Director’s View: trio of performances
aims to please children and adults

Late October brings three wonderful performances—a masterful puppet show based on a beloved children’s picture book, a classic Broadway musical, and a Shakespearean tragedy performed by actors from Britain’s best companies—that demonstrate the variety of Center for the Performing Arts presentations for children and adults.

Our Wide-Eyed Wonders series for children kicks off when we present Hudson Vagabond Puppets performing Ferdinand the Bull. The show offers a rare opportunity to have puppetry in the series because the larger-than-life puppets are perfect for the Eisenhower Auditorium stage. The timeless nature of Munro Leaf’s story, upon which the show is based, comes alive to show us all again there is a way to resolve conflicts peacefully. One of my favorite things about each event in this series is what we call Kidz Connections, free activities for ticket holders themed to the day’s presentation and beginning one hour before the performance. I get such a kick out of helping out and seeing the enjoyment our young patrons (and adults, too) get from these fun and stimulating activities created by our staff.

In addition to bringing the best of the newest Broadway musicals, we also look for quality tours of revivals. GYPSY certainly qualifies. Many people—myself included—consider GYPSY one of the greatest American musicals. If one test is how many people would recognize its songs, certainly it scores high. Remember “Everything’s Coming up Roses” and “Let Me Entertain You”? GYPSY also passes the test of time; it has been revived again and again on Broadway. It also had a short run in July 2007 at New York’s City Center.

In the business, GYPSY is considered a “book musical.” It’s loosely based on the memoirs of Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous striptease artist, though it focuses on her mother, Mama Rose. Many famous musical theatre actresses, including Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Betty Buckley, Bernadette Peters, and, most recently, Patti LuPone, have played the main character through the years. The original production, which opened in 1959 and ran for more than 700 performances, garnered lots of Tony Award nominations but ran up against the The Sound of Music, which won most of them. Since then the show has earned Tonys for two leading ladies (Lansbury and Daly) and best revival.

To close out our October presentations we welcome back Actors from the London Stage to present Macbeth. What an appropriate play to offer on Halloween. And what a tour de force this will be as five great British actors take on multiple roles to bring Shakespeare’s classic to life both on stage at Schwab Auditorium and in our imaginations. We’ll enjoy having these gifted actors with us for a week of classroom visits, master classes, and symposia across the University Park campus and in the community.

I hope you can join us at the theatre for some or all of these engaging events.

George Trudeau
Center for the Performing Arts director