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The Circuit Playhouse
The sister theatre of Playhouse on the Square.
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Upcoming Events
06/08/12-
07/08/12 |
Tuna Does Vegas
The Circuit Playhouse
Presented by
at The Circuit Playhouse
June 8-July 8, 2012
When a conservative radio host announces on the air that he and his wife will renew their vows in Sin City, all of the residents of Tuna, Texas?s third smallest town, come along for the ride. Favorite characters from past ?Tuna? productions return, and new ones are introduced by a cast of two actors. ?What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but what happens when Tuna hits the slots may lodge delightfully in your head for a lifetime.?- L.A. Times
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Past
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Member
Reviews
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Member Reviews
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Event Name: Dividing the Estate
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Jul 14, 2011
Dividing the Estate opened at Circuit Playhouse, Friday, July 9 to a sold out house.
Written by Horton Foote in the 1980’s and first produced at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton in 1989, and was substantially re-written for its 2007 opening at 59E59 St Theatres in New York. It moved to Lincoln Center and won the 2008 Outer Critics Circle Award and an Obie for Mr. Foote for playwriting. Mr. Foote, who was 92, died in March 2009 just months before the awards were presented.
Director Ken Zimmerman has assembled a stellar cast for this comedy. Each is outstanding and a perfectly joined ensemble. The play is set in 1989 in Harrison, Texas, the small Texas town that is location to many of Mr. Foote’s sixty plays. Dividing the Estate is exactly what the play is about: The dwindling, genteel, once moneyed holdings of house and land that Matriarch Stella Gordon refuses to relinquish. In 1989 the estate exists as it has for years with two of Stella’s middle aged children still living at home and three servants who take care of the day-to-day upkeep. Stella’s grandson serves as financial manager and oversees the many acres. The daughter who escaped to Houston with her husband and two children is an infrequent but welcome visitor. Everything seems in order. On surface no crisis looms but one by one the heirs gather calling for their rightful share. The cracks in the foundation embodied by a clash of cultures, narcissism, greed and divided family loyalties appear and the estate that had been established just after the Civil War begins to unravel. Can you believe with that premise it is a comedy? It is a laugh out loud comedy. Mr. Zimmerman has found the cadence of the language and moves his cast to full advantage.
Dividing The Estate plays Thursdays – Sundays at Circuit Playhouse through July 31.
The stellar cast: Irene Crist, Dr. Anthony Bell, David Foster, Emily Peckham. Barclay Roberts, Christina Wellford-Scott, Lorraine Cotton, Joshua Quinn, Erica Jackson, Jai Johnson, Liz Sharpe, Anne Albrecht, and Emily Childers.
Exceptional design: Scenic, Jimmy Humphries; Costume, Rebecca Powell; Lighting, Colin Chauche; Sound, Noah Glenn; Props, Becky Reed; Tech Dir. Kat De Camillo
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Event Name: The 39 Steps
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
May 15, 2011
The 39 Steps, a play adapted to the stage by Patrick Barlow, based on both the 1915 John Buchnan novel and the 1935 film by Alfred Hitchcock, opened at Circuit Friday, May 13.
What fun. This slapstick comedy is a bit of silliness in the best sense of the word. Perhaps Commedia dell'arte meets Monty Python would be the better description. Fast paced and commedically directed by Kevin Shaw The 39 Steps takes us on a romp from London thorough Scotland and back again.
The loosely threaded espianoge plot begins when Richard Hannay, played by resident company member, Michaell Gravois, wakes to find the mysterious Annabella with a knife in her back. Now a suspect for the murder, Hannay begins the treck across Scotland to prove his innocence while managing to stay one step ahead of the police.
The conceit of this four character play is that besides Michael, who deftly plays Richard, the other three actors play a multitude of roles, never bothering to hide the quick costume metamorphosis from to the other. There is a rolling door that is used for all entrances and exits, one hand-held upper window frame that has the glass broken each time Hannay dives through it to escape capture and dialects that change along with the change of a coat.
The excellent cast includes Jenny Lynn Christofferson, who plays all of the dazzling female romantic characters. Ryan Kathman, billed as Clown 1 and Matt Reed, billed as Clown 2, who play all the other characters, both men and women with hilarious results.
The design crew has provided lighting, sound and set that enhances all the chaos of the chase, and the stick puppets and scrim diversions that provide amusing commentary on the art of theatrical illusion.
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Event Name: Grey Gardens
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Mar 31, 2011
Grey Gardens, a musical with book by Doug Wright, music by Scott Frankel, and lyrics by Michael Korie opened Friday night at Circuit Playhouse. It is based on the lives of a socially prominent family, the Bouvier’s. which spawned Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onasis and with connections to Memphis, through the Beale family. The play uses the 1975 documentary of the same title for much of the material that becomes the second act. The play poses several problems, in that, if you are not familiar with the overall story it is difficult to make the historic leap from the monied privilaged life of the Bouvier/Beale’s in 1941 with the grand piano, servants and Edie’s engagement party to the crumbled bedlam of 1973. Almost nothing of the character of the house or of the established characters follows from act one to act two. You wonder what journey has transported you so quickly from one era to the next.
The cast, however, is superb. Carla McDonald, as the 40-something Edith Bouvier Beale, Emily Pettet, as little Edie and David Foster as the kept man, set up the 1941privileged setting first act and they have exceptional support from Rachel Atkins, Danielle Chaum, Parker Dinwiddie, Marc Gill and Drew Hampton. Each of these characters appear in the second act under different guises.
The audience has had a glimpse of 1973 at play opening with Bates Brooks making her brief and powerful appearance as the mother, Edith Bouvier Beale. In act two Brooks and McDonald, who now plays Little Edie at age 57, have weathered 30 years together in their descent into impoverished bohemianism. With the house physically crumbling around them and their lives reduced to self imposed imprisonment, these two strong actors, playing mother and daughter, continue their life long battle to free themselves from mutual dependancy. Act two is the heart of the story . Bates Brooks and Carla McDonald hold the audience’s feet to the fire as they hone the struggle for survival.
Grey Gardens, a must see musical, continues at Circuit Playhouse Thursdays through Saturdays at 8:00 and Sundays at 2:00 through April 17.
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Event Name: From Up Here
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Feb 01, 2011
When From Up Here, by Liz Flahive, opened at the Manhattan Theatre Club in 2008 it was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle award. This darkly funny and exceptionally moving drama opened Friday at Circuit Playhouse. Directed by Irene Crist and supported by an exceptional cast, this story of a dysfunctional family becomes a beautifully performed piece of heartbreaking reality. The thread that runs through the story and becomes a compelling link from cast to audience is the emotional truth to which Flahive holds her characters and the Circuit cast gives us every moment of that truth.
Kenny, the troubled teenaged son, has pulled his family into an unfamiliar and uncomfortable spotlight through charges of serious misconduct at school. Mother, step father, sister, aunt, each is trying in their own flawed way to make it better and no one is connecting. But they care, they stay. Everyone is dodging but no one is running away and you, the audience, are rooting for them to make it. Irene Crist with the support of cast and crew brings us an emotionally satisfying production.
The Cast: Kim Justis as Grace; John Moore as Daniel, Josh Bernaski, as Kenny; Liz Sharp as Lauren; Lyric Peters as Caroline, Nick Echols as Charlie; Drew Hampton as Mr. Goldberger/ Officer Stevens, and Carla Olivar as Kate.
The Design Staff: Rebecca Powell, Michael Walker, Beau Guedry, Noah Glenn, Grace Ann Harnish Production: Becky Reed, Kat DeCamillo
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Event Name: The Santaland Diaries
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Dec 07, 2010
“The Santaland Diaries” came to life in 1992 when David Sadaris read his essay on radio’s NPR Morning Addition. The public fell in love with the sardonic humor which seemed to some to be an antidote to a too “HoHoHo” Holiday Season. In 1996, Joe Mantello adapted the essay for the stage and it was performed at The Atlantic Theatre in NYC. Since then it has been a holiday favorite, playing in regional theatres across the country.
Playhouse on the Square/Circuit Playhouse has produced the play a number of times. I have seen three previous productions all on the “old” Circuit stage. Dave Landis and Brian Mott were incredible Crumpets in the Sadaris tradition, both giving the role their individual turn.
This year David Foster reprises his role at the new Circuit Theatre and again performs in The Memphian Room where the setting is informal and the bar is open. Directed by Dave Landis and co-directed by Irene Crist, Foster is a very human, however, irreverent elf. He shares all of Crumpet’s humiliating, indignant, embarrassing, annoying and down-right mean spirited moments as well as the very funny, poignant, and heart-warming times in Macy’s Santaland. David is all over the room interacting with audience, fellow elves and props. The space allows him to be fluid and spontaneous. If you have never seen “Santaland Diaries” or seen it many times, I would recommend your experiencing David’s performance in this lively cabaret setting.
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Event Name: A Christmas Story
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Nov 30, 2010
A Christmas Story, a theatrical adaptation by Phillip Grecian of the 1983 movie based on the writings of Jean Shepherd, has all the moments from the film that have become remembered as classic Christmas memories. The triple-dog-dare that gets Flick’s tongue stuck to the lamp post, the brazen leg lamp, the bully Skut Farkas, and Ralphie’s Christmas wish for the a Red Ryder Carbine Action 200-Shot, Range Model Air Rifle that drives the plot from beginning to end.
As narrated by Steve Swift, the humor is generously dispensed, as he wanders through the scenes that come to life as he remembers that particular Christmas in Hammond, Indiana. Beautifully directed by Cecilia Wingate, the children, Jeremy Belote (Ralphie), Brooks Eikner, (Flick), Ryan Patterson (Schwartz), Curtis Scott (Skut), Harli Kurdelmeyer (Esther Jane), Janie Peacock(Helen) and Evan Walsh (Randy) play a mixture of well behaved, responsible to misbehaving bully with charming aplomb.
You couldn’t ask for a better adult cast, Steve Swift as Grown Ralphie, Sam Weakley playing “The Old Man”, Jaclyn Suffel as Mother and Gail Black as Miss Shields, the school teacher. There are many priceless moments as this family negotiates the daily routine and the hilariously unexpected in those few weeks leading up to Santa’s arrival.
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Event Name: Black Pearl Sings!
"Review by Pat Bogan - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Pat Bogan - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Oct 22, 2010
Good story, wonderful voices, and a bit of history make for a delightful evening of theatre. Emily Wells, the director, has cast two winners! Yes, two winners of the Rising Star Award given by the Ostranders. She made excellent choices and the three have created a thoroughly engrossing show. Crystin Gilmore and Laura Stracko bring great talent to this story of a researcher and her reluctant source of information. The story of a researcher for the library of Congress is based on truth but the characters have been changed from male to female. The era is the 30's and costumes and set are accurate and well portrayed. Action moves from a prison to a New York apartment. Kudos to Amie Eoff and and Chris Swanson respectively. Laura Stracko is the passionate researcher seeking unrecorded songs of slavery and Crystin Gilmore portrays the prisoner who holds what she wants in her head. Drama, comedy, and song make up an evening of entertainment for all ages.
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Event Name: Superior Donuts
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Aug 30, 2010
The Playhouse on the Square web site, in promoting Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts, at Circuit Playhouse, quotes the New York Times review describing it as a “warm bath of a play.” Compared to Letts’ Pulitzer Prize winning play, August: Osage County, or from a Manhattan perspective, that may be true but I think that Memphis playgoers will find it a bit more biting.
The play takes place in a deteriorating uptown Chicago neighborhood where break-ins and vandalism are common place. The Superior Donut shop of Arthur Przybyszewski has seen better days and so has Arthur. Franco, the obviously intelligent young black man looking for a job is plagued by his own desperate circumstances. I would say the play is a comedy with dark overtones, with some good laughs and a sprinkling of four letter words, a character study wherein redemption may be possible.
Directed by Pamela Poletti, James Dale Green and Jonathan Underwood, playing Arthur and Franco find the right balance of push and resistance while forming their friendship. The supporting characters: the cops, played by Jamie Mann and Truth, the Russians played by Chris Hart and Michael Frutticher, the hoodlums played by Michael Mullins and Michael Bechard, the alcoholic bag lady played by JoLynne Palmer bring their piece of Chicago into the doughnut shop to round out the tale. Ms. Palmer was singled out in my conversation with a playgoer on opening night, he said “that if the playwright had seen JoLynne playing Lady, he would have expanded the role.” Her characterization is dead-on.
Superior Donuts opened at Steppenwolf in Chicago in 2008 and moved to Broadway in 2009, with good reviews. Circuit’s production is slightly flawed with uneven dialects and weak stage fights but all in all the play holds the charm and interest that Mr. Letts has spun. It plays at the New Circuit Playhouse through September 19.
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Event Name: Red, White & Tuna
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
Comment
posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Jun 15, 2010
Tuna Texas has returned to the new Circuit Playhouse stage with all your favorite characters in tow. If you have seen any other installments in this small town soap opera, you will be anxious and pleased to know that the small town is just as small and just as funny. If you are not familiar with the characters in Tuna you will be delighted to make their acquaintance. This continuing comical saga takes up where Tuna Christmas left off with Bertha and Arles pursuing romance, Didi counting the days until she can have the missing R. R. declared legally dead and Vera Carp still campaigning, this time for Queen of the Tuna, Texas, Fourth of July High School Reunion. Stanley and Charlene are now counted among the so called adults. Aunt Pearl is still plotting revenge. Joe Bob is staging another musical extravaganza under the watchful eye of the Smut Committee. And as you may have guessed, the censors are winning.
Directed by John O’Connell, Michael Gravois and Andrew Y. Moore are reprising their roles from Tuna Christmas, playing all of your favorite characters plus an added one or two. Opening night was sold out and the crowd at Circuit Playhouse laughed their approval of the staging, and applauded this new episode from the pens of Joe Sears and Jaston Williams.
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Event Name: Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris
"Review by Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver"
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posted by:
Glenda Mace - ArtsMemphis Rants & Raver
from Memphis, TN,
Apr 28, 2010
Born in Brussels, Jacques Brel was an actor, cabaret singer and prolific song writer who lived and worked mostly in Paris. His recordings sold over 25 million records worldwide. In 1968 an Off Broadway staging of 25 of his songs entitled Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris opened at The Village Gate and became a success that has played in theatres over the world. The 2006 revival in New York won a number of Off Broadway awards including the Drama Desk and Outer Critics Circle awards.
The New Circuit Playhouse production of Jacques Brel is alive and well and living in Paris is a 27 tune review of Brel’s music. Being a review, much of its success depends on the voices, direction and orchestral support. Circuit’s production is a winner in all three categories. Michael Detroit, Esther Gray, Nicole Renee Hale, David Foster, Bryan Robinson and Laura Stracko bring each song to life. Brel’s lyrical compositions are like short stories, each containing a cast of characters and an abbreviated plot. Some of the pieces are dramatic, some funny, some sad and all tell a story. Director, Dave Landis, has assigned the musical pieces to the actors so as to build a character sketch of the individuals gathered in a Paris bistro. Rene Kemper, musical director, plays piano in a four instrument ensemble and also sings a lovely rendition of one of Brel’s most well known songs, “Ne Me Quitte Pas.” I believe those familiar with Brel’s work will be pleased with the presentation. For those not familiar, this is an excellent introduction.
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