"I Ought To Be In Pictures" Opens

Posted by Bruce Miller
Neil Simon's I Ought To Be In Pictures opened on Friday, just in time to make up for the fact that Annie and Well were closing on Sunday. Thoroughly Modern Millie begins rehearsal this evening. Ah, the circle of life!

It's been fun working the past four weeks on Pictures. Fun because I was able to spend evening after evening with Audra Honaker, Matt Hackman and Lisa Kotula--three funny, smart and kind-hearted friends. I've said it for years. The greatest blessing of my job is that I get to work with wonderful people.

It's been fun to work with a play written in 1980 and update cultural references (the names of popular movie and television stars, cars, baseball heroes etc.) so that the play continues to be set, as the author has written, "in the present." The one popular movie star who needed no updating after 29 years? Jack Nicholson.

It's fascinating to see how a comedy plays when its 29-year-old bones are all dressed up in 2009 duds. (I'm using "duds" in the context of "clothing," not in the context of "a bomb that fails to explode." Yikes!) Is there some friction when dialogue written three decades in the past rubs up against cultural references from the present? You bet there is. Fun!

In theatre, it can't be only about recreating--or creating in the case of Bo and Steve's wonderful Mona's Arrangements--the comedies and dramas of today (Well, The Clean House). It can't be only about honoring the great plays of the past (Children of a Lesser God, Driving Miss Daisy). Sometimes it's fun to mix the past and present together and see what happens.

I was honored that Celia Wren, a great national theatre writer who happens to live in Richmond, reviewed Pictures for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Here are the quotes we're pulling from her terrific review:

“Funny, Poignant Play!

If America could harness Audra Honaker, the country’s energy problems would be solved!

Super-Competent, Shrewdly Choreographed

Hackman exudes the right kind of world-weary cantankerousness

Smart! Agreeable! Droll!

Kotula displays apt wistfulness

Exactly the Right Place

God is in the Details!”

--Celia Wren, Richmond Times-Dispatch

I hope you'll find the time to come out to Hanover Tavern to check in on this lesser known Neil Simon comedy. It's fun and sweet and I'm proud of it.

See you at the theatre!

--Bruce Miller

DOUBT interview in Sunday's RTD!

Posted by Sara Marsden

Doubt interview in Sunday's RTD!

Check out this great interview with Irene Ziegler and Duke Lafoon. The performance today at 2pm, as well as next Friday at 8pm and Saturday at 2pm & 8pm are sold out, so don't delay if you want to see this show.

There is also an article about the upcoming special event at the Empire Theatre, Virginia Arts and Letters Live.

RTD Takes a Peek at RD

Posted by Billy Christopher Maupin

Sunday's Richmond Times-Dispatch featured a fantastic feature about Rumpelstiltskin's Daughter with a HUGE picture of Gigi!

You can check it out at InRich.com. The piece is by Celia Wren, who does a lot of really great coverage of theatre here in Richmond, as well as in several other publications, including American Theatre magazine.

http://www.inrich.com/cva/ric/search.apx.-content-articles-RTD-2008-01-20-0081.html

"Moonlight and Magnolias" Makes Many Merry

Posted by John Steils

The first review is in for Moonlight and Magnolias. Under the headline Having a Ball with ‘Gone With the Wind’, it appeared in this morning’s Times-Dispatch. The beautifully written kudos are penned by Celia Wren.

“An amiably romping production!” Wren exclaims. “Hutchinson’s comedy takes a behind-the-scenes look at the frantic 1939 creation of the screenplay for Gone With the Wind.”

David Bridgewater and Scott Wichmann are praised as “theatrical powerhouses.” Admiration is awarded to Joe Pabst’s “comic poise”. Director Steve Perigard’s “witty sight gags (sound gags, too)” and Brian Barker’s “handsome set, with its peach-colored walls and sleek art deco furniture” also earn Wren’s approbation.

Even the seldom appreciated, at least in print, props department received a nod. “In an ongoing joke,” Wren writes approvingly, “Selznick’s office becomes increasingly messy—so a special nod must go to this production’s properties mistress, Lynn West, for coping with the piquant slovenliness.”

“A key asset of director Steve Perigard’s staging is Wichmann, whose dry interpretation of Hecht ballasts the show’s farcical elements. Bridgewater takes a far hammier approach to Fleming: In one particularly droll sequence, he minces, his head in a kerchief, imitating Scarlett O’Hara’s maid. At another point, he does a mean Clark Gable imitation.”

Having a Ball with ‘Gone with the Wind’ seems to us to sum up everything perfectly. We’re delighted that the critics and audiences seem to be having such a wonderful time. We hope you’ll call for YOUR tickets soon!

--John Steils

(Photo credits: Our Moonlight and Magnolias poster by Robert Meganck. David O. Selznick [producer] with Vivien Leigh after she won her Oscar for GWTW. Ben Hecht [screenwriter]. Victor Fleming [director].)