Misalliance Plays At The Alabama Shakespeare Festival 6/26-7/4

All the wrong men chase all the wrong women in Misalliance, an exuberant Victorian comedy from George Bernard Shaw that begins previews at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival June 26 and runs through July 4.

Shaw, a literary icon who is the only person to win both the Nobel Prize for literature and an Oscar, also wrote Pygmalion, You Never Can Tell and Arms and the Man, all of which have been performed at ASF.

Misalliance stars the members of the University of Alabama/ASF's final graduate acting company as well as longtime ASF resident artist and faculty member Greta Lambert, who plays Mrs. Tarleton, a woman who is very concerned about others' bad behavior but can't keep her own family in line, especially her daughter, Hypatia.

Lambert, who has played most of the theatre's great leading ladies, said the role of Hypatia is one of her three favorites - and the one she never got to do.

"Hypatia is a woman on the verge of finding herself, but still caught a little bit in the old world," she said. "She longs to be naughty. She wants adventure."

Lambert said it is a special treat to be a member of the cast for this final M.F.A. show: "I've spent two years watching them swim and helping them with their strokes - now I get to splash around in the pool with them."

This year's class of University of Alabama graduate acting students is the last to be trained at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival as part of UA's Master of Fine Arts program, a relationship that began in 1985. This nationally recognized program, which has graduated such notable actors as Michael Emerson of TV's Lost and Tony Award-winner Norbert Leo Butz, will cease this year. The eight actors and five stage and theatre managers who make up the class of 2009 will perform their last show on July 4, graduate on July 5 and spread out across the country soon after.

Misalliance runs June 26 through July 4 in the Octagon Theatre. Ticket prices range from $20 to $30. To order, call the box office at 334-271-5353 or visit www.asf.net.

The Alabama Shakespeare Festival is among the largest Shakespeare theatres in the world. Designated as The State Theatre of Alabama, ASF has been located in Montgomery since 1985 when it moved from Anniston as a result of Mr. and Mrs. Wynton M. Blount's gift of a performing arts complex set in the 250-acre Wynton M. Blount Cultural Park. This program/project has been made possible by grants from the Alabama State Council on the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.

 

To post a comment, you must register and login.