President's Corner
January 2013
We are planning our 2013-14 season with one surprise still to be confirmed. In September we will do Company, a musical comedy based on a book by George Furth with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. The original production was nominated for a then-unheard-of and subsequent record-setting fourteen Tony Awards and won six. Originally entitled Threes, its plot revolves around Bobby (a single man unable to commit fully to a steady relationship, let alone marriage), the five married couples who are his best friends, and his three girlfriends.
In February we will have Cabaret, a musical based on a book written by Christopher Isherwood, music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb. The 1966 Broadway production became a hit and spawned a 1972 film as well as numerous subsequent productions. Set in 1931 Berlin as the Nazis are rising to power, it focuses on nightlife at the seedy Kit Kat Klub and revolves around the 19-year-old English cabaret performer Sally Bowles and her relationship with the young American writer Cliff Bradshaw.
In May will be Les Misérables a sung-through musical play based on the novel of the same name by French poet and playwright Victor Hugo. It has music by Claude-Michel Schönberg, original French lyrics by Alain Boublil and Jean-Marc Natel, with an English-language libretto by Herbert Kretzmer. Set in early 19th-century France, it is the story of Jean Valjean, a burly French peasant of abnormal strength and potentially violent nature, and his quest for redemption after serving nineteen years in jail for having stolen a loaf of bread for starving relatives. Valjean decides to break his parole and start his life anew after a kindly bishop inspires him to, but he is relentlessly tracked down by a police inspector named Javert. Along the way, Valjean and a slew of characters are swept into a revolutionary period in France, where a group of young idealists make their last stand at a street barricade.
Thought I would give you a heads up on these wonderful shows. Enjoy the rest of this great season.
Bill Stepansky
President
The Opera House Players
860-668-6020
billstepan@aol.com
The St. Martha Players, founded in 1968, is the oldest community theater group in the area that performs exclusively musical theater. The group performs a variety of shows each season, set in a unique, historic setting built in 1892.
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