Another Opening...

"There's no business like show business."

Truer words have never been spoken. It is with great remorse that I have to inform you that the rights for A Chorus Line have been revoked due to a National Tour production. This news came to me and the rest of the cast on Wednesday: Only five days away from our first rehearsal! The board fought extremely hard to re-acquire the rights, but unfortunately could not get anything to come to fruition. However, a substitute production has been chosen.

Wildwood Summer Theatre will now be producing Merrily We Roll Along; a musical modeled after a play of the same name with music and lyrics by the phenomenal Stephen Sondheim and a book by George Furth. The show revolves around Franklin Shepard who was once a talented composer of Broadway musicals, but abandoned his true talent and friends to produce films in Hollywood. The show starts at the prime of his career and works it's way backwards to reveal memorable events which occurred along his journey. I have not had a significant amount of time to research much more into the show, but from what I have heard of cast recordings the music itself is beautifully written and has a similar sound to that of A Chorus Line. The cast has reasonably been asked to re-audition this coming week so that the production staff can best cast the new show. At this point in time, I am a nervous wreck. That is all :-)

In other news, my OTHER show The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee opened this weekend! In all honesty, I could not have asked for a better opening night! The cast was so charged with energy that it made the production explode with amazing-ness (a word had to be made up to describe this phenomenon). I could not be more proud of my cast! No reviews have been published yet to my knowledge, but I will post them here to be read (if they're good, of course :-) ). There will not be a performance tomorrow in observance of Memorial Day weekend, but there are two more weekends of performances to be done so don't miss out and get your tickets! The show truly is hilarious! Call 301.203.6070 for ticket information!

Here is a little write-up about the show from The Gazette, with a few quotes from yours truly.

http://www.gazette.net/stories/05272010/entepri142233_32548.php

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Magic Foot...

As it turns out, I will actually be playing the role of William Barfee in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. This is a recent under-taking because the person originally playing the role dropped out at the last minute... we'll say due to artistic differences. I have a little less than a week to learn the entire role and develop a character, not to mention I choreographed the show, so I have to focus on the rest of the cast to make sure they are hitting their marks, as well. Needless to say, I am going to be a HUGE ball of stress over the next couple weeks. However, I have faith in my cast and in myself to make this show REALLY good; it is so close we just have to polish! Which should not be too hard, since we have been running the show for more than a week now.

The show will run May 28th to June 13th, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 pm, Sundays at 3 pm (there will not be a show the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend!). It will be performed on the stage of the John Addison Concert Hall at the Harmony Hall Regional Center in Fort Washington, MD.

10701 Livingston Road

Fort Washington, MD 20744

Call 301.203.6070 for ticket information!

Check back here for upcoming reviews and stories about the show!

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"Secret Garden" Review...

... with some of my photographs accompanying!!!

You can see the shots included with the article, along with a couple other's, in the post below.

The show runs the rest of this weekend and the following two weekends at the Port Tobacco Theatre in La Plata, MD. Call (301)932-6819 to make reservations or if you have any other questions :-)

It is a really great show for the entire family and has a really beautiful musical score.


http://www.somdnews.com/stories/05072010/weekmor171539_32184.shtml

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All images owned and copyrighted by Scotty Beland.

Come To My Garden

The Port Tobacco Players will be presenting a production of the musical The Secret Garden on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays from now until May 23rd, 2010. This is a musical rendition of the children's story of the same name with beautiful music and a touching story that the entire family can enjoy. This particular production was directed by Amy Cooksey, with music direction by Therese Theidemann and choreography by Randy Tusing.

I had the pleasure of taking some photos of the performance during their tech week and was quite pleased with the amount of talent on the stage, especially from the younger actors! Anna Radtke plays a very dynamic Mary Lennox opposite Tori Carter's bratty, although somewhat endearing, Colin Craven. Tracy Weisemann superbly sings through the lyric soprano role of Lily, harmonizing wonderfully with Peter Ullman as Archibald Craven. Another stand-out performance for me was given by Mary Theideman, as the Craven's house-maid. Her rendition of "Hold On" was very warm and sentimental and even gave me goosebumps a couple of times. The ensemble for this show was also extremely solid, which was quite a task for some of the challenging vocal parts throughout the score of this show.

Here are some pictures :-)

Peter Ullman as Archibald (L) and Anna Radtke as Mary (R)

Anna Radtke as Mary (L) and Tori Carter as Colin (R)

Mike Mickey as Neville Craven (L) and Anna Radtke as Mary (R)

Mary Theideman as Martha

Tori Carter as Colin (L), Blake Racer as Dickon (C), and Anna Radtke as Mary (R)


You can see a full cast list and purchase tickets for the remaining performances by going to http://www.ptplayers.com/

In other news, I recently had the pleasure of seeing Anne Arundel Community College's production of Urinetown a couple of weekends ago, and I absolutely loved it! I am usually not a fan of overtly, for lack of a better term, "campy" shows, but this one was well done enough that I did not even notice. I went to support a friend of mine, Kasey Staniszewski, who played Hope Cladwell in the show. This was my first time seeing her in a leading role, and also the first time I had actually heard her sing, and it was definitely nice to see! Not to mention, she looked absolutely gorgeous (as per usual). Although this show is over now, it was definitely a must-see! I also would like to congratulate Magruder High School on their production of Curtains. I have never been so thoroughly impressed by a local high school theatre group, especially on a show as gargantuan as such. The ensemble was pure brilliance in the vocal department and even had amazing choreography to boot. I was pleased to find out that the show was choreographed by Kristina Friedgen who will be my director for A Chorus Line this summer! A few stand-out performers included Rachel Kelly as Carmen Bernstein, Kelly Ohanian as Niki Harris, Matt Dyer as Lt. Frank Cioffi and Emily Reggia as Bambi. Oh, and Sonia Galiber played an AMAZING clarinet solo, too! ;-) Here's to a job well done!

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All images owned and copyrighted by Scotty Beland.