In conjunction with Windfall Theatre’s February Milwaukee
premiere of the award winning Pulitzer Prize nominated play SONS OF THE PROPHET by Stephen Karam,
Windfall is sponsoring thru Gathr Films an exclusive screening of the
critically acclaimed new animated feature film
The Prophet,
by celebrated Lebanese author Kahlil Gibran, is among the most popular volumes
of poetry ever written, selling over 100 million copies in forty languages
since its publication in 1923. Gibran's timeless verses have been given
enchanting new form in this painterly cinematic adventure
about freedom and the power of human expression.
This breathtaking animated feature,
produced and spearheaded by Salma Hayek, was an official selection at Cannes
and made its North American premiere at Toronto International Film Festival. Written
and directed by Roger Allers (The Lion King), the film intersperses Gibran's
elegant poetry within stunning animated sequences by filmmakers Tomm Moore (The
Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea), Nina Paley (Sita Sings the Blues), Bill
Plympton (Guide Dog), and a host of award-winning animators from around the
world. Set in a Mediterranean sea-side village, Kamila (Salma Hayek) cleans
house for exiled artist and poet Mustafa (Liam Neeson), but the more difficult
job is keeping her free-spirited young daughter, Almitra, (Quvenzhané Wallis)
out of trouble. The three embark on a journey meant to end with Mustafa's
return home – but first they must evade the authorities who fear that the truth
in his words will incite rebellion. Featuring music from Damien Rice, Glen
Hansard and Yo-Yo Ma.
Those who attend Kahlil
Gibran’s THE PROPHET at the Oriental Theater on Tuesday, January 12 at 7pm are eligible to receive a $10.00 ticket to
Windfall Theatre’s production of
Sons of the Prophetby Stephen
Karam February 19- March 5.
(Tickets subject to availability. Please call Windfall
Theatre’s box office at 414.332.3963 for more information.)
Windfall
Theatre presents
Joseph Douaihy, distantly related to Kahlil Gibran, copes with diagnosing
his own
mysterious illness, caring for his brother and aging
uncle while negotiating a new romance
with Timothy a reporter covering the
circumstances of Joseph’s father’s death.
(Mature subject
matter and language for audiences ages 18 and over)
Friday, October 9, 2015
Friends
of Windfall Theatre
Please
join us for
GHOSTS
by Henrik Ibsen
Adapted by Maureen Kilmurry
and the Windfall Theatre Cast
from the 1891 William
Archer translation.
To lay to rest rumors about the depraved
behavior of her late husband, Helene Alving is on the verge of dedicating an
orphanage in memory of him. She has built the orphanage with Captain Alving’s
money so that her son Oswald will not inherit anything from his father. Her
plans unravel as ghosts from the past emerge and long kept secrets and lies are
exposed. Banned as shocking and lewd when it was written in 1881, yet influential
and important to GB Shaw, Thomas Hardy and Henry James, Ibsen’s GHOSTS shined a
stark light on the hypocrisy of the day and society’s oppression of the human
spirit. Ironically, those societal ghosts still walk in our world today. Don’t
miss this poignant and powerful play!
FEATURING
Ben George, Charles
Hanel, Samantha Martinson,
Joe Picchetti, Carol
Zippel
DIRECTION
Maureen Kilmurry
STAGE MANAGEMENT
Dylan Elhai
FRIENDS
OF WINDFALL TICKET SPECIAL!
TICKETS $17.00! ($3 off the ticket price!)
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Windfall Theatre chases a challenging
gravity at the beginning of this season as it presents Henrik Ibsen’s weighty
family drama, Ghosts. Carol Zippel is resolute as Mrs. Alving, a family
matriarch who is trying to put to rest certain sinister shadows from her
family’s past.
Joe Picchetti casts a hauntingly deep
energy into the role of her artist son Oswald who has returned home suffering
from an ominous disease. There is a passion at the heart of Picchetti’s
performance. The character’s infirmity doesn’t hold him back from a feisty
interaction with a pastor who is helping the family with certain business
affairs. The pastor is played with elegantly troubled poise by Ben George, who
conjures an admirable amount of authority onstage even when he’s not speaking a
word. Samantha Martinson is given quite a bit more to communicate nonverbally
in the role of Mrs. Alving’s maid. Martinson plays a very strong and articulate
person who must work in subtlety and clever planning to navigate her way
through the undesirable options that have been presented to her since birth.
Martinson defines the role quite well, giving her just the right amount of fire
and passion underneath the precise layer of formality necessary for a domestic
servant.
It’s a cozy space that Windfall
inhabits. Much of the intensity of the drama is brought to the stage by
proximity. Silences and sighs grow to fill the entire space in an organic way.
Director Maureen Kilmurry has developed a production that lives just as much in
the space between actors as it does in the tension between them. Through Oct.
10 at Village Church Arts on 130 E. Juneau Ave. For tickets, call 414-332-3963.
Milwaukee Examiner Review
"Ghosts"
at Windfall Theatre By
Jeff Grygny, Milwaukee Examiner
It's not at
all surprising that Ghosts is
so seldom performed. This 1881 play by Henrik
Ibsen broke ground for realism in
many ways—and it is also one of the most monumentally depressing dramas ever
written. Smothering under both rigid social norms and the dismal Norwegian
climate, its characters conceal desperate secrets. Yet miraculously, Windfall
Theatre's crystal-clear production offers an evening of gripping,
stimulating theater.
Ibsen was
the Lars Van Trier of his day: innovative and contrarian, his settings are as
tightly focused as any Dogme film, eschewing lyricism in favor of clear-sighted
verity; he challenged conventions while scandalizing both the public and the
critics (one of Ibsen's critics called the play "a festering wound").
The first copies of Ghosts were
returned to the printer: the booksellers were too ashamed to carry them; and
the play's first actual production was, improbably, in Chicago—performed in
Norwegian by a company of forward-thinking émigrés. For all that, Ghosts is very much a
product of its time: though it dared to bring up the forbidden topic of venereal
disease, its tragic outcome could only have occurred in a world before the
discovery of antibiotics. By depicting forbidden subjects in such a vivid,
unblinking way, detailing the emotional and spiritual toll they take, Ibsen
blazed the trail for countless issue dramas, determined to shine light into the
secret corners of society.
It's
remarkable how little scandalous material there actually is in the dialog:
these characters wouldn't be caught dead saying out loud things like "The
captain got the serving girl pregnant," much less whisper the dreaded word
"syphilis" (which is the vehicle for the doom that arrives like a
Greek tragedy in the final act). Everything is conveyed by innuendo—which
actually makes the script much more powerful: we have to piece the truth
together just as the characters do. "There, I've told you everything"
says Mrs. Alving—but she's actually said almost nothing; everything is
implicit.
You can
count the number of woman protagonists in classic drama on your fingers; Ibsen
was responsible for a handful of them, contributing Hedda Gabler, Nora
from A Doll's House,
and, in this play, Helene Alving. Expertly rendered by Carol Zippel, Alving is
a cultured, intelligent, and capable woman who has taken over management of a
large estate after the death of her dissolute but well-respected husband
(nobody ever says how he died, but the implication is clear). Complex,
articulate, and making the most of the mixed hand life has dealt her, she is
rebuked by the village priest for reading "suspect books" and
espousing liberal ideals. Zippel lets us see into this sympathetic character
without a single false note. She has a worthy partner in Joe Picchetti as her
son Oswald, a successful painter who has spent most of his life abroad— barely
knowing his father— but who has recently returned home for an extended stay.
(Picchetti has been seen much around town of late, but, one suspects, it won't
be long before Hollywood or Broadway snaps him up.) Together, these
accomplished actors maneuver their most harrowing scenes without a trace of the
bathos into which they could very easily descend.
As a serving
girl with ambitions, Samantha Martinson brilliantly presents a woman who plays
the game of submission while you can almost hear the wheels turning in her
head; when she learns the truth and shows her colors, it's a breathtaking
moment. Rounding out the cast are Charles Hanel as a townsman scheming behind a
mask of deference, and Ben George as the Pastor. A striking figure in severe
black, he seems genuinely benevolent, but (as is the hazard of his profession),
he is quick to pass judgment, and, as played by George, a bit hapless. His
advice, ever hewing to the letter of scripture, has spectacularly terrible
consequences for everyone. The problem with religious authority, Ibsen
suggests, is that its strictures lead to a kind of righteous blindness—no
wonder Ibsen was condemned, a mere century after the French Enlightenment
raised the ideals of liberty and reason over those of conformity and obedience.
Under Maureen Kilmurry's finely-tuned direction, every moment of the script
works toward the whole; the characters' relationships and intentions are
clearly displayed: there's not a dead moment. Carl Eiche has designed a simple
yet elegant set evoking spiritual agoraphobia: a beautiful monochromatic
backdrop of forest and sea gracefully conveys the setting, while an ingenious
lighting concept by Dylan Elhai brings it to life in a heartbreaking visual
coup; to say anything more would be a spoiler.
Some
productions try to dazzle us with exotic theatrical banquets: elaborate
confections, sparkling wordplay, or high-concept conceits. Windfall's
production of this modernist classic shows that sometimes plain bread and wine
can make for a very satisfying feast.
Waukesha Freeman Review
of “Ghosts”
September 26, 2015 By
Julie McHale
Henrik
Ibsen, one of the most renowned Norwegian playwrights of the 19th century,
was severely criticized during his life for tackling issues that existed but
were not culturally acceptable as material for literature. His works,
nonetheless, had a positive effect on the realism of Hardy, James, and Shaw,
and to this day, many of his plays are often performed, second only to
Shakespeare in popularity.
“Ghosts”
deals with marriage, infidelity, sexual disease, incest, alcoholism and
euthanasia – all realities that exist in any society. Ibsen questions the
strict morality, prevalent in his time, a morality that is more concerned with
how things appear than how they really are, the attitude of hiding anything
scandalous, following the letter rather than the spirit of the law. Pastor
Manders, well delineated by Ben George, is the character who represents this
point of view.
Mrs.
Alving, a tortuous figure, long married to a philandering husband, is erecting
an orphanage to her late husband to cover over his scandalous behavior.
Carol Zippel is stellar in the role. Their son Oswald, very credibly
rendered by Joe Picchetti, an artist just returned from years in Paris, is
dying from syphilis. The cause of his disease is ambiguous as to whether he
acquired it genetically or from his own dissolute behavior. Sexually
transmitted diseases were not well understood in Ibsen’s day.
As
the play proceeds, all sorts of “secrets” (ghosts from the past) are revealed
by Mrs.
Alving, Oswald and others, much to the moral outrage of Pastor Manders, but
again, he is only concerned with how things look, what others will say, than
with the painful reality of situations. To Ibsen, Manders epitomizes the
hypocrisy too often prevalent among those who are firmly entrenched in
“religion.” Having the audacity to criticize the self-proclaimed moral giants
of his time probably accounts for the harsh criticism Ibsen suffered. Exposes
are seldom welcomed by those who are targeted.
Two
other characters who figure in the drama are Jacob Engstrand (Charles Hanel)
and Regina Engstrand (Samantha Martinson), another pair whose histories are
revealed as secrets are uncovered. Both actors are engaging in their
roles.
Adapted
and directed by Maureen Kilmurry with costuming well designed by Connie L.
Petersen and an authentic set design by Carl Eiche, “Ghosts” is a very intriguing
drama. Many of the issues raised are still very relevant today. The
play runs for two more weekends with performances on Friday and Saturday
evenings at 8:00 with an added performance on Thursday, October 8
in the Village Church on Juneau, just west of Water Street in Milwaukee. Check
out www.windfalltheatre.com
or call 414-332-3963 for reservations.
Tamara Martinsek as Donna, Ben George as Stine, Stone & Stine David Ferrie as Buddy Fidler
Marty McNamee as Stone, Laura Monagle as Bobbi
The finale of Windfall
Theatre’s 2014-2015 22nd season of bringing Fearless theatre to
Milwaukee audiences opens Friday, May 1 with theMilwaukee premiere of the multiple Tony Award Winning musical CITY OF ANGELS with lyrics by David
Zippel, music by Cy Coleman and book by Larry Gelbart. CITY OF
ANGELS eight show run is stagedin
Windfall Theatre’s intimate performance space located at Village Church Arts,
130 East Juneau Avenue, in the heart of Milwaukee’s downtown theater district.
About the Musical:
Hitting
Broadway in 1989 and running for 800+ performances, with major productions in
London’s West End in 1993 and 2014 CITY
OF ANGELS is a winner of 6 Tony Awards, 8 Drama Desk Awards, 3 Olivier
Awards and an Edgar Allan Poe best play award for Larry Gelbart’s book. CITY OF
ANGELS is a musical comedy homage to 1940’s film noir private eye movies
told in two simultaneous plots, the “real” world of a writer turning his book
into a screenplay and the “reel” world of his characters in the fictional film.Through this convention it deals with the
writer’s integrity and freedom of expression vs. crass commercialism and
content censorship.It’s a saavy and
sassy send up of the pretensions of Hollywood that resonate today.
...an evening in which even a throwaway
wisecrack spreads laughter like wildfire…
Wonderfully wry…the stuff that dreams are made of.”
~ The New York Times
About the Writers:
CITY OF ANGELS team of writers is comprised of two
legends Cy Coleman, music and Larry Gelbart, book and a talented up and coming
lyricist David Zippel.CITY OF ANGELS was Zippel’s first full length
musical.Growing up in Easton, PA he
wrote parody lyrics to pop tunes making fun of his high school teachers. He
attended Harvard Law School to become a theatrical lawyer, but was side tracked
by meeting Barbara Cook’s accompanist Wally Harper who was looking for a
songwriting partner to create music for Ms. Cook’s Carnegie Hall show.Among Zippel’s many honors are Tony and Drama
Desk Awards (City of Angels) and
Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards (Disney’s Hercules and Mulan and The Swan Princess). He has worked with
many composers including Marvin Hamlisch (The
Goodbye Girl), Phil Collins (Tarzan),
Alan Menken (Hercules), and Andrew
Lloyd Webber (TheWoman in White).
Composer
Cy Coleman (1929 – 2004) was born Seymour Kaufman, in New York City to Eastern European Jewish parents, and was raised in the Bronx. Coleman was a child prodigy who gave piano recitals at Carnegie Hall between the ages of six and nine. His
fabled Broadway career includes Wildcat,
Little Me, Sweet Charity, I Love My Wife, On the Twentieth Century, and The Will Rogers Follies. Among his film
scores are Father Goose, The Art of
Love, Garbo Talks, Power and Family
Business. He wrote the acclaimed television specials If My Friends Could See Me Now and Gypsy in My Soul for Shirley MacLaine.
Larry
Gelbart (1928-2009) a prolific playwright, screenwriter and television writer
is most well known as a creator and producer for the record breaking hit TV
Show M*A*S*H. He began his career as a writer at age 16 for
Danny Thomas’s radio show after Gelbart’s father who was Thomas’s barber showed
him some jokes his son had written.During
the 1940’s he wrote for Jack Paar and Bob Hope; in the 50’s he wrote for Red
Buttons, Sid Caesar and Celeste Holm. He collaborated with Neil Simon, Mel
Brooks, Carl Reiner and Woody Allen.He
received Oscar nomination for Tootsie
and Oh, God!In addition to the long running Broadway
hit CITY OF ANGELS, he co-wrote with
Stephen Sondheim the long running Broadway smash A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. In 2002, he was
inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame and in 2008 he was inducted
into the Television Hall of Fame.
About the Ensemble:
Windfall
has assembled a cavalcade of Milwaukee musical theater talent, directed by
Carol Zippel with music direction by Paula Foley Tillen, to take audiences into
CITY OF ANGELS’ film noir, Hollywood
studio system world of the late 1940’s.The
cast of 17 features Ben George as Stine the novelist turned would be
screenwriter; Marty McNamee as Stone the film noir detective; Laura Monagle in
the dual roles of Bobbi/Gabby Stone’s film noir love and Stine’s wife; Tamara
Martinsek in the dual roles of Donna/Oolie the “Girl Friday” with a heart of
cold in the movie and the real world; Amber Smith in the dual roles of Alaura
Kingsley/Carla the lethal film noir femme fatale and the movie mogul Buddy
Fidler’s wife; David Ferrie as Buddy Fidler cut throat movie mogul and star
maker and Irwin S. Irving his film noir alter ego; Shayne Steliga as Lt. Munoz Stone’s
nemesis and Pancho Vargas actor and Hollywood playboy; Alison Pogorelc as the
film noir bad girl Mallory Kingsley and vapid starlet Avril Raines. Filling the
mean streets of LA in the film and Hollywood studio worlds by playing multiple
roles and bringing to life the intricate Jazz harmonies of CITY OF ANGELS evocative score are Cleary Breunig, Doug Clemons,
Mohammad ElBsat, Marcee Doherty-Elst, Christopher Elst, Leslie Fitzwater, Thom
Gravelle, Amanda J. Hull and Matt Zeman.
The
creative team features choreography by Alicia Rice; costume design by Kathleen Smith;
lighting design by Kevin Czarnota, set design by Carol Zippel and Thom
Gravelle, violence design by Christopher Elst, sound design by Mohammad ElBsat
and stage management by Veronica Zahn.
Windfall
Theatre presents
CITY OF ANGELS
Lyrics
by David Zippel, Music by Cy Coleman, Book by Larry Gelbart
Windfall stages ‘Prin’ By Mac Writt Shepherd Express
Acid tongued,
unapologetically tenacious and devastatingly witty, the titular character of
Windfall Theatre’s Prin is a loveable tyrant dressed in a crisp navy
suit and heels. The show is set in the economically gloomy world of 1980s
English academia. Headmistress Prin, played by the marvelous Michelle Waide, is
locked in heated combat with those that want to merge her beloved teacher’s
training college with the local polytechnic. If that were not enough, a scandal
involving a dozy-headed English professor arises and Prin’s closest ally and
protégée, whom she lovingly nicknames “Little Pig,” threatens to dismantle the
only true friendship Prin ever had.
The play’s set
design is simple and unobtrusive. Most of the action takes place in Prin’s
headmaster’s office, overlooking the college’s grounds. This led to some clever
staging throughout the performance. Sometimes Prin would address the audience
as if they were a class of graduating seniors. Seating around 50 patrons, the
space made for a supremely intimate theater experience. By the show’s end the
audience has thoroughly peeled away at Prin’s prickly exterior, exposing a
wholly sympathetic character.
At its core, Prin
is a comedy and it is a treat for those who prefer their humor on the drier
side. Fast-paced dialogue, rich in sarcasm, is ample throughout the piece.
Playwright Andrew Davies, perhaps best known for his adaption of classic
literally works, expertly the weaves the audience through Prin’s chaotic life
on campus. Director Maureen Kilmurry allows her characters move freely while
onstage, sipping whiskey and tidying up the office, peaking the audience’s
interest enough in a play heavy on dialogue and short on dazzling sets or
action sequences.
The cast, who
all showcase very polished English accents, are exceptional. Waide’s Prin
manages to create both a maniacal and lovable character. Carol Zippel, who
plays the shy and rather frumpy Dibs, is the perfect contrast to Prin’s
commanding presence. The show dabbles in themes such a lust, sexuality and
feminism, but Prin is largely about the mediocrity of the public
education system. It is obvious to see the similarities between Prin’s posh
English prep school and our own educational shortfalls here in Wisconsin.
WAUKESHA
FREEMAN GMA
TODAY By Julie McHale
Andrew Davies, a Welshman who early
on settled in London, is best known for his film and TV scripts and adaptations.
“Bridget Jones Diaries” is one of his big successes as is the popular “House of
Cards,” currently playing on HBO. He has also adapted some of Jane
Austen’s novels, an author that continues to draw a substantial audience.
Davies, a writer who has garnered his share of awards, has only written two
stage plays, one of which is now playing at Windfall Theatre. “Prin,” … is a
comic drama replete with memorable characters, Brit wit and some provocative
ideas about education and relationships.
Michelle Waide… plays the key role
as the unwavering Principal of a small, private college that educates teachers
of physical education. She is a passionate believer in the significance of
bodily movement and the pursuit of excellence. Carol Zippel plays Prin’s dear, dumpy
Vice Principal Dibbs, who accommodates Prin’s every whim and is rewarded with
constant berating. Prin sees herself as a superior human being and treats
all the underlings around her accordingly. She is extremely rigid and
disgustingly self-righteous, ruling her territory with intimidation and hiding
behind the robes of higher education and lofty idealism. As a teacher myself, I
found her “addresses” all too redolent of many of the clichés I’ve had to
suffer through in my career. A stranger to change and compromise, Prin does not
readily comprehend that her world is crumbling around her. One even feels
some sympathy for her as her kingdom topples. As the play ends, we pity
her for her emptiness and misplaced priorities.
The four other characters that Davies
has created are all a bit quirky but lovable. As they appear before their
threatening boss, some stutter and cringe, while a few others take her
on. The scene when Melanie, the student who has been carrying on with
Walker, her English professor, and has also been quite willing to accommodate
others in need, boldly enters Prin’s office, is fascinating as we
watch how she reacts to Prin’s manipulative bullying tactics. Sonia Rosenthal
as Melanie is excellent in the role. Walker, the offending English teacher, is
endearingly memorable as he confesses and rationalizes his dalliance. Mohammad
N. ElBsat aces this part. Boyle, the sorry little science teacher who loves to
dissect rats, is well rendered by Ben George. He surprises us all when he
eventually wins over Dibbs’ heart and gives her the courage to confront her
surly, snobby boss. That scene is one of the best in the play. Zippel so
beautifully portrays the transformation of Dibbs as the story progresses. The last character, Kite, the superintendent of education,
is strongly played by Howard Goldstein. He is a match for Prin. We don’t
particularly admire or like him, but we enjoy watching them spar for power.
The play, well directed by Maureen
Kilmurry, is rich with irony and provocative ideas about the mission of
education, the role of progress and change, and the complexity and mystery of
close relationships. It runs through February 28 in the Village Church on the
corner of Juneau and Edison in Milwaukee. Call 414-332-3963 or visit
their website at www.windfalltheatre.com
for times and tickets.