Five-time Tony award-winning musical gets acoustic reimagining, opens July 9
SEATTLE – June 4, 2010 – Experience Don Quixote’s impossible dream like never before with Taproot Theatre’s intimate new staging of Man of La Mancha. Featuring the story and songs of an immortal classic, this Tony Award-winning musical comes to the Taproot stage with fresh, acoustic arrangements. Don Quixote is mad... mad enough to dream an impossible dream while tilting after windmills with his trusty sidekick, Sancho Panza. Quixote’s romantic quest is as crazy as he is. But is his impossible dream madness or vision? The trial is about to begin. Man of La Mancha provides a glimpse into the Spanish literature that inspired Picasso, before Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National Picasso, Paris opens at the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) in October. Inspired by Spanish writers including Cervantes, Picasso wove characters such as Don Quixote—a revolutionary like himself—into some of his art. Man of La Mancha, directed by producing artistic director Scott Nolte with musical direction by Edd Key, opens on July 9 and runs through August 7, with low-price previews on July 7 and 8, plus a pay-what-you-can performance on July 14.
With such beloved songs as The Impossible Dream (The Quest), Dulcinea and Man of La Mancha (I, Don Quixote), Man of La Mancha won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. But the musical we know today began as a non-musical television script the decade before. Dale Wasserman—who eventually wrote the musical—was intrigued by novelist Miguel de Cervantes’ early experience as a playwright. He conceived the idea of a play within a play featuring a day in the life of Cervantes, and pitched it to CBS. Airing on November 9, 1959, with Lee J. Cobb (Willie Loman in Death of a Salesman) in the title role, I, Don Quixote went on to become a musical with music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion. The original production—staged by Albert Marre, and originally produced by Albert W. Selden and Hal James—opened in November 1965 at the Anta Washington Square Theatre in New York.
Taproot Theatre’s production takes this large, Broadway musical and re-imagines it to leverage the theatre’s intimate space, much like directors Scott Nolte and Karen Lund did with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor® Dreamcoat and Big River: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Adored for its characters, music and theatricality—the original production took place on a thrust stage like Taproot’s with very little scenery—Man of La Mancha’sstory and themes also resonate.
“This is truly one of the most heroic and redemptive musicals ever conceived,” said Nolte. “It’s packed with wonder, as well as with themes of honor, courage, inner beauty and hope.”
Taproot Theatre’s cast features Jeff Berryman (seen earlier this season in Brooklyn Boy) as Don Quixote and Cervantes, joined by Don Darryl Rivera as his trusty sidekick, Sancho Panza, plus Ryan Childers, Stephen Grenley, Pam Nolte, Mike Oliver, Faith Russell, Candace Vance and April Wolfe. The band features Jared Borkowski and Gordon Tibbits on guitar, and Ivan Arteaga provides percussion. The production team includes scenic and sound designer Mark Lund, costume designer Sarah Burch Gordon and lighting designer Andrew Duff. Deborah Armstrong Evans serves as stage manager, Kate Forster as dialect coach, Christy McNeil as choreographer and Sonja Lowe as dramaturg.
After Man of La Mancha, Taproot Theatre’s 2010 Season concludes with the regional premiere of Wedding Belles by Alan Bailey and Ronnie Claire Edwards (September 22-October 23).
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