The tap shoes are on, the ballet slippers tied and the members of the chorus line are ready to kick their heels high.
And on Thursday night, they will do so as the curtain rises at the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School Performing Arts Center for the opening performance of A Chorus Line, the longest-running American musical on Broadway.
To the untrained eye the scene was this: two adults on stage, one speaking in an English accent, the other in a cross between a buccaneer’s snarl and a schoolyard bully. Five kids looked expectantly at their director, an adult on hands and knees, who crawled dramatically across the Vineyard Playhouse stage. The cast watched seriously for a good half-minute before all, director included, erupted into uncontrollable, side-clutching giggles.
Auditions for One Acts
Island Theatre Workshop will be presenting two programs of one acts on the second and third weekend in March.
Open auditions for these productions are on Saturday, Jan. 26, at 11 a.m. Katharine Cornell Theatre.
Leslie Stark, who made his directing debut in last year’s one act program, will return with another new play, This Seat Is Taken. Xavier Powers will offer Eugene O’Neill’s Sniper. Artistic director Lee Fierro and Kevin Ryan have not selected the works they will present.
The good thing about January is that it isn’t December. December, of course, is when we spend too much money on presents, stress out that we’re compelled to send cards and letters, attend parties and fundraisers, and string up tired decorations. Or we’re feeling guilty that we’re not doing any of those things. But on occasions during each Christmas season, we’re bound to partake of an event that makes it all worth while. A performance of Amahl and the Night Visitors is one of those occasions.
Tonight is the benefit opening of Island Theatre Workshop, Inc.’s latest production, Gian Carlo Menotti’s beloved family opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. The curtain goes up at 7:30 p.m. in the Katharine Cornell Theatre in Vineyard Haven.
Storyteller par excellence Susan Klein captured the imagination of more than 40 people Saturday night at the Unitarian-Universalist Society of Martha’s Vineyard on Main street in Vineyard Haven, with her program entitled Silent Night, An Evening of Christmas Stories.
The raconteuse from Oak Bluffs opened with a sound check: “We’re recording all live performances from here on — just because.” Because, Ms. Klein explained, when she was old and gray she wanted to sit back and listen to us laugh again.