Village Theatre’s Blog

Although Next To Normal did not win a Lucille Lortel award on May 5, 2008, it did tie with the show Adding Machine to win an Outer Critics Award for Outstanding New Score on May 12, 2008!

BroadwayWorld.com posted 15 pictures (some of which are shown below) from the performance that was given at Union Square Theatre on behalf of the 23rd Annual Lucille Lortel Awards for Outstanding Achievement Off-Broadway. Get the details and see the remaining 13 pictures here: http://www.broadwayworld.com/viewcolumn.cfm?colid=27706.

Aaron Tveit, Alice Ripley, and Brian d’Arcy James

Alice Ripley and Brian d’Arcy James

Photos by Walter McBride/Retna Ltd.

It’s coming! May 23-25, 2008 at Village Theatre’s First Stage in workshop form.

We asked writers Fred Landau and Skip Kennon what first inspired them to create the musical The Last Starfighter?

FRED: The far-back beginnings were when I was just a year out of law school. The film The Last Starfighter came out, with a video game being a testing ground for greatness. That hooked into the idea that something you’d least expect to change your life would somehow change your life. It was a message I needed to hear and feel at the time, and it hit me almost right away that this was something that could be a subject for a musical - the story of the “little guy” placed in an extraordinary situation. I pretty much filed the idea away in my mind, until I became a student in the BMI Workshop about ten years later…

SKIP: When I had first seen the film, I’d also thought the material could make a terrific musical, but was sure I couldn’t get the rights. Fred had been presenting The Last Starfighter at the BMI Workshop, first in Maury Yeston and Susan Schulman’s workshop classes, then in Nancy Golladay’s class, and after a while, he showed me what he had done. Once we had a sense that we could tell Jonathan Betuel’s story in stage terms, and that we were the right ones to work on it together, Fred and our agent made the basic inquiries and found out the rights to musicalize the screenplay might be available. So I jumped at the chance to work on it, and we decided to pursue the rights together.

More information on the workshop presentation can be found here: http://www.villagetheatre.org/vo_last-starfighter-08.shtml

Village Theatre will hold general auditions for its 2008-2009 Season on May 27, 2008 in downtown Seattle at Theatre Puget Sound (4th floor, Seattle Center House, 305 Harrison, Seattle, Washington), and on May 28-30, 2008 in downtown Issaquah at the Francis J. Gaudette Theatre (303 Front Street North, Issaquah, Washington). Auditions are by appointment only. The season includes four musicals and one play for the Mainstage, as well as readings, workshops, and developmental productions from Village Theatre’s Village Originals new musical program. To make an appointment, call Village Theatre at (425) 392-1942 x108 between 12:00 PM and 4:00 PM Monday through Thursday, beginning Monday, April 28, 2008. For more information, visit our website: http://www.villagetheatre.org/auditions.shtml

Pre-production photos were taken yesterday on the Mainstage. We are so excited that AIDA is almost here. Let’s start the countdown today: 13 more days until opening night!

Marliss Amiea (Aida) and Michael Murnoch (Radames)