Karel to produce ‘Mary and Me’
Producer and actress Emily Karel’s Glass Dove Productions has obtained exclusive U.S. rights to “Mary and Me,” a one-woman show by Irene Kellher, an up-and-coming Irish playwright.
Karel and Kellher met while studying at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Mass., and became “fast friends.” The author proposed the arrangement with Karel when she visited Kellher at her County Cork, Ireland, home.
“She’d toured the play all over Ireland and took it to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It was very, very well received everywhere she performed it,” Karel says. “She told me she would love me to perform the play in the U.S.”
“It’s an incredible honor to me, but so exciting and daunting, because I’ve never considered doing a one-woman show.”
Karel read the piece and “fell absolutely in love,” she says. “It’s a beautiful play, beautifully paced, and something audiences should absolutely see.”
“Mary and Me’s” elevator pitch is dour. But the piece is “definitely” not, she underscores.
The play is inspired by the true story of a 15-year old girl who lived in rural Ireland in 1984, and died after giving birth to a baby in a grotto.
“I do think it’s important to stress that though the subject is quite dark, it’s full of light, warmth and humor. You really get a good sense of who this is and you fall in love with the world she paints,” Karel says. “It’s absolutely not an hour of misery. Much of it is very funny. … That’s important to throw out there.”
Peter Josephson will director. Karel is currently looking at Seacoast venues for a fall ’20, or spring ’21 staging.
“And it’s a very easy show to tour,” she says. “So, I would have an eye to that.”
Meanwhile, Karel is gearing up for a production of “Pride and Prejudice” with Theatre Kapow. The play opens at the new Bank of New Hampshire Stage, Concord, Feb. 21, then moves to the Derry Opera House for its second weekend.
She’ll be back on the Seacoast in June for “Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet),” “so that’s pretty exciting too!”
Play readings to join Home Grown Series
The inaugural Jamie Bradley’s “Home Grown Play Reading,” part of Seacoast Rep’s Home Grown Series, will feature Portsmouth Poet Laurette Tammi Truax on Feb. 10.
Truax’s reading attests to the project’s scope beyond straight plays to story and musical.
The poet laureate will read from her acclaimed “For To See The Elephant.”
“It’s not a play, but a novel written in verse,” Bradley says. “So, it lends itself to a staged reading.”
The series will run “about monthly,” or a play per main-stage title during the Rep’s season for a total of nine.
Two musicals are already booked, both later in the season. The first is “Keep the Music Playing,” by Philip Kliger on Aug. 10.
“It’s a one-man show. He’ll do all the reading and music himself,” Bradley says. “He’ll have a piano and guitar on stage. … So, he’ll play music and read the lines.”
The second is “The Little Prince,” by Jason Faria, Nov. 30, staged in the same manner with Faria reading and singing the tunes.
Bradley pitched the series because of the plethora of submissions sent for the venue’s Home Grown Series, which presents one or two fully staged, original plays annually.
“I had a lot. … Some weren’t even ready to be fully produced. They needed an audience, or to be workshopped. Some didn’t quite fit what I wanted to do that year,” he says. “So, there were a lot I wanted, that I enjoyed, but I couldn’t produce it. This is a way for the author to get their work out there and be part of Home Grown Series.”
Bradley, whose new title is Director of New Works, says it is also possible the play readings will include established works, ones rarely presented, “but they should be,” for example “1984,” and other classic or large works.
“It’s not something we can fully produce,” he says. “I don’t think it would sell as a fully produced piece, but as a reading, … actors with scripts in hands, it would work.”
Home Grown will produce two fully-staged plays this season, a straight play and a musical.
First up, “Stage Play,” a new G. Matthew Gaskell composition, on April 22, 26, 29, and May 3. The second is “Burdick’s Bookstore,” an original musical by Christina DeMaio and Suzanne Jones Aug. 28 to Sept. 6.
Also in 2020, Home Grown is launching “Jamie Bradley’s Home Grown Hoot Night.” It’s an open mic for singer-songwriters and musicians. They will be held every few months, starting in May, ending in Nov. and always on Friday nights.
Macdonald working on school day concert
Virginia “Ginna” Macdonald left the Portsmouth Symphony Orchestra as its executive director at the end of last season, but things aren’t slowing down.
“I decided it was just time to move on,” Macdonald says. “I just wasn’t getting the enjoyment I had.”
Since, she’s worked full-time as a music teacher and a music therapist at Portsmouth Music and Arts Center.
She’s also working the pit in area theaters. Macdonald is currently working “The Full Monty” at the Rochester Opera House (Visit www.rochesteroperahouse.com). Then it’s on to the Seacoast Rep where she’s booked out for most the year.
Macdonald plays flute, English horn, oboe and clarinet. It’s the latter she’ll perform for the Rep’s upcoming “Ragtime” production (visit www.seacoastrep.org).
She’s also still working with the PSO, volunteering for its “Carnegie Hall Link Up” on May 12. Macdonald started the school day concert while serving as the symphony’s executive director.
“This is not a passive experience,” she says. “I love this. … so I said ‘I’ll see it through.'”
There’s still time for schools to sign up for the concert, which offers accompanying curriculum for teachers to prepare children to perform, either singing, on recorders, or through movement with the orchestra.
“It’s good. I really like the balance now, and have more time for family,” she says of her work. “This is enough on my plate.”
Herman to direct ‘Rock of Ages’
The Rochester Opera House and Taryn Herman are teaming up for the first time. Herman, who directs Musical Arts in Exeter, will direct and choreograph its production of “Rock of Ages” in April.
“I mentioned to Anthony (Ejarque, executive director of Rochester Opera House) how much I love the space, and if there was anything that came up he thought I was a good fit for to keep me in mind,” Herman says. “So, something came along, and the time was right.”
This summer, Herman heads to the Weathervane Theatre to oversee a few shows. And of course in addition to the directing gigs, she’s running the school; “so then there’s recitals in the spring, summer camp it all sort of blends into one.”
A call to audition for ‘Carol’
Scott Severance’s PerSeverance Production is already on the hunt for non-union cast (with “killer English accents”) and crew for its seventh “Christmas Carol” national tour. All roles and positions available.
The positions are paid, as is all housing and the flight at the tour’s conclusion.
Severance is taking a pen to his original adaptation, rewriting and streamlining, and eliminating three roles, he says. For information, write cardboardbelt@comcast.net or call 603-275-0605.
“Because I’m squeezing the cast size down, I am looking for very versatile actors,” Severance says. “I need people who can make ’em laugh and make ’em cry.”
Jeann McCartin keeps her eyes and ears open for gossip at maskmakernh@gmail.com.
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