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MAY 2012 56th season Contents • In Memoriam: Gavin Anderson...... 2 • WCT in the Memorial Day Parade... 2 NEWSLETTER OF THE WESTPORT COMMUNITY THEATRE COMPANY is coming! Life in New York City with Bobby (a single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three girlfriends. The inimitable Sondheim music, song and dance, an experimental theater design, and glam lighting help Mark Graham and company bring you… Company. • Company Designer Peter Ling Creates a Theatre in the Round...... 3 The Pleasure of Your Company: Discount for Cast and Crew Members of 2011–2012 WCT Productions! WCT thanks you for your participation with discount tickets to current productions. A seat during Opening (June 8–10) or Closing (June 29 – July 1) Weekend of Company is yours for $10. When you make your reservation, tell the Box Office you are using this discount. Photos by Michael Stanley COMPANY Book by George Furth, Music & Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Directed by Mark Graham. Production Design by Peter Ling. Musical Direction by Stan Wietrzychowski. Choreography by Liz Milwe Lighting by Jeff Klein. Costumes by Mary Kulcsar. Stage Manager: Bethany Schalow. In the cast: Linda Abshire, Bill Adams, Lisa Dahlstrom, Emily Hughes, Patrick Kiley, Betty McCready, Marion Richard, Rachel Rothman-Cohen, Cami Shore, Frank Sisson, Leslie Leeman Uhl, Geoffrey Weglarz, Christopher Wilkes. June 8 – July 1, 2012 Make your reservations! visit us at www.westportcommunitytheatre.com MAY 2012 THE PROMPTER Company on Parade http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVm0aZcZTuI&feature=colike Girlfriends (Cami Shore, Emily Hughes, Rachel Rothman-Cohen) and bachelor Bobby (Christopher Wilkes) were riding in style on a very fashionable convertible "float” in Westport’s Memorial Day Parade. Many thanks to the cast, Donna Wyant, Sam Mink, Bob Burian, and Jeffrey Wyant for making this happen! WCT members: The Westport Community Theatre Annual Meeting is coming up in late June. This year it will be held at the theatre. Scheduled: the annual Presidentʼs Report, Board elections, a proposed Bylaws revision, refreshments, and good fellowship. Watch your mail for details! Editor................Ruth Anne Baumgartner Designer....................Alexander Kulcsar Chair, Communications.........Ann Kinner Webmaster.........................Paul Lenhart Contact: [email protected] Westport Community Theatre Town Hall 110 Myrtle Avenue Westport, CT 06880 2 In Memoriam Gavin Anderson As we go into the last production of the 2011-2012 Season, we sadly note the loss of one of our enthusiastic supporters, Gavin Anderson. He died at the age of 74 late this past March. In many ways a citizen of the world, Robert Gavin Stewart Anderson was born in England and lived in a number of countries while a senior executive for Colgate Palmolive. He was a member of the Foreign Trade Council, the U.S./South African Business Council (which he helped to create), and the Council on Economic Priorities. Locally, he was most recently a selectman on the Board of Selectmen for the Town of Westport. He also served on the Westport Representative Town Meeting, the Board of Finance, the Selectmanʼs Maintenance Study Committee, the Saugatuck River Watershed Partnership, and the Sherwood Mill Pond Committee. He was also an active member of the Sunrise Rotary Club. And here at Westport Community Theatre, we will miss his lively interest in and support for our efforts to make quality theatre local and accessible. visit us at www.westportcommunitytheatre.com THE PROMPTER MAY 2012 Designer Peter Ling Envisions Company In the Round It seemed so clear to me, as a designer, that this was the way to stage this musical. When I say itʼs just “a bed,” what I mean is itʼs a bed, but the scenes are made by the presence of actors and singers, and the greater presence of the real setting, in New York City. Company Production Designer Peter Ling comes to the Westport Community Theatre by way of London, having served as Designer for the prestigious Everyman Theatre, Liverpool, the Phoenix Theatre in Leicester, and many more. He has worked for many years with longtime colleague Michael Boyd, who is the current artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company. Donna Wyant caught up with Peter on the set of Company to ask a few questions for The Prompter. How do you describe your contribution to this production of Company? Iʼm a member of a team. My responsibility is to find, make, the space for the actors to perform in. I am giving them the canvas to paint pictures, three-dimensionally, in space. As part of a team, I care about all the other parts and each team member, how everything works together: weʼre doing it as an ensemble. Company Production Designer Peter Ling traces his ancestry to the Vikings and the Norwegian Lings; he was born in London to parents who were both successful architects and city planners. His father, Arthur Ling, is famous for his redesign of the Belgrade Theatre, Coventry, the first new theatre build in England after World War II. Peter Ling and his model for an in-the-round WCT (below) Peter, youʼve worked in so many theatres all over the world— Whatʼs the appeal of working in the space at Westport Community Theatre? I loved the challenge of it, the chance to make the ordinary—four walls, space—extraordinary—with the magic of theatre to transform a hollow box into the magical space of New York City. The play felt to me as if the whole of New York City was a bubble, and in this bubble, this goldfish bowl, Bobby is the goldfish. Coming in June… COMPANY Why couldnʼt you just have done this show the way itʼs been done traditionally— the way it was done on Broadway in the production that won so many Tony Awards? Based on a book by George Furth with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim Company isMark defined by the book, and the text of the play; Next byon ourGraham Stage (April Directed there are all these little vignettes in Produced by Ann Kinner and Sam Minkvarious places in New 13–29) York. And thought, I am not going to bring in scenery for Peter Ling,I Production Design all theseKlein, little Lighting episodes, because if I do, weʼll be falling over Jeffrey Design Stan Wietrzychowski, Music Director Assembled for the the scenery. A PICASSO Liz Milwe, Choreographer Mary Kulcsar, Costume Design In theiscast: Linda AbThere is nothing onstage but a bed. The bed the place of Rob Watts, Technical Director shire, Graham, Bill Adams,the Lisa Bobbyʼs dreams. My vision, and Markʼs [Mark Bethany Schalow, Stage Manager Dahlstrom, Emily by Jeffrey Hatcher Director], is that the people are in Bobbyʼs dream and they Hughes, Patrick Kiley, come to visit him; unlike so many other productions of this Betty McCready, PabloinPicasso has beengosummoned from hisMarmusical, ours Bobby doesnʼt to visit their apartments. ion Richard, Rachel The set centers theGerman bed where BobbyRothman-Cohen, is having these favorite caféonby occupation forces to a dreams. storage vault across the city for Cami an Shore, Leslie Uhl, Geoffrey interrogation. Miss Fischer, a “cultural attaché” Chris I cannot imagine Company has not been Weglarz, done this wayWilkes. frombut Berlin, discover whichwhere of three Picasso before, I havemust not found any instance it was. paintings recently “confiscated” by the Nazis from their The WCT stage, reconfigured as an in-the-round theatre, Life in New York City with Bobby single manan unable to commit fully to aissteady Jewish owners are real: the Ministry of Propaganda has(aplanned exhibit. Picasso inclined readyto for Company relationship), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three visit us at www.westportcommunitytheatre.com 3