Montana Actors’ Theatre has put out an audition call for its upcoming production of “Arsenic & Old Lace.” Alas for you football-loving thespians, the auditions take place this Sunday, aka Super Bowl Sunday. Not to worry though; if you just can’t miss the game, they’ll find a way to hear your audition. Here’s the full call direct from the source: [Read More...]
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Late in Larke Schuldberg’s play, “Sound of Planes,” 24-year-old Margaret stands on a plain, gray platform and intones a monologue that begins in passive voice. “Now I am breathing in. Now I am breathing out. Now I am breathing in. I see the men. Men in uniform. Men coming up the steps. I take a breath.” The men come silently in the door. “Guten tag,” she says, her greeting echoed in ragged unison by her 20-year-old and 16-year-old self, both of whom stand nearby. It’s a scene that breaks that most basic maxim of conventional theatrical wisdom: Show, don’t tell. With its mash-up of German and English phrases and its mix-up of three different personifications of the same person, it’s also a scene that could only happen in the unreal space of the theatre. Yet, as the glint of tears on the cheeks of more than one audience member attested, it was a scene that nonetheless punched hard to the gut in Wednesday’s performance of the play’s world-premiere production, at the Crystal Theatre. [Read More...] Advertisement
Rarely does one find a plot so easy to summarize as that of Larke Schuldberg’s play, “Sound of Planes,” which opens at the Crystal Theatre next week. Yet, according to those involved in Montana Actors’ Theatre’s world premiere production, the plot hardly tells the whole story of Schuldberg’s script. “I’ve been looking forward to this production all year,” said Rebecca Sporman, the set designer for MAT’s production and a member of the Havre-based company’s artistic council, which selected the play as one of ten shows in the company’s current Missoula season. “It’s my favorite script we’ve chosen.” “Larke’s plays deal on a very deep character level,” added Kaet Morris, director of the production. “None of the people you see in her plays are stock characters. She’s extremely talented and rigorous with herself about what she chooses to leave in there; so it’s a distilled essence of these people. “That’s the beauty of this play: It’s about people that are real enough that they could be you or me or any other person.” [Read More...] C.B. is not the Charlie Brown you know. Instead of a comic-strip character, he is a real guy standing before you at the Crystal Theatre, in Montana Actors’ Theatre’s production of “Dog Sees God.” His yellow shirt with the jagged black line, like a lightning-strike across his chest, and his big head under a stocking cap may resemble features of his drawn doppelganger; but C.B. will not delight your grandmother with his luck-lorn humor and wry commentary on the human condition. Not that he lacks either. But, from the beginning, one must be prepared for the particular kind of humor and insight that frames the very funny pages of Bert V. Royal’s 2004 script. [Read More...] It’s a harmonic convergence of interstellar and astrological proportions; and it’s happening right here in Missoula.
That theme is spelled out forthrightly in the first act, during the spoken introduction to the song, “My Conviction.”
This Friday night comes another musical, “The Rocky Horror Show,” produced by Montana Actors’ Theatre at the Wilma Theatre. For those who’ve somehow missed the point, “Rocky Horror” is a rock ‘n’ roll musical from 1973 that challenged many of the culturally established notions of conformity in that era. [Read More...] At Montana Actors’ Theatre’s first-ever dinner theatre production, the courses come small and hearty, a series of rudimentary concepts made artful through complex seasoning, with just the right balance between effervescent and earthy, tart and soothing, dense and delicate. The food is really great, too. [Read More...] Toward the beginning of Montana Actors’ Theatre’s production of Patrick Marber’s play, “Closer,” a grainy video appears on a screen behind the stage, of that classic desktop curiosity known as a Newton’s Cradle. Five steel balls hang in a row; when a ball at one end swings into contact with the row, the ball at the opposite end of the row is propelled away – a simple demonstration of Newton’s Third Law: For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. It’s an apt but ultimately imprecise metaphor for the way that Marber’s four characters interact: At least those steel balls eventually stop banging each other and settle into stasis. [Read More...] Following up on last week’s roundup of the CDs that most occupied my mind in the last decade, I thought I’d take a stab at cataloging the most memorable performances I’ve witnessed here in Missoula over the past ten years. More to come in the next couple of days….would love to hear your own most memorable experiences! [Read More...] Last weekend, more than 2,300 people turned out to cheer and sing along at Montana Actors’ Theatre’s production of “The Rocky Horror Show” at the Wilma Theatre. With four performances spread over just 32 hours, it was a watershed weekend for local professional theatre — a moment when good timing and material (“Rocky Horror” at a spooky old theatre on Halloween weekend) combined with a great production to set new standards for what’s possible in locally produced, professional theatre. So Grant Olson can be excused if his head is still in the clouds. “I didn’t sleep Friday after the shows,” said Olson, MAT’s artistic director. “When we finished, everybody in the cast was like, did we really just do this? Is it really over? When do we get to do that again? It felt almost surreal.” For longtime Missoula theatergoers, it might have felt more like a flashback. [Read More...] By the time actor Reid Reimers appeared on the stage of the Wilma Theatre on Friday night, the crowd was already primed for a party. The band was blazing, the lights were swirling, and a phalanx of actors was cavorting around the stage. Still, nothing could prepare those in attendance for the moment when Reimers, his towering, six-foot-six frame pinched into a skimpy black boustier, dropped into the scene on a hydraulic platform atop six-inch platform shoes and began singing about sweet transvestites from Transsexual, Transylvania. Fishnet stockings, stiletto heels and rock and roll: Friday night’s opening of “The Rocky Horror Show” at the Wilma Theatre was a coming out party for Montana Actors’ Theatre in more ways than one. And in the more typically staid world of local theatre, the raucous cheers from the near-capacity crowds that packed Friday’s first two performances will likely resonate in the local community for a long time to come. [Read More...] |
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It all began on Tuesday night, when the University of Montana
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