Saturday, December 8, 2012
Playhouse 22 will perform "A Christmas Carol" beginning Friday, Dec. 5 and running through Sunday, Dec. 16.
It’s become a holiday tradition around the country, and for the 16th year in a row, Middlesex County is a part of it. Playhouse 22’s production of the Charles Dickens’ classic, “A Christmas Carol,” opens Friday, Dec. 7, and will run through Sunday, Dec. 16. The production once again brings the story of Ebenezer Scrooge, the Cratchits, and the Christmas ghosts to life in a stage play originally adapted by Tony Adase, who returns as the director. “Ever since I was a kid listening to it on the radio it has stayed with me,” he said this week minutes before a dress rehearsal. "We made this a serious drama, like it should have been. Like the book.” Just in case you’ve never hard of it, or know it by another name (perhaps simply as “Scrooge”), “A…
Friday, May 4, 2012
Playhouse 22's production of Gypsy runs through May 13, and Sunday's performance is already sold out!
Director Gerry Appel, though, has already formed his opinion. He did so three decades ago. “I remember seeing the Rosalind Russell Natalie Wood movie on the Million Dollar Movie, on TV in the afternoon when I was a kid,” Appel said, “But, I fell in love with the show when I was cast as Herbie in a summer stock production at Shawnee Playhouse 30 years ago." Many of the tunes from Gypsy have become so widely known, they're familiar even to those who have never set foot in a theater. The score, by Jule Styne with lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, includes “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” “Let Me Entertain You,” “Together Wherever We Go,” and “Gotta Have a Gimmick.” With such memorable music, it'd be easy for Gypsy's story to take a back seat. But …
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Playhouse 22's production of "Extremities" opens Friday.
If you look at the section of Playhouse 22’s website dedicated to its “On the Edge” production series, you will learn that the theater considers the series, “an opportunity for directors to present lesser known or smaller works,” and to emphasize the play and the acting over more technical theatrical elements. Perhaps no play fits such a mission statement better than William Mastrasimone’s “Extremities,” which opened on Friday, March 16, as the series’ next installment. And perhaps no one is more thankful for that fit than the production’s director. “I didn’t think any theater would ever go for it,” said Deborah Pedretti, who is directing at the playhouse for the first time. “I’ve been trying to propose it to may theaters over the years …
