Wayne Hill Reprises Role Of Don Quixote at Gettysburg Community Theatre

Gettysburg Community Theatre, the non-profit 501c3 organization located in the original Elks Lodge building at 49 York Street within the first block of Lincoln Square in historic downtown Gettysburg, will present the musical, Man Of La Mancha at 7pm on Fridays and Saturdays and 2pm on Sundays January 6-22, 2017. Limited reserved seating $18 plus tax/fees.

Tickets can be purchased online at www.GettysburgCommunityTheatre.org or by calling 717-334-2692 with credit card, or by visiting the box office with cash, check or credit card during box office hours 2-7pm Tuesdays-Fridays at GCT. Tickets are selling fast to all shows so order in advance as the intimate black box theatre only seats 80 and is reserved seating.

Wayne Hill stars in the play within a play Man Of La Mancha as Miguel de Cervantes who portrays Signore Alonso Quijana and Don Quixote. Also starring in the show is Stacey Werner of Harrisburg who plays Aldonza/Dulcinea and Sam Eisenhuth of New Cumberland who plays Sancho.

Local actors also in the cast include Ed Riggs as the Governor/Innkeeper, Steve Herr as The Padre, Ed Kenney as Pedro, D. Scott Hartwig as Duke/Dr. Carrasco, Buff Wills as the Housekeeper, Barbara Dempsey-West as Maria, Emily Smallwood as Antonia, Ed Gobrecht as The Barber, James O'Dell as the Captain of the Inquisition, Seth Zimman as Paco, and Nick Wallace as Juan; all from Gettysburg, Steve Huete of Orrtanna plays Tenorio and Kevin Foster of Mechanicsburg plays Anselmo. The production is under the direction of GCT's Founding Executive/Artistic Director, Chad-Alan Carr and is being music directed by Nick Werner who will conduct 6 piece band.

Wayne Hill, one of the Gettysburg area's most talented and versatile voices, was born in Gettysburg and graduated from Susquehanna University with a B.A. in Economics in 1970.

His lifetime avocation also started at Susquehanna with the study of vocal music. During the 1970's he had the lead in three musicals at York Little Theater, Man of La Mancha, South Pacific, and The Sound of Music, reprising the role of Don Quixote at the Eichelberger Performing Arts Center production of Man Of La Mancha under the direction of Chad-Alan Carr in Hanover in 2008. During the 1980's and 90's he had the baritone lead in ten different productions with the Harrisburg Opera Company. He sang with the Harrisburg Symphony in Rigoletto and La Boheme in concert performances. He has sung with the St. James Adult Choir since 1975, sang with the Harrisburg Singers and Jubilate, and was a professional soloist at Brown memorial Presbyterian Church in Baltimore. He sings in many Civil War remembrance events and community services in Gettysburg, and regularly performs with small ensembles called Wayne Hill and Friends, The Troubadours, or Music, Gettysburg on Tour which travel throughout central Pennsylvania, northern Maryland, and Florida.....with their seventh annual concert tour scheduled this winter in central and southern Florida.

This group includes pianist Michael Matsinko, retired Gettysburg College professor, and emeritus Gettysburg Seminary professor Gerald Christianson offering sacred or Civil War era music. In the summer of 1998 he toured England and Scotland with a solo program sponsored by "Music, Gettysburg!". The next summer he traveled to Wales with an ensemble directed by composer John William "Buzz" Jones and also participated in the premier performance of Life is Looking Up, written by Judge Oscar Spicer and Bruce Van Dyke. Wayne was a founding board member of Gettysburg Community Theatre for seven years and has performed with GCT in several productions including The Fantasticks, Amahl and the Night Visitors, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

For forty-three years he worked with Gettysburg Construction Co. serving the last twenty-five years as president. He has been married to his wife Susan for over forty years and has three grown daughters and three grandchildren. He presently serves as chair of the WellSpan Gettysburg Hospital Board, on the Steering Committee of both "Music, Gettysburg!" and the Gettysburg Brass Band Festival, and has been a member of the Gettysburg Optimist Club for over forty years.

Man of La Mancha, based on Cervantes' epic 17th-century novel, Don Quixote, is a remarkable, poignant, moving musical that was one of the first shows to musicalize a piece of historical literature. Set in the context of the Spanish Inquisition, Man of La Mancha is presented as a play-within-a-play. We encounter historical author Miguel de Cervantes in prison, awaiting trial by the Inquisition. When his fellow prisoners try to take Cervantes' belongings from him, including his manuscript, Cervantes proposes a trial in which he proves the merit of the manuscript through a reenactment, enlisting his fellow prisoners as characters in his play. Together, they tell the story of the aged Alonso Quijana who believes himself to be a knight errant, names himself Don Quixote, and pursues an obsessive quest to attain an impossible dream. Against all odds, Quixote and his trusty squire Sancho Panza take to the road in a quest to chivalry, and seek out the good and innocent in a world filled with darkness and despair.

Through the story, all the prisoners - at least for a moment - are transformed. The mad Don Quixote may think a windmill to be a giant and a tavern to be a castle, but along the way he also transforms a wretched woman into a beautiful lady - and proves that an old man's belief can truly make him a knight. Man of La Mancha features such stirring songs as "Dulcinea" and the now-famous standard, "Quest" - more famously known as "The Impossible Dream."

Man Of La Mancha contains mature language and situations that may not be suitable for some audiences.

GCT Mission Statement: To inspire creativity and confidence, provide cultural enrichment, and instill a love of the theatre arts in people of all ages and abilities through quality education, training and performance.

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