Children of Eden Cast

TWIN CITY STAGE Presents the Joyous Musical, Children of Eden

March 25-27; 31-April 3 ; 7-10, 2011

Twin City Stage enjoyed the largest turnout in the past decade during its auditions for the musical Children of Eden, which opens March 25 for a three-week run. More than 75 people showed up at the Arts Council Theatre on Coliseum Drive to win one of 40 parts in the cast. Not since the theater company did The Sound of Music has an audition drawn so much interest from the Triad community.               

The popular show features music and lyrics by Stephen Schwartz (Godspell and Wicked) and book by John Caird (Les Misérables). Leading the TCS cast will be Jim Shover, director, Maggie Gallagher, music director, and Benji Starcher, the dance captain.

An award-winning director, Shover calls Children of Eden a “real spectacle” with an important message. As he describes that message, “We are here for each other.”

The story is based on a familiar book, Genesis. Act I presents the generational challenges that occur first between Father (Chuck King), Adam (Justin Hall) and Eve (Amanda Martin) and then between the world’s first parents and their sons Cain (Phillip Fullerton) and Abel (Joe Boles). In the second act, the same struggles are repeated between Noah (Art Bloom) and Mama Noah (Lalenja Harrington) and their sons Shem (Shane Fisher), Ham (Ray Pruett) and Japheth (Troy Wilson) and their wives Aphra (Elizabeth Barr), Aysha (Liz Townley) and Japheth’s intended, Yonah (Lauren Stephenson).

In addition to the inspiring message set to music, audiences will enjoy special effects that include  multiple actors moving in tandem as the Tree of Knowledge and as the Snake and, in the second act, a stage flooded and filled with Noah’s Ark.

Cast

FATHER Chuck King ADAM Justin Hall EVE Amanda Martin CAIN Phillip Fullerton ABEL Joe Boles YOUNG CAIN Britton Sear YOUNG ABEL Landry Bohn SETH Zachary Campbell SETH'S WIFE Ashley Bodford NOAH Art Bloom MAMA NOAH Lalenja Harrington JAPHETH Troy Wilson YONAH Lauren Stephenson HAM Ray Pruett AYSHA Liz Townley SHEM Shane Fisher APHRA  Miriam Davie  SNAKE Benji Starcher Miriam Davie Karen Fullerton Rioghnach Robinson John Parsons Tyler Harmon-Townsend

STORYTELLERS: Sally Lindel Angela Hodges Abby Kelpin Carol Simes Hailey Lewis Charity Hampton Miles Stanley Justin Attkisson Ryan Chan Jacob Peller Gary Freedman CHILDRENS ENSEMBLE: Annalisa Ebbink Cardari Lee Justin Harrington

Christmas 2010

Christmas 2010 with my family - brother and his daughter and granddaughter. They drove from Illinois to spend time with us. We had a wonderful time together. This was the last Christmas with my Mother who died on January 4, 2011. 

Blackberry Wine Cake

Made this Blackberry Wine Cake for Christmas this year.  Used the Rooster Black wine from Weathervane Winery http://www.weathervanewinery.com/default.html. The cake was quite good and moist - disappeared in one day.

Blackberry Wine Cake

1 box white cake mix
4 eggs
¾ cup oil
1 cup Rooster Black wine
1 (3 oz) pkg. Blackberry Fusion jello

Glaze:
½ cup Rooster Black wine
1 ¾ cup confectionary sugar

Line pound cake pan (sides too) with parchment paper. Preheat oven at 325 degrees. Combine cake mix, jello, eggs, oil, and 1 cup of wine. Pour into pan. Bake for 60 minutes or until cake is done.  Remove from oven and pierce cake while in pan with pick. Make glaze. Pour over warm cake. Let cake sit 15 minutes before removing from pan. Recipe developed by Paulette Yost and Barb Teague.

.

Our Revels Now Are Ended!

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits, and
Are melted into air, into thin air:
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on; and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep. 

William Shakespeare, "The Tempest", Act 4 scene 1

 

 The To Kill a Mockingbird stage is now empty - all have returned to resume their daily activities - farewell!

Winston-Salem Journal Review - "To Kill a Mockingbird"

excel: Play has consistently good acting

By Leigh Somerville McMillan | SPECIAL TO THE JOURNAL
Published: October 31, 2010

Credit: Shawn Hooper photo
Laura Browne plays Scout and Jae Campbell plays Calpurnia in the Arts Council Theatre production of To Kill a Mockingbird.

     The Arts Council Theatre was packed Friday night for the opening of To Kill a Mockingbird, and, no doubt, most of the audience had either read Harper Lee’s Pulitzer-prize-winning novel or seen the movie, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch.
     In the program’s director’s notes, Stan Bernstein addresses the challenge of following in such footsteps. He writes, “the bar is set so high, you need binoculars to see it.” Did they clear the bar? Most certainly.

     Mark Boynton did not walk on stage with Peck’s physical height — a gift when an actor plays a giant like Atticus Finch — and he certainly did not appear to be 50 years old — despite the silver hairspray. But within minutes, the magic of his acting had us convinced we were looking at the lawyer who faced racial hatred in the 1930s rural South and didn’t turn away. 

     Don Pocock is his perfect foil as the strutting, smirking Mr. Gilmer, who represents the accuser, Mayella Ewell. In that role, Rene Walek hides under greasy, long bangs, wrings her skirt and wilts into an olive-drab cardigan as she portrays a young woman who is both incorrigible in her lying and pitiful as someone who is as much a victim as the black man she falsely accuses of raping her.
     Three exceptionally talented children held their own on a stage filled with adults, and that’s not easy. Laura Browne (Scout), Adam Chase (Jem) and Britton Sear (Dill) each came to this show with an already impressive acting history. The addition of such fine performances in To Kill a Mockingbird will certainly further their theatrical careers.
     Still, one question lingers. What happened to make the spitting tomboy, Scout — dressed in bib overalls and mismatched socks — grow up to become the adult Jean Louise who narrates the story? Sheri Masters, in that role, plays prim and proper from the tips of her high-heeled pumps to her tight French twist. She didn’t even bat an eye during one or two opening night microphone malfunctions. Positioning her on stage — and yet setting her apart by having her voice the only one amplified — very effectively illustrated her intense love for her father.

     And directing the two lawyers to play to the audience — creating the sense that the audience was the jury — did exactly what Bernstein intended. From our perspective 50 years after the book was written, we longed to free Tom Robinson (played with gut-wrenching resignation by Derrick Parker). The audience may not have been as innocent as the children hanging over the courtroom balcony, but we knew the truth of the situation — and the times — and it broke our hearts.

      Mark March, as Heck Tate, drew a round of applause for his delivery of the line, “Bob Ewell fell on his own knife.” It didn’t matter whether the applause was for March’s consistently strong performance as the conflicted sheriff, or because the audience supported his decision to protect the Finch family. The applause was well-deserved and provided the point at which the entire cast cleared Bernstein’s bar — with inches to spare.