AMISH GRACE ON THE EPAC STAGE

"The Amish Project" ... this weekend only!

Remember how shocking the news of the Nickel Mines shootings of Amish children was five years ago – Oct. 2, 2006? And, afterward, remember the amazing stories of how the Amish both forgave the gunman and offered condolences to his family?

A fictional exploration of the aftermath of the shootings, “The Amish Project,” will be presented this weekend ONLY at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre. Friday night’s performance is a benefit, with a reception preceding.

Sharon “Sharona” Mellinger, who has lit up the Ephrata Performing Arts Center stage for years as a director and actor, is directing this profound piece of theater Friday, Sept. 30, through Sunday, Oct. 2.

Sharona recently described the play to EPAC board Vice President Jim Ruth: “This is not a re-enactment. It focuses mainly on the aftermath of the horrible crime. There is nothing graphic, but there are some uncomfortable ideas expressed. All of the characters are fictional, although representative of both the Amish and the English communities.”

While playwright Jessica Dickey’s “The Amish Project” was originally performed as a one-woman show in New York, EPAC’s production assigns an actor to each role.

Kayla Hall and Lauren Elledge will portray Anna and Velda, two of the young Amish victims.

Matt Good appears as Eddie Stuckey, the gunman, and Matt’s real-life wife, Kathy Robb, is Carol Stuckey, the gunman’s widow.

Paola Gonzalez will play America, a young Hispanic grocery clerk; Robyn Payne appears as Sherry, a non-Amish neighbor, and Larry Gessler will play Bill North, a scholar on Amish culture.

Friday night’s 7:30 p.m. performance is a benefit for the Children’s Miracle Network. Tickets for that performance are $24 per person, and include a wine-and-cheese reception from 6-7 p.m. Thanks to Hershey Medical Center for sponsoring the evening!

Tickets for the other two performances – 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 1, and 2 p.m. Oct. 2 – are $15 for adults and $8 for students with a current ID.

For tickets and information, visit the website or call the box office at (717) 733-7966, Ext. 1.

-- Mary Ellen "Merv" Wright

'EQUUS': EPAC'S MANE EVENT!

Photo by Andy Babin, for the Sharadin Bigler Theatre

EPAC's 'EQUUS' OPENS THURSDAY

Alan Strang, a 17-year-old boy in Britain, keeps a picture of a horse in his room. He likes horses so much that he has taken a job mucking out stalls at a local stable.

And, for reasons unknown, this boy who likes horses has blinded six of the animals with a metal spike.

A magistrate who has been dealing with Alan’s case sends him to a psychiatric hospital, where Dr. Martin Dysart must try to find out the reasons behind the boy’s heinous act – and try to help him heal. Alan’s condition sets Dysart on a voyage of self-discovery, as well.

So begins “Equus,” Peter Shaffer’s marvelous, challenging play, which the creative team at the Ephrata Performing Arts Center is unbridling and allowing to gallop upon the Sharadin Bigler Theatre stage beginning Thursday night.

OK. The horse puns stop right here. This play is too deep, too layered, too thought-provoking for that.

This is definitely a play for grownups, and not just because of the famous nude scene involving two of its characters. The late New York Times theater critic Walter Kerr said it well when he called the play “… a psychiatric detective story of infinite skill.” I’d definitely recommend this play for mature audiences only; it is psychologically complex (though eminently accessible); has full male and female nudity in one scene, and employs some curse words throughout.

I saw one of the final rehearsals of EPAC’s production, directed by Elizabethtown College theater professor Michael Swanson, and found it fascinating and moving. I saw the play years ago in Lancaster, but had forgotten so much about how beautifully Shaffer makes his plot unfold. With each piece of information, we tread farther into the psyches of Dysart, played by EPAC artistic director Ed Fernandez, and Alan, portrayed by Jeremy Ebert.

The play is about so many things: self-awareness, religion, parenting, pathology, envy, the things that influence a child’s psychological development, the Big-Question thoughts that can plague people at mid-life, and so much more.

Who is the patient here, and who is the counselor? Is Dysart practicing the healing, or harming, arts?

And then, there are those cool horses! They’ll come to life, right before your eyes, with headpieces and hooves -- and equine movement choreographed by Cody Smith.

The interesting, multi-functional set is by E-town College’s Richard Wolf-Spencer, and the lovely, effective lighting is by New York designer Josh Starr (who happens to be the nephew of EPAC regular Bob Checchia). More on the creative team in future posts.

You can see the rest of the cast listed here.

If you love to open your mind to Tony Award-winning, challenging and interesting material, “Equus” will be a great night at the theater for you. It opens this Thursday (Sept. 8) and ends Saturday, Sept. 17.

Call the EPAC box office, 733-7966, Ext. 1, or visit the Website to order tickets.

Stay tuned in the next few days for more blog posts about all the great fall events at EPAC.

-- by Mary Ellen ("Merv") Wright

REV9 TONIGHT AND TOMORROW AT EPAC

TWO MORE CHANCES TO SEE REV9 DANCE CO!!

If you thrill to the sights and sounds of risk-taking modern dance that makes your heart thump in your chest; if you adore the varied music of the 1970s; if you’re crazy about The Beatles and Andy Warhol, disco, early rap or punk … then you CANNOT MISS one of the final two performances of the Rev9 Dance Company at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre.

Kristin Pontz and Heather Bare, the directors of Rev9, who also teach at the Susquehanna Dance Center, have created an exciting evening of dance – along with the other choreographers, Jameson Kilburn, Daniel McGee, Mike Nguyen, Kyle Schwandt and Cody Smith.

The year 1977 was a wild one in New York City. Disco was king, but punk and rap were also bubbling up in the streets and in the clubs. The .44-caliber killer (“Son of Sam”) was on the prowl and Studio 54 was the place to be seen. Those are the cultural guideposts for Rev9’s new production, “ ’77,” of which you’ll see a part during this show at EPAC.

Rev9 is also showcasing parts of two of its previous shows – the Warhol-themed “Factory” and the “White Album”-based “Revolution 9.”

You have two chances left to see the show – tonight and tomorrow night (Thursday and Friday, Aug. 11 and 12) at 8 p.m.

The soundtrack for the evening ranges from the Beatles’ “White Album,” to the music of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, the Talking Heads, Blondie and the Sex Pistols.

The dances in the two-act show are, by turns, seductive and joyous, aggressive and sly, athletic and graceful – and sometimes all of those things rolled into one. Gorgeous young men and women are climbing on chairs and platforms, hanging from silks, leaping, gyrating, break-dancing, clinging to one another and tossing each other around.

One moment, you’ll be watching a gorgeous pas de duex. Then, suddenly, the stage will be filled with undulating forms, capturing the spirit of the intense beats of the 1970s. The costumes, sets and video pieces are wonderful enhancements.

I saw the show on Sunday afternoon, and was, quite simply, blown away by the whole thing. I can’t count the number of times I said, “WOW!”

Tickets are $15. Do not miss this show!

For more information on the show, click here.

For more information on Rev9 and its future performances, click here.

-- Merv Wright

MURDER, CELEBRITY AND ALL THAT JAZZ!

The cast of "Chicago," which runs from July 7-23 at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre, will razzle-dazzle you with song, dance and a taler of some jazz babies who are real killer dillers!

When crime and showbiz intersect, it's murder!

There’s nothing new under the sun!

With the media frenzy over the Casey Anthony murder trial still at full throttle, you can experience the live-theater, high-energy, murder-trial-as-public-entertainment musical that John Kander, Fred Ebb and Bob Fosse created for Broadway way back in 1975. Ephrata Performing Arts Center’s new production of “Chicago” runs from this Thursday (July 7) through July 23^rd at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre in Ephrata Community Park.

BTW: There are still tickets available for Wednesday night’s preview performance (that’s tonight … July 6!), which benefits Lancaster PA Pride. Tickets are $30, which includes a reception at 6:30 p.m. and the show at 7:30 p.m. Click here for information and tickets.

While the public’s fascination with murderers like killer-dillers Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly – and their theatrical lawyers – is nothing new, each production of “Chicago” EPAC presents has plenty of new tricks up its sleeve.

I sat in on a rehearsal last week, and saw an extremely entertaining show unfold. The talented cast is filled with high-kicking, youthful energy, and the leads and featured performers really hit it out of the park!

Chicago, of course, is a real “5-6-7-8 …” kind of musical, filled with memorable showtunes and splashy dance numbers. Director Ed Fernandez and musical director J.P. Meyer – also the audience’s emcee for the evening – have molded this production into a fun and flashy piece of theater. The cast does choreographer Kristen Pontz proud. It’s great to see choreography that gives a nod to the Fosse vocabulary but is, at the same time, very much an original.

The Fosse-Kander-Ebb musical “Chicago” is based, in turn, on a 1926 Broadway play written by Chicago journalist Maurine Dallas Watkins. Watkins had covered the 1924 trials of two “jazz babies,” Belva Gaertner and Beulah Sheriff Annan, and based her “Chicago” characters on them, their lawyers and Beulah’s husband.

Come to see EPAC’s “Chicago,” and you’ll see lots of new touches on the show you may know so well.The “Hungarian rope trick,” a.k.a. the execution of one of the Merry Murdesses of the Cook County Jail, is an eyepopping stunt that will make you gasp. Tim Spiese will “razzle-dazzle” you as lawyer-to-the-notorious, Billy Flynn, and his two most spectacularly amoral clients – Roxie Hart (played by Kristie Ohlinger) and Velma Kelly (portrayed by Elizabeth Frank) – will crack you up with their line readings and delight you with their muscular dance numbers.

The guys and gals of the ensemble are a real treat to watch; and oh, those Merry Murderesses of the Cook County Jail! You won’t know whether to be tickled or appalled!

If it’s been a while since you’ve seen the show on stage, or if you’ve only seen the 2002 film version, don’t feel as if you’ve had the complete “Chicago” experience. The theater version is much grittier than the movie; futher, plenty of additional songs (in the stage show but cut from the movie) await you: “Me and My Baby” (wait until you see the dancing “babies”!), “When Velma Takes the Stand” and “My Own Best Friend,” for example. And, of course, the hilarious “Class,” sung by the classless-and-clueless Velma and Mama Morton (Cynthia Charles) was relegated to the “extras” on the “Chicago” film DVD. Big mistake, there. But you’ll love seeing it in the show at EPAC.

Don’t just stay home watching warmed-over murder-trial coverage! You won’t want to miss this wonderful, rollicking show. For tickets, call the box office at (717) 733-7966, ext. 1, or visit the website.

-- Mary Ellen ("Merv") Wright

MEET THE "LOST IN YONKERS" FAMILY!

From left, Lynn Demers-Hunt, Barbara Strong Ellis, Brian Soutner and Bret Sassaman star in EPAC’s “Lost in Yonkers” June 2-11 at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre.

GET “LOST IN YONKERS,” AND BRING YOUR KLEENEX

If you or your family members have ever pondered why you’re all the way you are – and how your family dynamic, your upbringing and your past experiences have formed you – you’ll warmly embrace Neil Simon’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play, “Lost in Yonkers.” The show, which opens tonight (Thursday, June 2), is both funny and heart-warming, and it will make you think empathetically about the pain some people experience just underneath their rough exteriors.

Simon also won the Tony and the Drama Desk awards for his 1991 play, which concerns the dysfunctional Kurnitz family of Yonkers, NY, in the 1940s. As the play unfolds, some of the reasons for the family’s interpersonal problems and quirky personalities reveal themselves as this group is thrown together under difficult circumstances. Eddie Kurnitz’s wife has died, and Eddie work out of town for several months to make money and satisfy a shady loan that paid for her treatment. He needs to entrust the temporary care of his two adolescent sons, Jay and Arty, to his tough-as-nails, immigrant mother, Grandma Kurnitz, and to his sweet but childlike sister, Bella. The action of the play takes place in tight living quarters above the Kurnitz family’s candy shop.

We also meet Eddie’s brother, Uncle Louie, a shady, small-time criminal who teaches his nephews plenty of life lessons despite himself, and Aunt Gert, who suffers from a breathing ailment that seems more psychological than physical.

You’ll love watching this Kurnitz family tapestry unravel through the eyes of its youngest members, Jay (played by Bret Sassaman) and Arty (Brain Soutner). These two young actors will delight you with their humorous take on the lessons they learn amid the crazy situation into which they’ve been thrown.

Barbara Strong Ellis thoroughly inhabits the role of Grandma Kurnitz. Her stern, Germanic presence may frighten you the way it chills her children and grandchildren. But look beneath the unlikeable exterior and listen to a bit of her life story as the play progresses; you’ll come to a kinder understanding of this formidable woman. Lynn Demers-Hunt plays Bella beautifully, revealing a childlike confusion and a deep need to give and receive love. Watching these two women gradually try to come to a mutual understanding in their complicated relationship will absolutely break your heart.

Bob Checcia is clearly having a great time sinking his teeth into the role of the hilarious, swaggering Louie – who is a real character, and who has some of the funniest lines in the play. You’ll swear he and Bruce Weaver, who plays Eddie, are really brothers! Weaver brings out a more sentimental side of the Kurnitz family – cultivated, no doubt, through the outside ministrations of Eddie’s late wife. And though Sharon Mellinger’s role is relatively small, she makes a big impression as the stylish but damaged Gert – who tries to help everyone in the family get along.

Kudos to everyone involved in the production, from director Rich Repkoe and stage manager Terry Kreider to costume designer Veronica Craig, propmistress Fran Hill, set designer Matt McCormick and lighting designer Richard Wolf-Spencer. And thanks to light-board operator Kate Morgan, technical director/master electrician Stephanie Witman and master carpenter Steve Schelling.

Open your heart to the Kurnitz family, now through June 11 at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre. And bring your Kleenex.

WATCH THE VIDEO, THANK OUR SPONSORS

You can see Blue Ridge Communication’s wonderful video preview of “Lost in Yonkers,” which features scenes from the show and interviews with the actors and the director, here.

Thanks to Blue Ridge Communications, as always, for the great video promos, and for being EPAC's season media sponsor. Thanks, also, to Terry Bigler, Terry Kurtz and Zeller Travel, the 2011 season sponsors, and to H&R Block and the Ray H. Good Business Center, 114 E. Main St., Suite B, Ephrata, for sponsoring "Lost in Yonkers."

The theater also extends its appreciation to the Olde Lincoln House for being the venue for the opening-night celebration on June 2, and to Green Mountain Cyclery for sponsoring the shindig. That post-show celebration is included in the price of your opening-night ticket.

When you see representatives of these businesses at the theater or around town, PLEASE thank them for all they do for EPAC. We owe them so much!

And, when you're at the theater seeing "Lost in Yonkers," please come say hi to your humble EPAC blogger; I'll be wearing a different hat during the run of this show, that of temporary house manager (filling in for Terry Kreider, who is house-managing "Yonkers.") I love to meet members of the EPAC family!

# Mary Ellen (“Merv”) Wright

New beginnings & a night on the town

Laura McClune, Jordan Lausch are among the young performers who will present the "New Beginnings" cabaret at 2 p.m. Sunday at EPAC.

A cabaret, old chum

If you’re interested in supporting EPAC and in hearing some wonderful, contemporary musical theater/cabaret tunes you may have never heard before – performed by young, talented singers from the EPAC family – you’ll be in luck Sunday afternoon.

Check out the “New Beginnings” cabaret at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 15, at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre.

You’ll recognize the talented young EPAC performers who are presenting this program of new music; they’ve starred in EPAC productions from “High School Musical” to “Rent,” and from “Altar Boyz” to “Into the Woods.” Performing will be: Laura McClune, Jordan Lausch, Devin Lewis, Nando Lucena, Jil Wiley, Donovan Hoffer, Katelyn Candiello, Emily Addis and James Wolpert.

Their set list will include songs by hot young composers on the musical theater/cabaret scene: Kait Kerrigan and Brian Lowdermilk (the team behind such original musicals as “The Unauthorized Autobiography of Samantha Brown”); Ryan Scott Oliver (composer-lyricist of the musical “Mrs. Sharp”), and selections from Jon Hartmere Jr. and Damon Intrabartolo's pop opera, "Bare."

General-admission tickets are $5, with proceeds benefiting EPAC. Visit the website or call (717) 733-7966 for tickets.

On the town with an EPAC alum

This weekend, EPAC's New Year's Eve gala raffle winner Alixe Ingoglia will claim her prize. Alixe, who just finished doing props for EPAC's "Into the Woods," will be dining with EPAC alum, area native and Broadway/film/TV star Jonathan Groff.

Alixe and her mother will be picked up by Expressions Limousine of Lancaster and will be taken to Lily's on Main for dinner with Jonathan. They will also spend an evening at the Historic Smithton Inn. The event will be photographed by I ♥ PhotOlé.

EPAC thanks all of these companies for their services, sponsorship and support of the theater, and for helping make this a memorable weekend for our lucky raffle winner!

*** Also, check out Jonathan Groff's appearance on the MTV show "The Seven" at 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 17. For more information on the show, visit the website.

--- Mary Ellen "Merv" Wright

EPAC on the Edge: Playwright gets Tony nod

Above: The cast of EPAC's "The Little Dog Laughed." From left: Gabrielle Lewis, Corey Buller, Christopher Michael and Sharon Mellinger. Photo courtesy of EPAC.

Below: Photo of “The Little Dog Laughed” playwright Douglas Carter Beane (taken at the 2008 Tony Awards). Photo courtesy of Broadwayworld.com

EPAC presents staged reading by Tony nominee

The nominations for the 65^th annual Tony Awards were announced Tuesday morning. One of the writers nominated for Best Book of a Musical is Douglas Carter Beane, for the Whoopi Goldberg-produced musical "Sister Act."

You may recognize Beane as the Tony-nominated playwright of "The Little Dog Laughed," which EPAC will present as a staged reading this coming Monday night, May 9, at the Sharadin Bigler Theatre.

The New York Times recently ran an article about script doctors and show doctors – the folks who rewrite existing scripts or rework whole productions that need help. Beane rewrote the book of “Sister Act,” originally penned by Cheri and Bill Steinkellner (former executive producers of the TV show “Cheers.”)

You can read the New York Times story here.

“The Little Dog Laughed” earned Beane 2007 Tony and Olivier Award nominations, and his book for the musical “Xanadu” earned him a 2008 Tony nod and a Drama Desk award.

So don’t forget to order your tickets for “The Little Dog Laughed." Order in advance and you'll save $2! Tickets are $10 in advance and $12 at the door. A wine-and-cheese reception starts at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, and the show starts at 8. This show features adult themes and language … therefore, it is for ADULTS ONLY!!

Call the EPAC box office at (717) 733-7966, ext. 1, for tickets.

And while you're at it ... don't miss EPAC's current mainstage production, the Stephen Sondheim/James Lapine musical "Into the Woods." You'll love it!

BTW: The Tonys will be broadcast live on Sunday, June 12, from 8-11 p.m. on CBS.

# --- --- Mary Ellen “Merv” Wright