Acorn Productions Expands 2010-11 Season Plans

Acorn Productions, a non-profit organization dedicated to nurturing and developing the performing arts in Southern Maine, unveils plans for the 2010/11 theater season.  In keeping with Acorn mission to encourage members of the Greater Portland community to experience live theater as both participants and audience members, the company continues to produce three signature events: Phyzgig, the Maine Playwrights Festival, and Naked Shakespeare. This season the company also adds two new series of performances in the Acorn Studio Theater in Westbrook: the Studio Series and Fairy Tale Players.  All of Acorn's productions involve sharing with audiences the results of long-term collaborations that focus on the creative growth of affiliated artists.  These performances are presented in a variety of both traditional and non-traditional venues at affordable ticket prices that allow access for people of all economic means. During the upcoming 2010/11 season, Acorn produces events at spaces ranging from Portland Stage Company to Battery Steele on Peaks Island, showcasing the talents of over 100 talented local actors, directors, designers and playwrights.

Acorn's Studio Series features four workshop productions of plays presented by student actors from the Acorn Acting Academy.  First on the calendar is Michael Kimball's bittersweet The Secret of Comedy, directed by Acorn's Producing Director Michael Levine. In this bittersweet comedy, Emily's husband has just won the lottery, but all the money in the world can't cure her cancer, or help her emotionally-challenged family through the 5 stages of grief.  The play performs from October 8 to 24, 2010.  Next up is The World of Sholom Aleichem, by Arnold Perl, directed by Harlan Baker, presented in conjunction with Hanukah from December 3 to 19, 2010. The piece consists of three plays bound together by the narrative of Mendele the Book Seller, who connects three different stories of Eastern European Jewish life of the last century.  The Studio Series continues with a stage adaptation of John Manderino's memoir Crying at the Movies, directed by Levine and featuring Paul Haley and Kerry Rasor in a tour de force for two actors that will be performed between January 13 and 30, 2011.  In this touching piece, a man reminisces about the many movies in his life and how they shaped his relationships over the years.  The final event of the new series is Best of Fest: Volume II, a follow-up to last year's successful event that will feature 4 or 5 of Acorn's favorite short plays from the first 10 years of the Maine Playwrights Festival. Specific titles will be announced in the late fall, and performance dates are April 1 to 20, 2011.

Acorn's Fairy Tale Players presents is second season of classic fairy tales brought to life on the Acorn Studio Theater stage by a mixture of young actors from the Acorn Acting Academy and professional adult actors.  The season begins with The Three Billy Goats Gruff, a Norwegian folk tale adapted and directed by Keith Anctil and presented from November 5 to 21, 2010.  Many audience members will recognize the origins of this story, in which fast talking goats outwit a fierce troll, but Acorn's version will include several new an unexpected twists that will keep audience members guessing.  The second offering of the Fairy Tale Players is JoJo Dubois Meets his Match, an adaptation of The Brothers Grimm story "Seven at One Blow" by Westbrook resident Delorme Taylor.  Michael Levine directs the story of a professor with a knack for knots who finds his heart tied up over a gang boss's daughter in 1940s Louisiana. This piece runs March 11 to 27, 2011.  The season finale is Rapunzel, another Brothers Grimm story, adapted and directed by Stephanie Ross. The classic tale of a hungry mother and a desperate father, who unwittingly deal away their first born child to an enchantress whose plans for the child are foiled by the love of a prince. Performances will run from June 3 to 19, 2011.

Phyzgig began with a series of performances by Avner the Eccentric at the old Oak Street Theater in the late 1990s and has grown since that time into the Northeast's largest festival celebrating the spirit of vaudeville.  Each year, festival co-directors Michael Levine and Avner Eisenberg present over a dozen of the region's most accomplished jugglers, mimes, acrobats, and magicians in a week-long event featuring Phyzkidz shows for the younger fans, mainstage vaudeville shows for audiences of all ages, and a special cabaret-style show for adults only.  This year's Phyzgig will consist of over a dozen shows that will see the return of Avner the Eccentric on Tuesday, December 28 at 7 p.m.  As in the past, the mainstage shows will be accompanied by the sounds of the Phyzgig pit band under the direction of Julie Goell.  The specific schedule of performers should be announced in mid-November.

The Maine Playwrights Festival takes place at the St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center over three weekends from April 14 to May 1, 2011.  Acorn expects to begin accepting plays soon for this 3-week festival, which will feature performances of the selected scripts in evenings of rotating repertory.  Last year over fifty local artists were involved in this event, which is one of the only festivals dedicated to nurturing and developing new scripts by Maine-based playwrights. Two previous plays produced by Acorn at the Maine Short Play Festival have gone on to showcases in New York.  Acorn anticipates announcing script selections by the end of January.

Naked Shakespeare has a busy year, beginning in September with Sonnets and Soliloquies in Monument Square on Monday, September 13, followed by appearances the first Monday of the month (except January) at the Wine Bar on Wharf Street.  Additionally, the company will be working on an expanded (and renamed) Riverbank Shakespeare Festival (formerly the Westbrook Shakespeare Festival), to be presented from May 5 to 22, 2011.  The company is abridging 3 late-period Shakespeare plays to 90-minutes apiece and presented the in rotating repertory: Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline.  In June on Peaks Island, supported by an Artists in Maine Communities grant from the Maine Arts Commission and the Peaks Island Fund, Naked Shakespeare presents a performance installation based on Cymbeline at Battery Steele.  Naked Shakespeare events are presented by the Acorn Shakespeare Ensemble, a group of professional actors under the direction of Michael Levine and Michael Howard who are dedicated to exposing new audiences to the work of the world's greatest playwright.  Naked Shakespeare performances minimize sets, lighting and props in order to focus attention on the imagery and poetry of the language, allowing the audience to create the world of the play in their imagination as Shakespeare's original audiences did at the Globe Theater. 

Acorn Productions presented its first show in September of 1995 under the umbrella of Oak Street Theatre.  Since that time, the company has experienced steady growth in audience size and artist compensation, becoming an independent 501(c)3 company in August of 1998 and hiring its first member of Actor's Equity Association in March of 2000. During the 2000/2001 season, Acorn Productions collaborated with Friends of St. Lawrence to renovate the parish hall of the St. Lawrence church and opened the new theatre with a presentation of Much Ado About Nothing in May of 2001. Since that time, Acorn has focused on events that enable project directors to establish long-term relationships with performing artists and playwrights, establishing a popular and eclectic series of annual events that appeal to a broad range of the community.  In the fall of 2006, the company moved into the Dana Warp Mill in Westbrook, creating Acorn Studios, a low-cost complex of rehearsal and workshop space for use by the community.  In addition to a season of public performances, Acorn offers acting classes for kids and adults, and a series of Friday dramatic readings of new scripts at Acorn Studios.

ACORN PRODUCTIONS 2010/11 SEASON

THE SECRET OF COMEDY by Michael Kimball
October 8 to 24, 2010
Acorn Studio Theater, Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook
Tickets $10 

THREE BILLY GOATS GRUFF presented by Fairy Tale Players
November 5 to 21, 2010
Acorn Studio Theater, Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook
Tickets $5 to $7 

THE WORLD OF Sholom Aleichem by Arnold Perl
December 3 to 19, 2010
Acorn Studio Theater, Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook
Tickets $10 

PHYZGIG
December 26 to 31, 2010
SPACE Gallery and Portland Stage Company
Tickets: $10 to $20 

Avner the Eccentric (part of Phyzgig)
Portland Stage Company
Tuesday, December 28 at 7:30 p.m.
Tickets: $14 to $20 

CRYING AT MOVIES by John Manderino
January 13 to 30, 2011
Acorn Studio Theater, Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook
Tickets $10 

JOJO DUBOIS MEETS HIS MATCH presented by Fairy Tale Players
March 11 to 27, 2011
Acorn Studio Theater, Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook
Tickets $5 to $7 

BEST OF FEST: VOLUME II various playwrights
March 31 to April 10, 2011
Acorn Studio Theater, Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook
Tickets $10 

MAINE PLAYWRIGHTS FESTIVAL
April 14 to May 1, 2011
St. Lawrence Arts and Community Center
Tickets: $14 to $16 

RIVERBANK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL - Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Cymbeline
May 5 to 22, 2011
Riverbank Park, Main St., Westbrook
Tickets: FREE (suggested donation $10) 

RAPUNZEL presented by Fairy Tale Players
June 3 to 19, 2011
Acorn Studio Theater, Dana Warp Mill, Westbrook
Tickets $5 to $7 

NAKED SHAKESPEARE AT BATTERY STEELE
June 25 and 26, 2011
Battery Steele, Peaks Island
Tickets: FREE (suggested donation $10)

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