Other cast members included Ben Davis (Fred), Eric Harrison (Marley and Old Joe), Anna Reynolds (Spirit 1), Tricia Spione (Housekeeper), Jada Shorter (Laundress), Shaun Hartman (Spirit 2) and Steven Jones (Fezziwig and Spirit 3).

The large cast of forty actors, rehearsing the curtain call, below, was accompanied by a fiddler (Charlie Friedman). The cast, director, designers and crews brought fresh staging to the production and garnered another favorable review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

For a synopsis and sample scene, go to “Plays, Full Length, A CHRISTMAS CAROL.”

As planned, ACT will produce A CHRISTMAS CAROL as holiday entertainment through 2020 and 2021. Script revisions and staging surprises will be included each year. Cast auditions are held in August, rehearsals begin in early November, and performances begin the first week of December each year.

Argenta Community Theater produced fourteen performances (Dec. 5-15, including student matinees) of the revised script of Goss’ adaptation of A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens, which premiered last year to sold out houses. Producers Judy Kohn Tenenbaum and Vincent Insalaco, also director, filled the cast with 40% new actors, led by Ben Barham (Scrooge), Ben Grimes (Cratchit), Laura Grimes (Mrs. Cratchit), Walter Dodd (Fred), Byron Taylor (Marley and Old Joe), Tricia Spione (Spirit 1 and Charwoman), Shelton Harden (Spirit 1) and Michael Harmon (Fezziwig and Spirit 3). The cast, director, designers and crews garnered a favorable review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. For a synopsis and sample scene, go to “Plays, Full Length, A CHRISTMAS CAROL.” Photos capture scenes from the production.  

Open auditions for all three readings will be held Saturday, September 15, 10 a.m.-2 p.m., at the Annex. Interested actors should call the REP to schedule audition appointments and receive further information about the plays.

Tickets are $10 per performance and are available now at the REP box office, 501-378-0405, and through the web site: www.therep.org

For characters, setting and brief synopsis of Life Science, select the Full Length Plays thread on this web site.

Ebenezer Scrooge

December 12-22, 2017, enthusiastic audiences came to see to see a new staging of A Christmas Carol, the classic by Charles Dickens, at Argenta Community Theater. Werner Trieschmann’s review in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette carried the headline, “A Christmas Carol has theatrical magic.” Judy B. Goss crafted the script to closely follow the novella, written in 1843. In an interview with Stephanie Smittle of the Arkansas Times, Goss admitted not reading it previously but remembered seeing versions presenting it as “a grim tale which plays upon Scrooge’s guilt and pity for the crippled Tiny Tim.” Reading Dickens was a revelation of humor and compassion to Goss, who added, “Suspense never lags, vivid characters abound, and irresistible joy emerges from impending doom.”

Cratchit & Tiny Tim

ACT producers Vincent Insalaco and Judy Kohn Tenenbaum envisioned bringing a fresh production of the popular play to the Argenta Arts District as special holiday entertainment to continue annually for five years. For premiere performances, creative direction was conceived by Insalaco. Designers were Sara Cooke (set and technical direction), Shelly Hall (costumes), and Dena Kimberling (lighting); the creative team included music director, D. Brent Miller and choreographer, Christen Burke Pitts, and excellent cast and crews, who created a Victorian Christmas in England, celebrated by lamplighters and doll sellers as well as wealthy businessmen, all singing carols, eating treats and dancing to holiday tunes. They brought the trials of skinflint Scrooge to life, extending the question through plot twists and turns: will Scrooge be redeemed and experience life’s joys again?

Auditions for the 2018 production of A Christmas Carol will be held at ACT on August 5, 2 p.m.-5 p.m. The script has been revised by Goss, and Insalaco intends to encourage new casting for each year’s performances. For details, go to the ACT web site:

http://argentacommunitytheater.com/index.php?id=302

Marley’s Visit

Fezziwig

Scrooge & Spirit 2

Spirit 2 Showing Cratchits to Scrooge

Spirit 3

Charwoman

For more information visit the Argenta Community Theater web site.

Fault, by Robert Ford

Produced by TheatreSquared, Fayetteville, AR

I watched sunset fall over exquisitely painted autumn forests cloaking the Ozark hills behind the farmhouse in the opening of Robert Ford’s new play, Fault, at TheatreSquared in Fayetteville, Arkansas. The idyll vanished as Gabe entered in growing darkness to discover Molly emerging from the shadows. They eyed each other suspiciously, both displaying shock, fear and anger. Horrors can descend upon rural landscapes, as tornado victims well know, but Fault probes the universal impulses to anticipate and to manage harrowing disasters.

Suspense builds quickly as Gabe, an NFL player home to bury his mother, challenges Molly, a strange outsider who gives terse answers before moving on. Kemp, the local sheriff, comes to urge his pal to evacuate. They speak of fracking, earthquakes, flooding, a nuclear plant’s meltdown, and hundreds of deaths in the river valley. Stakes are high for Kemp, Gabe, and Molly, who remain in radiation’s “hot zone.” Surveying the premises, Kemp inadvertently reveals his search for Molly, a mathematician and failure analyst from Los Angeles whose abandoned car he found. After sending Kemp away, Gabe brings Molly back from a nearby deserted homestead, offering his scant food and water.

Cast into the calamity from different worlds and apprehensions, Gabe and Molly share the confusion of post-prediction panic. What can be salvaged in the face of disaster? They probe each other’s motives and exchange compelling bits of personal history over a dinner of cold beans. As Molly exits and Gabe blows out the few candles, panels of a Japanese home deftly slide into place.

Suddenly the scene unfolds of a day decades earlier, before an atomic bomb was dropped there, on Nagasaki. Kemp, now Molly’s grandfather, Eiji, lays his mat and kneels in thought. Molly, now Moto, her grandmother, enters with a flyer dropped from American planes alerting people to escape devastation. She passionately begs Eiji to flee with their two-month old daughter. The stirring moment ends quickly: Moto agrees to stay, bending to Eiji’s belief that evacuation will bring dishonor upon the Emperor.

As Gabe and Molly force each other to face their unique sources of despair and loss caused by the river valley tragedy, the evocative scene of Moto and Eiji resonates. Molly’s technical comprehension of the unfolding crisis cannot dispel the haunting memory of her family story, one that combines deadly personal and institutional errors.

Social problems often prompt my writing, and I can slip into writing arguments instead of plays. Fault’s adroit theatrical flashback inspired me to find more creative approaches to time. Memory organically arose and moved the human psychological drama of guilt and expiation to the foreground, leaving pertinent topics (fracking, nuclear meltdown) as backdrop. When sunset brings catastrophic night, our hearts struggle to expand rather than shrink. We, like Molly and Gabe, seek sanity as well as survival. I write plays to discover what actions such characters will choose next.

Robert Ford, director Josh Hecht, Ryan George (Gabe), Brian Lee Huynh (Kemp/Eiji), Rebecca Hirota (Molly/Moto), and the designers provided a compelling performance.

The fleeting magic of theatre! Goodbye Belham, Starlings and Mrs. Miniver! Thanks Argenta Community Theater, sponsors, cast, crews, and responsive audiences. As Elder Judy says when bidding the audience farewell, “I won’t forget the pleasure of sharing the day(s) with you” there.

Almost 2,000 people filled the ACT house for a limited 10-performance run from July 21-Aug. 1. They were captivated by the story, amazed by the staging upon a stunning set, and fully entertained by the actors and musicians. Their laughs were hearty, and their tears were sincere. They identified with the English villagers who tried to maintain their lives against Germany’s increasing threats seventy-five years ago. They identified with both the humor and pain that accompany changes wrought by war. Theatre provides the intimacy and shared experience that such a story needs to soar in audience hearts today.  

Bravo ACT founders and producers Vincent Insalaco and Judy Kohn Tenenbaum! Vincent fulfilled your shared vision with inspired directing. Bravo Maggie Simpson (stage manager), Sara Cooke (set design and technical director), Joe O’Hara (set engineer), Dena Kimberling (lighting design), Jackson Reinhardt (lighting engineer), Zachary Ingersol and Mark Nelson (sound design), Holly Payne (costume design), Robert Pickens (wig design), and Kurt Kennedy (music direction and conductor).

Thanks Warner Brothers Pictures, Turner Entertainment Co. and the Jan Struther Estate for the special arrangements permitting the premiere stage adaptation of the classic story and film Mrs. Miniver.

The 27-member acting ensemble was uniformly excellent. Led by Paige Reynolds as a charming and compelling Kay Miniver, Michael Klucher, Bradford Harper, Grace and Corbin Pitts created her lovable family: Clem, Vin, Judy and Toby. Other memorable principals were Patti Airoldi and Hailey Weiner as Lady Beldon and her granddaughter Carol, Sheila Glasscock as Elder Judy, and Duane Jackson as Mr. Ballard, the trainmaster who entered his “Miniver Rose” in Lady Beldon’s flower show. Those completing the ensemble included Perry Bland, Chris Zimmerman, Laura Grimes, Roben Sullivant, Nathaniel Darbonne, Matthew Maguire, Eric Harrison, Harold Dean, Mary Ann Hansen, Jamie Stewart, David Monteith, Barry Clifton, Miki Thompson, Nancy Allen, Austin Rodgers, Kristof Waltermire, Barbara Rhodes and Greg Robinson (also dialect coach). Photos by Royce West. Photos by Royce West.

Preview night is Tuesday, July 21, 7 p.m., followed by opening night Wednesday, July 22. Further performances run Thursday, July 23 through Saturday, July 25; a 2 p.m. matinee, Sunday, July 26; and night performances July 28 through August 1. Check ticket prices on the Argenta Community Theater web site.

Follow the link to buy tickets before the ten performances sell out!

Oscar winning film from 1942

Argenta Community Theater will produce a stage adaptation of the classic film Mrs. Miniver, which won Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actress, Best Screenplay and Best Cinematography in 1942. Producers Vincent Insalaco and Judy Tenenbaum secured rights from Warner Brothers and the estate of Jan Struther, whose novel of the same title was the film’s basis. Insalaco will direct from a script adapted by playwright Judy B. Goss. Performances will be held July 21-26 and July 29-August 1, 2015.

Struther’s memorable family

Insalaco reminded Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reporter Eric Harrison that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill declared William Wyler’s film “did more than a flotilla of destroyers” for the war effort, increasing Americans’ enthusiasm to aid England’s defense. Harrison summarized the story’s high points including “a strong British woman whose husband is helping evacuate British soldiers under fire at Dunkirk, whose son has joined the Royal Air Force as German planes threaten England and whose biggest challenge may be facing a woundd German pilot shot down near her home.”

The role of Mrs. Miniver will be played by Paige Reynolds, a classically trained Shakespearean actress who teaches English at the University of Central Arkansas. Auditions yielded a cast of twenty-six to portray the Miniver family and villagers of Belham, site of their country home Starlings. Goss has retained most scenes from the film and has created a “memory frame,” through narrated reminiscences of the now elderly Judy, the Minivers’ young daughter during the story’s war years. A hallmark of Mrs. Miniver is strong supporting female roles: Carol Beldon, who marries Vin Miniver, and her imperious grandmother Lady Beldon, who opposes the union. Expressing appreciation for the characters, Insalaco said, “We Americans know how our soldiers and family members contributed to the war effort, but little do we realize how many incredibly strong women held their families and communities together to survive in England.”

Insalaco and Tenenbaum have co-produced three previous Argenta Community Theater summer shows, all musicals: Cabaret, Jesus Christ Superstar and Fiddler on the Roof. Mrs. Miniver will contain period music under the direction of Kurt Kennedy.

For further information and updates about the production, visit the Argenta Community Theater web site.

For more information, go to Artist Inc. Argenta on Facebook.