Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre Announces 8th Season

The Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre (SCRT) announces its 2010 summer performance season, the not-for-profit theatre company's eighth in Trinidad and one with changes on the horizon.

The 2010 season of the Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre, under the direction of Artistic Director Fred Vaugeois, opens in July and runs through mid-August.

"This season is going to be filled with something for everyone," states Fred Vaugeois. "We have humor taking center stage in the musical NUNSENSE, more laughs to be had in SQUABBLES, and another wonderful musical in BABY. We've also filled the season with some fantastic talent, including several artists that are eager to return to Trinidad for the 8th season."

Dan Goggin's musical comedy NUNSENSE, kicks off the season and will be brought to life by guest director Alison England-Sam. The original New York production of the show was the winner of four Outer Critics Circle Awards including Best Off Broadway Musical.

NUNSENSE is a show about a fundraiser put on by the Little Sisters of Hoboken, a group of nuns. They are attempting to raise money to bury sisters from their convent accidentally poisoned by the convent cook, Sister Julia (Child of God). This fictional fundraiser becomes a fun-filled evening, packed with music, dancing, jokes and nun-puns. It is madcap and outrageously funny, but audiences are to be warned, NUNSENSE is also habit forming.

Dan Goggin's early education by the Marywood Dominican Sisters led him to create his successful production in NUNSENSE. The original development of the musical sprang from a cabaret show called The Nunsense Story, which opened for a four-day run at Manhattan's Duplex and remained for 38 weeks, encouraging its creator to expand it into a full-length theater production that now has become an international phenomenon and has been translated into 21 languages with more than 5000 productions worldwide.

Guest Director England Sam comes to Trinidad from Los Angeles where she performs, directs and is a teacher of voice and performance. She has directed numerous productions throughout her career. Her own performances have been characterized as "Outstanding...Time-stopping...Vibrant...Penetrating" by critics for the Los Angeles Times, Seattle Times, Miami Herald and Opera News.

In 1997 and again in 1999, England performed on the ABC Television series, Dharma & Greg, singing Marguerite in excerpts from Faust, and Cio-Cio San (Madama Butterfly) in excerpts from Madama Butterfly. She recently returned from living in Paris, France where she sang at L'Opéra Bastille, in Matthias Pintcher's L'Espace Dernier, covered June Anderson in The Bassarids, Paris's premier of Henze's well-known greek drama at the Théatre du Chatelet. She also completed a two-year tour of France as Missia Palmieri in the French version of The Merry Widow.

England is eager to work with the cast of SCRT's NUNSENSE and to musically direct both NUNSENSE and BABY this summer in Trinidad. "I look forward to working with the professional artists of the SCRT," notes England, "and I'm confident that we will have some fabulous musical performances this summer for the audiences of Trinidad."

Following the opening of NUNSENSE, Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre premieres the musical BABY. With book by Sybille Pearson, and based on a story conceived with Susan Yankowitz, BABY tells of three couples on a university campus as they deal with the painful, rewarding and agonizingly funny consequences of the universal experience of childbirth.

The central characters in BABY are the young college students, barely at the beginning of their adult lives; the thirty-some things, having trouble conceiving but determined to try; and the middle aged parents, looking forward to seeing their last child graduate from college when a night of unexpected passion lands them back where they started.

David Shire composed the music for BABY with lyricist Richard Maltby Jr. The pair first met at Yale University, where they wrote two musicals, Cyrano and Grand Tour. Their first off-Broadway show, The Sap of Life, was produced in 1961 at One Sheridan Square Theater in Greenwich Village. More recently, Shire completed A Stream of Voices, a one-act opera, with libretto by Gene Scheer, for the Colorado Children's Chorale, which premiered in June 2008 in Denver.

Maltby Jr. wrote the lyrics for BABY. He was also director and co-lyricist for the American version of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Song and Dance in 1986, starring Bernadette Peters. He was co-lyricist for Miss Saigon and is also well know as a producer, screenwriter, producer and director. He directed Ain't Misbehavin' in 1978, which won the Tony Award for Best Director and was only one of two musical revues to receive the Tony Award. Fosse, the other musical he directed, was the other Tony Award winning musical revue.

Harriet Vaugeois, resident director, will direct the SCRT's production of BABY. Vaugeois has a long and lauded history with the company. This marks Vaugeois' 8th season she has directed for the SCRT, having directed one production each summer season and various special presentations and youth performances.

"Baby absolutely matches my directing style," states Harriet Vaugeois, "Much of what moves me as a director is very linked with the fact that I am a dancer. I see life as movement and color, and I can bring that to my style and to this production.

"But there are three reasons I fell in love with this beautiful work," Vaugeois counts. "One is that there are three plot lines going on simultaneously, but then slowly each starts to connect to the other and in the end you realize the similarities. The second reason is the message of the play. There is no real tragedy, but we see each couple struggle with their own heartbreaks and joys through their experiences in this life-altering stage we call parenthood.

"Lastly, there is the music," Vaugeois notes. "It is delightful and has the quality that leaves you walking away remember it for days to come."

"The show is so full of life and shows such a varied look at humans. It touches on all of our inadequacies," Vaugeois continues, "but in such a way that is so easy to find our personal strengths and overcome the challenges."

The hilarious comedy SQUABBLES rounds out the season. The comedic play pits a father-in-law against a mother in a comedic succession of bickering. It was written by Marshall Kapp and also directed by Harriet Vaugeois.

In SQUABBLES, the character of Jerry Sloan is a successful writer of advertising jingles who is married to an equally successful lawyer, Alice. Living with the happy couple is the not so happy Abe Dreyfus, Jerry's curmudgeon of a father-in-law. Abe is a funny guy to the audience, but not to Jerry. The Situation is exacerbated when Jerry's mother Mildred loses her house in a fire and needs a place to stay. Abe and Mildred can't stand each other. The play is a hilarious confrontation after another until the heart-warming finale.

Marshall Karp, once an advertising executive who wrote award-winning commercials, later become a sitcom TV writer. He created Everything's Relative, a CBS comedy starring Jason Alexander, moved on to become writer/producer for the NBC hit, Amen, then served as writer/co-executive producer for ABC's Baby Talk starring George Clooney, and NBC's Working It Out, starring Jane Curtin. After writing hundreds of commercials, dozens of TV shows, and a feature film, he became a novelist. His play, SQUABBLES, is his only stage script.

NUNSENSE and SQUABBLES are presented by special arrangement with Samuel French, Inc., BABY by special arrangement with Music Theatre International.

The young Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre company continues to establish its place on the Colorado theatre scene after last season's impressive fundraising success and the recent announcement of the hire of executive director Arthur Espinoza.

Last month, the board of directors of Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre was successful in acquiring Espinoza after an extensive national search. Espinoza, a Monte Vista, Colorado native, was eager to take the position because of the opportunities for the growth of the company.

"I am very fortunate to be a part of the magic of the Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre through my role as executive director. My sincerest appreciation goes to the actors and technicians who generously bring their talent and skills to the audiences and students in southern Colorado, and to our patrons and sponsors who keep the theatre thriving," states Espinoza.

This season Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre will offer a new earlier curtain time of 7:00 p.m. for its Thursday evening summer repertory performance. The first Saturday evening performances of each production will include a special ticket for the pre-show reception and post-curtain celebration with the opportunity to meet members of the cast. These "Gala Saturday" performances and all others will take place at the Massari Performing Arts Center, which is located on the campus of the Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad, Colorado. The theatre address is 300 Broom Street.

New this season, Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre will offer patrons the opportunity to purchase season and single tickets online visit their web site at www.scrtheatre.org.

The company will begin ticket sales with season subscriber ticket packages. These packages include a ticket to all three productions and discount regular prices for patrons. There are various season ticket package options available for purchase.

Other benefits available to season ticket buyers include preferred seating, free ticket exchanges, VIP ticketing services, and a complimentary ticket voucher to the Shuler Theater summer season in Raton, New Mexico.

Season ticket sales are underway with prices starting at $35 to see all three productions. Single performance tickets will go on sale to the public on May 17, and single performance ticket prices start at $13.

For complete ticket information please contact the Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre at www.SCRTheatre.org, 719-846-4765, or visit the Ticket Office at 132 East Main Street in Trinidad. Southern Colorado Repertory Theatre's three-show Subscription prices start at $35 and single ticket prices range from $13 to $39 for all summer 2010 productions.

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