Happenings at MetroStage

Sunday, August 8, 2010

MetroStage's New Season

OH, LOOK: Glimpses of the Moon, opening in September at MetroStage, will feature Gia Mora and Stephen F. Schmidt. (Photo by Colin Hovde)

MetroStage in Alexandria will open its next season with a new musical, Glimpses of the Moon (Sept. 8-Oct. 17), based on the novel by Edith Wharton. The book and lyrics are by Tajlei Levis and the music by John Mercurio. Director-choreographer David Marquez will stage the show with a cast that includes Stephen F. Schmidt and Gia Mora.

Producing Artistic Director Carolyn Griffin says the "Jazz Age musical" will be a world premiere, because its earlier incarnation was in cabaret form at Manhattan's Algonquin Hotel. Griffin hopes Glimpses of the Moon will have a life after MetroStage. "There's every reason in the world to think that it might be a viable show for other theaters looking for small musicals," she says.

Other MetroStage-nurtured shows that have gone onward and upward include Rooms, a Rock Romance, which moved off-Broadway and has been produced at other theaters, and Pearl Bailey . . . by Request, starring Roz White. Cool Papa's Party, with a script by Thomas W. Jones II, music by William Knowles and choreography by Maurice Hines, premiered at MetroStage in 2009, and Griffin says there are plans afoot for a Broadway staging.

It should be interesting for audiences to see shows in early and evolving stages, she says, as they will with Glimpses of the Moon. "The writers and the composer are revisiting the script and the music and will be making minor changes for this next stage of the development of the musical."

MetroStage's holiday show will be A Broadway Christmas Carol (Nov. 18-Dec. 19), a spoof by Kathy Feininger, directed by Larry Kaye and choreographed by Nancy Harry.

Singer-actress Bernardine Mitchell will return to MetroStage as the legendary performer Ethel Waters in His Eye Is on the Sparrow (Jan. 20-March 13) by Larry Parr, directed by Gary Yates.

The stars of MetroStage's 2009 hit Heroes, a three-character piece adapted by Tom Stoppard from a French play, will reunite in Stoppard's farce The Real Inspector Hound (April 14-May 29). John Vreeke, who staged Heroes, will direct.


CLICK HERE to read the full Washington Post story by Jane Horwitz

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