What's Next?

Our “Ballad” is open, the reviews are coming in (a couple of our faves are here and here) and we are primed and ready for a great run (get your tickets here). The show runs through September 12th.

So what else is going on?

This is an unusual season for us, as we are only doing two shows as opposed to our standard three. There is a very good and very exciting reason for this that will be made clear sooner rather than later, so stay tuned for that.

There will be a formal press release in the coming week or so, but we would like to make mention here that we have three new ensemble members: Melania Lancy, Jon Steinhagen and Bries Vannon. Mel and Bries had been with us as Artistic Associates last season (a sort of part-time designation), but the full-time involvement they were putting in led to their title changes. Mel has been designing our worlds since "Catch-22" in 2004, and Bries has worked as actor or assistant director for several of our shows. Their talent is on full display in “Ballad,” with Mel’s gorgeously run-down general store setting the tone and Bries’ Crazy Merlie Ryan gettin’ his crazy on all over the place.

Jon has appeared in our productions of "1776" and "Six Degrees of Separation." He has also been a very active participant in our monthly Second Sundays reading series, and he may have written a play for a specific company that said specific company is pretty excited about. He is our first “brand new” member since bringing Simone on board over a year ago, and we feel extremely fortunate that he accepted our offer. He brings a ton of experience in multiple disciplines. Plus, we love him.

But when’s the next show? Well, Snook isn’t growing his hair long for nothing. We open "Aftermath" in May at the Raven Theatre. The Brian Jones semi-bio-play-semi-musical will begin light music rehearsals in the coming weeks as the latest draft is turned in and casting is complete. Joe is getting his rhythm guitar on as he preps to play Keith Richards, and we are very excited to report that Nick Vidal has agreed to do his best Jagger for us. The aforementioned Mr. Steinhagen is going to help us put all of the musical pieces together, and I’ll be overseeing the entire matter once I’m finished sweating the script out.

As for a sneak peak, here’s a tidbit with the soft spoken Jones. As is the plays primary purpose to reveal, he was one of music’s true little known geniuses. Just don’t ask him to define Surrealism.

Cheers,

Ronan