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Ole Olsen Memorial Theatre
2008-2009 Performance Slate |
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Night and Day: A Soapy Cole
This year, Ole Olsen is offering the timeless works of Cole Porter in a
soap
opera setting. Writer/director Kurt Schindler is exploring the intermingled
lives of two families: The Gardners and The Stones. Due to increased
attendance each year, the show will be held at Ivy Tech Campus of Peru.
Show dates are June 14, 20, & 21 at 8 pm and June 15 at 2 pm. Please call
473-9183 (Nancy at the Miami County Museum) or 472-2510 (Brenn at It's New
To You) to make reservations.
Provided with support from Arts United of Greater Fort Wayne, the
Indiana Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal
agency. |
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Children's production of "Alice's Adventures".
Director Cari Scott is very excited
to be bringing the musical "Alice's Adventures" to the Ole stage.
This version is adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s
work, and is a combination of the stories told in “Through the Looking
Glass” and “Alice in Wonderland”. The script remains true to Carroll’s writing
style and features a good cross-section of the eccentric characters from his
books. This is a children's production, and Scott is utilizing
students as director assistants, lights, and makeup. Show dates are
July 25-27 & August 1-3rd. Ticket prices are $7 each. |
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The first show of the season will be
the classic “The Miracle Worker” written by William Gibson. This stirring
dramatization of the story of Helen Keller is one of the most successful and
warmly admired plays of the modern stage. Blind and mute, nobody knows what
Helen's fate might have been had she not come in contact with teacher Annie
Sullivan, an Irish woman who had also been born blind. The cast includes:
two girls age 8-12 to portray Helen & Martha; a man in his early 20’s to
play her half brother James; two men age 40-60 as Captain Keller & the
doctor, one boy age
10-14 to play Percy, five women 30-70 in the roles of Kate Keller, Annie
Sullivan, Annie’s confident, Aunt Ev, and the
maid Viney; and several elementary age students
to play blind children. Debby Mullikin will direct and hopes to enlist a
parent of the girl cast as Helen to serve as her assistant director. The
show will be cast early in June with rehearsals to begin in mid August. |
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The second show on the slate will be the comedy “See
How They Run” written by Philip King and codirected by Tammy Hileman and
Pat Piper; assistant director Carlota Eagley. The cast calls for six men
and three women. This rib tickling farce centers on an American actor
and actress (he is now stationed with the air force in England), a
cockney maid who has seen too many American movies, an old maid who
"touches alcohol for the first time in her life," four men in clergyman
suits presenting the problem of which is which, for disguised as one is
an escaped prisoner, and a sedate Bishop aghast at all these goings on
and the trumped up stories they tell him Assisting Hileman will be
assistant directors Pat Piper and Carlota Eagley. Auditions will
be held in August. |
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Making her directorial debut, Carlota Eagley takes on the 3rd selection
for the season, “Crimes of the Heart” by Beth Henley. The scene is in
Mississippi, where the three Magrath sisters have gathered to await news
of the family patriarch, their grandfather, who is living out his last
hours. Lenny, the oldest sister, is 30, unmarried, and facing
diminishing marital prospects; Meg, the middle sister, is back home
after a failed singing career on the West Coast; while Babe, the
youngest, is out on bail after having shot her husband in the stomach
Assisting Eagley with the cast of 4 women and 2 men will be Rosemary
Burke. Auditions will be in early December. |
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Rounding out the year will be Bryan Bertoline directing “Suite Hearts” a
romantic comedy written by Billy Van Zandt and Jane Milmore. A young
couple from Pennsylvania checks into a posh New York hotel to fill their
weekend with bliss, only to have it filled with strangers. Timothy and
his wife have inadvertently booked the same honeymoon suite as Frankie
and Wanda, an older couple from New Jersey. After they scuffle over the
accommodations, no one is where or with whom they should be. During the
course of the evening, Timothy grows into a man, Elizabeth learns about
trust, Frankie learns to respect women and Wanda learns to respect
herself. The cast is 3 men and 2 women. |
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