Roundabout Theatre Company - Page 17

Star Profile: Name: Jessie Austrian Show: The Importance of Being Earnest Character: Gwendolen Fairfax

Star Profile: Name: Kevin Munhall Show: Anything Goes Character: FBI Agent, Passenger, Crew

The story at the heart of Death Takes a Holiday has taken many forms over the years. It first came to life (so to speak) as La Morte in Vacanza, written in 1924 by the Italian writer Alberto Casella. Originally billed as a 'supernatural comedy,' it was to be Casella's only major success outside of his home country, but what a success it was. Coming to Broadway in 1929, the play was seen in a popular English-language version by Walter Ferris and was first given the title Death Takes a Holiday. After that production's success, the play was also made into a beloved 1934 film starring Fredric March and would continue to appear in many forms over the following decades.

Star Profile Name: Laura Osnes Show: Anything Goes Character: Hope Harcourt

Family albums are not just images - they are full of our family stories. Roundabout Theatre Company's new Broadway musical, The People in the Picture is creating the ultimate family album online at ThePeopleinYourPicture.com. Connect with other users by submitting a treasured photo and share the family story behind it. While on the site you'll be able to view other photos and read family stories by members of the cast and creative team including Donna Murphy and Iris Rainer Dart. So dig up that old family photograph, log on to www.ThePeopleinYourPicture.com, and tell your story.

As you know, doing a new musical on Broadway is not something that we do very often at Roundabout. But when you see The People in the Picture, I think it will very quickly become clear why I just had to put this show up on our stage. It is so rare these days to come upon a new musical that is totally original, created solely from the hearts and minds and talents of its authors, and that feels like a classic piece from the Broadway of old while telling a story that has never been told before. When I first read The People in the Picture, I knew that it had something powerful to say because not only did the songs linger with me days afterward, but the characters stayed with me as well. These characters had grabbed my attention in a very meaningful way, and it was clear to me that they needed to be shared with a larger audience.

As opening night of The Dream of the Burning Boy approached, I had absolutely nothing to worry about-aside from the fact that my family and girlfriend were coming in from another country, and my agent and manager would be there, and the teacher for whose class I had first written the play, and a last-minute critic from a major newspaper. And sure, there was also the issue of this being just the fifth production at the Roundabout Underground, and the first spring production, and yes, all of the other productions had been major successes, although the Roundabout crew repeatedly assured me that there was "no pressure." And I can't really say that opening night itself was making me tense, because I'm constantly tense, and this was just the most extreme version of the persisting, unremitting, overwhelming anxiety that I experience on a daily basis. As far as my irritable bowel was concerned, this was "business as usual."

Q: How did you get started in acting? A: I was one of those freakish kids who always knew that this was what I wanted to do. I remember being five and saying to a group of grown-ups that I wanted to be an actor and they all chortled as they looked at each other. Probably in horror. There was maybe a week I wanted to be a fireman.

Anything Goes is a show that I've wanted to produce for a long time now because, quite honestly, it is pure and total joy. The show is an unabashed farce with a crazy cast of characters hopping aboard the S.S. American and letting their schemes and dreams run wild. It's silly, romantic, and utterly hilarious as these characters let loose, desperately trying to solve all their troubles before the ship arrives in London. And since desperation can lead to ridiculous acts, it's a good thing that, as our wonderful director and choreographer Kathleen Marshall puts it, "What happens on the boat, stays on the boat."

For our UPSTAGE playgoer's guide, Roundabout's Educational Dramaturg, Ted Sod, sat down with director Kathleen Marshallto discuss her exciting upcoming musical, Anything Goes - beginning performance on March 10 at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre!

It's been over two years since I finished the first draft of The Dream of the Burning Boy in a graduate play-writing class at NYU, and I'm absolutely thrilled that we're now one week away from the first public performance of the play at the Roundabout Underground.

Q: Give us a brief background of your career leading up to house managing at the Stephen Sondheim Theatre. A: I moved to New York City in 1995 to attend New York University - Tisch School of the Arts for Dance. During my freshman year, I began ushering at the Joyce Theatre, where I began my career in front of house management. After many front of house positions at the Joyce Theatre, I was relocated downtown to assist in the opening of their smaller theatre and rehearsal space, Joyce SoHo. In 2003, I left to open the Biltmore Theatre (now the Friedman Theatre) as the Assistant House Manager. During my three years at the Biltmore, I was also the Development and Marketing Coordinator for Celebrate Brooklyn!. During my 5 years at Celebrate Brooklyn!, one of my accomplishments was taking their membership program from about 40 to over 300. They have since doubled that number, making the summer festival an ongoing success. While also continuing to maintain a performance career, I learned that another new theatre, The Times Center, was opening. I jumped at the opportunity to open another event space. The Times Center was my first green space. While at The Times Center, there was a program about Roundabout Theatre Company opening the first green Broadway theatre space, the Henry Miller's Theatre. I had already known that several of my past co-workers had moved to Roundabout and decided I would inquire if they had hired a house manager. Fifteen years later and I've been a part of opening two Broadway Theatres, a small dance rehearsal/performance space, an event space and the revival of a summer festival.

Q: Give us a brief background of your career leading up to Roundabout? A: Before I was lucky enough to land a full-time position at Roundabout, I worked at Vineyard Theatre in Union Square and The Flea Theater downtown in TriBeCa. For both companies I worked in marketing and graphic design, with a little bit of development in there too. When I first moved to New York, I actually interned here at Roundabout in the marketing department!

Roundabout's Education Dramaturg, Ted Sod, sits down with The Importance of Being Earnest actors, David Furr and Sara Topham, to discuss the show, working with Brian Bedford and take questions from the audience as part of our Lecture Series.

This Spring, Roundabout will produce it's third show to be featured at the Harold and Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre/Laura Pels Theatre for the 2010-2011 Season: Death Takes a Holiday. Here is a conversation with Roundabout Artistic Director Todd Haimes about this exciting new musical production:

Q: Give us a brief background of your career leading up to Roundabout? A: I studied Music Business in college and realized Arts Administration was a real career path. I first worked in Company Management at La Jolla Playhouse for two summer seasons, and then moved on to Development at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park during graduate school at the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music. I fell in love with NYC after working in Development at Manhattan Theatre Club. I was also Development Director for Horizon Theatre Company, a small contemporary theatre in Atlanta, Georgia (my birthplace).

Ted Sod, Roundabout's Education Dramaturg, sat down with director and actor Brian Bedford to hear his thoughts on The Importance of Being Earnest and his character: Lady Bracknell.

Michael Wilson, director of the upcoming The Milk Train Doesn't Stop Here Anymore, sits down with Roundabout's resident dramaturg, Ted Sod, to discuss this much-anticipated production.

Tennessee Williams is one of the best-known American playwrights of the 20th Century, and in this centennial year of his birth, it seems fitting to bring you one of his most complex pieces of work. Over the years on Roundabout's stages, you have seen everything from Williams' early classics like A Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie to the less-frequently-staged Suddenly Last Summer and The Night of the Iguana. Through these productions, you've had an opportunity to truly get to know this complicated playwright, which I think makes you the ideal audience for Milk Train, a thorny, rarely-produced Williams gem. Michael Wilson, this production's director, spent ten years bringing the plays of Williams to his audience at Hartford Stage Company, knowing that Williams is a playwright to be savored, one who evolved a great deal throughout his career. Although he would continue to tackle certain themes and characters, much changed in Williams' life, and in the world, between his first success with The Glass Menagerie in 1945 and the first production of Milk Train eighteen years later. Knowing his work so well now, I think you are ready to embrace a play from that later, more multifaceted period.

A: I majored in Theatre Arts Management at Ithaca College and initially really wanted to go into arts marketing. I interned at SpotCo (an ad agency here) and at an agency in London but then became more interested in the management side of things. I was hired by Roundabout in 2006 to work in their business office and really enjoyed my time there. I asked one of the company managers if I could meet her and shadow her during a show. The night I was there the entire sound system crashed (it was a musical) and she had to go into complete crisis mode. I loved it. I then switched my focus to company management and was working Off-Broadway when Roundabout hired me to cover that same company manager's maternity leave. I was her assistant on The 39 Steps and then took over when she went to have her baby. And I just never left!