Burroughs High School Drama Departments
production of Edmund Rostand's
"Cyrano de Bergerac"
opens this weekend!
Dates: February 19, 20, 26 & 27
Curtain time: 7pm
Tickets: $7 pre-sale (available at Red Rock Books), $10 at the door
Monday, February 15, 2010
In Other News: David Hodgson in "Der Freischütz."
IWV BARITONE REIGNS ON NORTHERN CALIFORNIA OPERA STAGE
David Hodgson, local voice teacher and frequent performer in concerts and other musical presentations throughout our valley, is currently appearing as Prince Ottokar in the West Bay Opera Company’s production of the landmark German Romantic opera “Der Freischütz” in Palo Alto.
Hodgson, who first came to Ridgecrest in 1988, has been applauded by local audiences for his acting and singing performances in such CLOTA hits as “South Pacific,” “West Side Story” and “Amadeus.” He has been featured soloist on a number of Desert Community Orchestra programs, and at the DCO’s recent holiday gala, “A Christmas in Ridgecrest,” he also led an ensemble of his voice students in a group of crowd-pleasing holiday favorites.
Hodgson’s acting, singing and teaching skills were honed through his years in a performing arts high school in Houston, as an undergraduate at the University of Texas in Austin, and at California State University, Northridge.
It was in Northridge that he undertook private study with master vocal coach Gabriel Reoyo-Pazos, an association that continues—“to my enormous benefit!” Hodgson says—to the present. Reoyo-Pazos was instrumental in booking some of Hodgson’s earliest engagements with professional opera companies. In addition to the Palo Alto organization, these have included Pacific Repertory Opera in San Luis Obispo and Pasadena’s Euterpa Opera Company.
The Ridgecrest baritone says he especially values the opportunities he has had to work with composers and librettists in premiering new operas. These have included John Biggs’ adaptation of the literary classic “Hobson’s Choice,” and “Serafina y Arcángela” by Enrique Gonzales-Medina.
He points out that his collaboration on new works actually originated here in Ridgecrest when he joined playwright-composer Bill Blanc’s team to premiere “The Bungling Ballerinas” for CLOTA on the BHS stage in 1990. “To be there as a new work becomes realized on stage,” he says, “to be a part of that process is fascinating.”
“I do enjoy performing,” Hodgson muses, “but I think my first love is teaching voice. I miss my students when I’m away, but keeping active in the profession allows me to bring a perspective to my lessons that’s invaluable to students.”
Hodgson has been singing with the West Bay Opera for the past several seasons. He has been featured in “Cavelleria Rusticana” and “I Pagliacci,” among others, and this past October his interpretation of Marcello, male second-lead in “La Bohème,” drew praise from the Bay Area arts publication The San Francisco Classical Voice for his “secure, chocolate-y baritone voice.”
His run as the benevolently clever prince in “Der Freischütz” ends within the next two weeks, and Hodgson expects to resume his teaching activities in Ridgecrest in early March. He urges anyone desiring more information about West Bay Opera to visit the company’s website at http://www.wbopera.org/ or to contact him at 1+760-371-4276.
"PROOF" PRIZES ADD UP TO PRIME ENTERTAINMENT
The Community Light Opera and Theater Association's upcoming stage offering, “Proof”—opening March 5 at Center Stage—swept the 2001 Broadway season’s awards for best play. Judges for the Pulitzer Prize, the Tony, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Lucille Lortel Award all chose playwright David Auburn’s fascinating exploration of the questionable line between intellectual virtuosity and delusional folly.
New York Magazine compared Auburn to “Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill and Lillian Hellman, in earlier generations … always writing about big ideas and wrapping them in family squabbles that get us where we live.” The New York Daily News critic noted that the play “combines elements of mystery and surprise with old-fashioned storytelling to provide a compelling evening of theatre.”
The often-humorously squabbling family in "Proof" consists of a brilliant but unstable University of Chicago math professor (played by John Slate) and his two daughters. One of these young women (K. Pearl Woolam) is a no-nonsense Manhattan currency analyst who finds herself estranged from her younger sister (Rachel Schmalenberger.) The latter has remained on home ground to nurse their father through lengthy periods of mental illness. An ex-graduate student (Andrew Gray) triggers complex results—some droll, some daunting—when he discovers a paradigm-shifting proof of advanced theoretical mathematics among the professor’s notes and raises the question of its authorship: is it the work of the virtuoso mathematician himself or of his stay-at-home daughter?
CLOTA Director Barbara Roberts thinks “the audience will enjoy seeing how this all works out as much as we’ve enjoyed putting it all together.” Because of the nature of the play’s subject matter and contemporary language CLOTA recommends this production for mature audiences.
Following its March 5 début, "Proof" will play 7:30 evening performances March 6, 12, 13, 19 & 20. A Sunday matinee begins at 2:00 on the 14th. Doors open 30 minutes before lights-up time. Center Stage is at 1425 N. Inyo.
Tickets are available at Red Rock Books: $12 general admission, $10 for seniors, students, enlisted active-duty military and CLOTA members; all tickets for opening night and the Sunday matinee are special-priced at $8.00. For more information, please leave a callback request on the CLOTA hotline: 1+760-446-2411.
Friday, February 5, 2010
Proof Cast Update
The role of Hal in CLOTA's production of "Proof" will now be played by Andrew Gray.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
