State Park
Titusville
(609) 737-1826
www.princetonol.com/groups/openair/
Shakespeare ’70: Twelfth Night, June 10-19; Newtown Arts Company:
Swing, June 24-July 3; Playful Theatre Productions: The Secret
Garden, July 8-17; Yardley Players: Tom Sawyer, July 22-31;
Pennington Players: South Pacific, Aug. 5-14; Stars in the Park:
Oklahoma, Aug. 19-28.
Paper Mill Playhouse
Brookside Drive
Millburn
(973) 376-4343
www.papermill.org
Guys and Dolls, June 2-July 18.
Playhouse 22
210 Dunhams Corner Road
East Brunswick
www.playhouse22.org
(732) 254-3939
Fanny, June 5-27; The Women, July 17-Aug. 8.
Plays-in-the-Park
Stephen J. Capestro Theater
Roosevelt Park
Route 1
Edison
(732) 548-2884
www.playsinthepark.com
The Fantasticks, June 30-July 10; Footloose, July 21-31;
Kiss Me Kate, Aug. 11-21.
Princeton Repertory Shakespeare Festival
Community Park North Amphitheatre
Pettoranello Gardens
Princeton
(609) 921-3682
www.princetonrep.org
Romeo and Juliet, June 3-27; Much Ado About Nothing, July
15-Aug. 8.
Princeton Summer Theater
Hamilton Murray Theater
Princeton University Campus
Princeton
(609) 258-7062
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged, June 17-July 4;
Proof, July 8-18; Private Lives, July 22-Aug. 1;
Scenes from American Life, Aug. 5-15; children’s theater: The
Somewhat True Tale of Robin Hood, July 23-31.
Sayreville Main Street Theatre Co.
Step Inn Ballroom
McCutcheon Avenue
Sayreville
(732) 553-1153
www.smstc.org
Jekyll & Hyde, June 11-26.
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre
Drew University campus
36 Madison Ave.
Madison
(973) 408-5600
www.shakespearenj.org
Love’s Labour’s Lost, June 8-27; A Very Old Man With Enormous
Wings, June 22-July 11; Hay Fever, July 13-Aug. 1;
Richard II, Aug. 10-29; Of Mice and Men, Sept. 7-Oct.
3; Macbeth, Oct. 19-Nov. 19; Illyria, Nov. 30-Dec.
26.
Somerset Valley Players
689 Amwell Road
Hillsborough
(908) 369-7469
www.svptheatre.org
The Foreigner, July 23-Aug. 8; children’s theater: The Somewhat
True Tale of Robin Hood, June 12-27.
Surflight Theatre
Engleside and Beach avenues
Beach Haven
(609) 492-9477
www.surflight.org
Funny Girl, June 2-13; State Fair, June 16-July 3;
Cats, July 6-25; Anything Goes, July 27-Aug. 8;
Bye, Bye Birdie, Aug. 10-22; Showboat, Aug. 24-Sept.
5; children’s theater: Pinocchio, June 23-27; Mary Poppins,
June 30-July 3; Wizard of Oz, July 7-11, Aug. 11-15; Snow
White, July 14-18; Sleeping Beauty, July 21-25; Peter
Pan, July 28-Aug. 1; Little Mermaid, Aug. 4-8; Cinderella,
Aug. 18-22; Alice in Wonderland, Aug. 25-29.
Trilogy Repertory Company
Pleasant Valley Park Amphitheater
Basking Ridge
(908) 604-4800
www.trilogyrepertory.com
The Merry Wives of Windsor, July 30-Aug. 7; children’s theater:
Seussical the Musical, July 15-24.
Villagers Theatre
475 DeMott Lane
Somerset
(732) 873-2710
www.villagerstheatre.com
My Fair Lady, June 4-27; Educating Rita, July 9-24.