ENCORES! SERIES DIRECTOR LEAVES WELL ENOUGH ALONE.Byline: Reed Johnson Reed Cameron Johnson (born December 8, 1976 in Riverside, California) is an outfielder for the Toronto Blue Jays of the American League East division of Major League Baseball. He weighs 180 lb (82 kg) and is 5'10" tall. Daily News Staff Writer Not long ago, Glenn Casale made a Manhattan theater excursion to catch up on a few Broadway shows. ``The Lion King''? He ``marveled'' at the technology and director Julie Taymor's boundless creativity. ``Titanic''? ``I can see the value in it,'' Casale says earnestly. OK, Glenn, how about ``Jekyll & Hyde,'' which a number of critics found hollow and overbearing? ``I see why `Jekyll & Hyde' excites people, like a rock concert does,'' Casale replies approvingly. ``The music and the voices bleed together and overwhelm people.'' By now you're probably getting the picture that Casale is a man both of broad tastes and finely honed diplomatic skills. Or perhaps it's just that, as the Toluca Lake resident puts it, ``I'm an easy audience because I see the work that goes behind it.'' Southern California Southern California, also colloquially known as SoCal, is the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Centered on the cities of Los Angeles and San Diego, Southern California is home to nearly 24 million people and is the nation's second most populated region, audiences are getting used to seeing the work behind Casale's own productions. An upstate New York Upstate New York is the region of New York State north of the core of the New York metropolitan area. It has a population of 7,121,911 out of New York State's total 18,976,457. Were it an independent state, it would be ranked 13th by population. native, Casale has become one of the West Coast's most prolific and well-regarded theater directors since migrating here in the early 1980s. For the next two weeks, he'll be helming ``The Threepenny Opera,'' the latest offering in the Encores! series of staged concert musicals, which opened Wednesday at UCLA's Freud Playhouse. In between, he's been laying the groundwork for the Broadway opening of ``Peter Pan,'' in a musically new production starring Cathy Rigby, which recently played L.A.'s Pantages Theatre There are multiple venues named the Pantages Theatre: Canada
A winner of several Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle awards for directing, Casale's musical theater credits include ``Into the Woods'' with Leslie Uggams Leslie Uggams (born May 25, 1943 in New York City) is American actress and singer, best known for her Tony Award-winning work in Hallelujah, Baby! Uggams first started in show business as a child in 1950, playing the niece of Ethel Waters on the television series , ``Fiddler on the Roof'' with Theodore Bikel and ``Sweet Charity'' with Donna McKechnie Early life Donna McKechnie (born November 16, 1940) is a Tony Award-winning American musical theater dancer, singer. actress and choreographer. McKechnie was born in Pontiac, Michigan. She took beginner ballet classes at age five. . For ``Peter Pan,'' he and Rigby opted for a slightly scarier version than usual of the children's musical, sticking closely to the spirit of J.M. Barrie's original book. While Casale explains that ``I tend to like darker shows,'' with ``Threepenny Opera'' he's making a point of keeping things light. After all, the Kurt Weill-Bertolt Brecht ``musical'' satire about a gang of cutthroats and beggars hardly needs sobering up. ``Last night, I was driving home from rehearsal and I thought, `I've got to maintain the humor,' '' he says. ``Brecht's humor is so important. You're so bound by the political nature of the piece that you've got to have other things that diffuse the politics. You've got to maintain the humor, you've got to maintain the sexuality. Because this piece is all about urges.'' Strong ensemble Casale says he got the urge to do ``Threepenny'' after discussing a list of possible shows with Marcia Seligson, producing artistic director of Encores! Inspired by the highly successful Encores! series at New York's City Center, Reprise re·prise n. 1. Music a. A repetition of a phrase or verse. b. A return to an original theme. 2. A recurrence or resumption of an action. tr.v. ! made its debut in the spring of 1997 with ``Promises, Promises'' and also has included ``Finian's Rainbow,'' ``Wonderful Town'' and ``The Pajama Game.'' In a way, ``Threepenny'' is a surprising choice for the series, which aims at restoring luster to the scores of musicals that are seldom revived, usually because they have books that are problematic and/or have aged badly. ``Threepenny,'' by contrast, is revived fairly often at regional theaters, colleges and so on, though its last Broadway outing was a critically lambasted 1989 production starring rock singer Sting. A far more successful Joseph Papp
Casale says ``Threepenny'' will remind audiences that great musicals needn't always be sweetness-and-light, boy-meets-girl affairs - as the recent ``Chicago'' revival, developed through the Encores! series, aptly demonstrated. He also believes the show offers a textbook opportunity for strong ensemble acting. To that end, he's assembled an impeccably credentialed cast - Bikel, Ken Page, Rachel York Rachel York (born Rachel Lemanski on August 7, 1971 in Orlando, Florida) is an American actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in City of Angels, The Scarlet Pimpernel, Les Miserables, Victor/Victoria, Kiss Me, Kate , Carrie Hamilton Carrie Hamilton (December 5, 1963 in New York City - January 20, 2002, in Los Angeles) was an American actress, singer, and playwright. She was the daughter of comedienne/actress Carol Burnett and the late producer Joe Hamilton, and the god-daughter of British actress Julie Andrews. , Jonelle Allen Jonelle Allen (born July 18, 1944) is an American actress, singer, and dancer. Born in New York City, Allen grew up in Harlem's Sugar Hill among neighbors that included Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, and Johnny Hodges, all of whom had an influence on her career choice. , among others - without any major TV or film stars. ``I looked for actors who were aggressive in their acting choices,'' Casale says. ``I really believe in the actors' creativity, when you allow them to be creative without judgment. I believe that in whatever I do, even if I'm doing `Fiddler,' if you don't have an ensemble, I don't care
"Don't Care" is a 1994 (see 1994 in music) single by American death metal band Obituary. who your stars are, you don't have a play.'' Known both as a thorough and a pleasant taskmaster task·mas·ter n. 1. One who imposes tasks, especially burdensome or laborious ones. 2. A source of burden or responsibility: The profession of medicine is a stern taskmaster. , Casale has all his actors write biographies of their characters, no matter how large or small their parts. Beggars, for instance, had to decide how long they'd been with the Peachums and how they'd lost their various arms and legs. Casale even asked one woman to consider whether her character's amputated leg was real or a put-on. After a dinner break, she decided her character was faking it. So now, after hobbling around in Act 1, she mysteriously sheds her injury in Act 2. ``I think that will be a fun moment,'' Casale says. THE FACTS What: ``The Threepenny Opera.'' Where: UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX Freud Playhouse, Macgowan Hall on the UCLA campus, off Hilgard Avenue, Westwood. When: 8 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, 2 and 8 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday; Sept. 9-20. There will be a 7 p.m. performance this Sunday only. Tickets: $45 to $50. Call (310) 825-2101. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Director Glenn Casale believes the backbone of any show is a strong ensemble cast, which he has assembled for ``The Threepenny Opera.'' John McCoy/Daily News |
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