Calvin Berger: First Day of School

First day of rehearsal. It’s a show about school-age characters, and the journey there felt like riding the bus to the first day of school. There are lots of method actors, but I might be the world’s first method writer.

I don’t have kids, but I would guess that the pride I felt seeing the show reach this next step was akin to what parents feel seeing children reach milestones. Walking up George Street for the first time and seeing our beautiful new logo hanging outside this reputable regional theatre… Hearing artistic director David Saint praise the Dream Team of creative minds we have assembled (I couldn’t agree more!)… Seeing the army of warm and hospitable GSP employees so eager to help make the show a success. I felt like a proud parent… “my little [show] is growing up!” (bites bottom lip, chokes back tears)

A special moment for me was David Saint’s welcome speech where he said I remind him of his good friend Jonathan Larson (the late composer of RENT). Jonathan is my personal hero. I keep a picture of him above my piano. I don’t feel worthy of a pimple on Jonathan’s big toe (then again, I did write a show about insecurity), but hearing any comparison from someone who knew him was surreal and special. Thank you, David!

In rehearsal, Kathleen spoke brilliantly about our internal self-perception and the external image we try to put forth, a prominent theme in the show. How appropriate, I thought, as just last night I pondered trying to look “writerly” for today’s meet-and-greet, with a vest, or maybe the ol’ t-shirt/blazer combo. Luckily, I nixed that idea.

The cast members are each magnetic in their own ways. All are wonderful and quirky, and none are boring. They managed to make this difficult music sound exciting and lovely on their very first day. Their vibe is fun, positive and warm. This goes so far in making the audience root for these characters.

We are definitely off to a great start!

Takea Virtual Tour of the Scene Shop

Happy New Year Everyone!

While we get ready for some exciting new content for 2010, here's a tour of our scene shop while in production for A Moon To Dance By. Maddie Orton, at the New Brunswick Cultural Center took a tour with Spencer Burke, a new carpenter at the shop this season.

Everything you wanted to Know about David Saint, but were afraid to ask!

Ok, well maybe not EVERYTHING, but here's a great feature appearing in NJ Monthly next month on our Artistic Director, David Saint

The Saint of George Street

George Street Playhouse artistic director David Saint's innovative vision has helped the venue become one of the most popular in the state.

Posted December 14, 2009 by Linda Fowler

David Saint is the artistic director of The George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick.

Photo by Frank Wojciechowski.

When David Saint’s long-ago ancestor, a sea captain from Wales, splintered his ship off the coast of Cape Cod, he must have reckoned it a sign. As the story goes, he built a house to replace the ship—on what eventually became Saint’s Landing Beach in Brewster, Massachusetts, a mill town—and it was in that same house that Saint’s grandfather and father were born.

Generations later, the same wanderlust infected David Saint, who was a journeyman stage director helming productions in 36 states. A dozen years ago, he was poised to direct the TV series Just Shoot Me when the call came from George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick: Would he come aboard as artistic director? He set a course for New Jersey—coincidentally, Milltown—where he’s been ever since.

The theatrical profession is often associated with ragged old steamer trunks, but Saint thinks of his 375-seat space as a designer handbag. Because of its intimacy, proximity to Manhattan, and solid reputation among actors, it has become a draw for top-tier playwrights and directors who often prefer the spotlight on their work rather than the spectacle of Broadway.

Under Saint’s stewardship, the 36-year-old theater has developed a niche for new chamber musicals and provocative plays. In the past decade, the musicals The Toxic Avenger and The Spitfire Grill had their world premieres under Saint’s watch before moving to the off-Broadway stage. David Auburn’s Proof was unveiled at George Street’s 1999 Next Stage Series for fledgling playwrights, then swept up three Tony Awards and a Pulitzer Prize during its subsequent off-Broadway and Broadway runs; it returned to George Street for a full staging in 2003.

As artistic director, the 46-year-old Saint likens himself to a nutritionist planning a balanced diet each season for his audiences: comedies for appetizers, dramas for the main course, and musicals as frothy desserts.

Next up for George Street is “a light soufflé”: Barry Wyner’s new musical Calvin Berger, a modern take on the classic romance Cyrano de Bergerac, set in a high school. A-lister Kathleen Marshall is signed to choreograph and direct. Over the summer, Saint will turn his attention to rehearsing George Street’s production of Sylvia with Rachel Dratch. He’ll also be auditioning and rehearsing actors as director of the upcoming national tour of Broadway’s West Side Story. Saint is the New York production’s associate director under Arthur Laurents, his longtime mentor.

Saint, a former divinity school student who was attracted by mysticism of the theatrical kind, is amused by theater fans who feel compelled to travel to Manhattan. “It always kills me when people call me: ‘Can you get me a ticket to Toxic Avenger in New York, can you get me a ticket to Proof in New York?’ I say, ‘Yeah, but it’s going to cost you a lot more. Why didn’t you see it here for less?’”

Vote Now and Make a Difference!

Two great campaigns are going on right now, and your vote in both can make a difference to George Street Playhouse.

First - Chase Bank is giving away $5,000,000 and allowing Facebook users to vote for their favorite charities. Yes, plural. Each user gets 20 votes, so you can certainly vote for all the causes you care about. Each lucky charity will win $25,000.

It takes seconds to do, and is very simple if you are a Facebook user. (While you're at it, become a Fan of GSP on Facebook!)

The second campaign is the JerseyArts.com People's Choice Awards. George Street Playhouse is nominated in two categories. Best Professional Theatre and Arts/Theatre Classes. Please vote for us and for New Brunswick as "Favorite Downtown Arts District". We also encourage you to vote for the State Theatre and Zimmerli Museum in their respective categories!

You can only vote once, so please support us and help spread the word!

Jane Alexander discusses Frieda Lawrence and other roles

The following is a preview of Jane Alexander's interview in the Princeton Packet.

Ms. Alexander discusses the genesis of A Moon To Dance By which is officially opens this Friday!

A Little Moonlight
by Anthony Stoeckert

For Jane Alexander, 2009 has been a year spent on stage. The Tony- and Emmy-winning actress has performed in plays in Pittsburgh, New York and Connecticut, collaborating with writers like David Hare and actors like Stockard Channing.

It’s a contrast to 2008, when she worked exclusively in television and film (including a role in the latest Terminator flick). Still, she’s comfortable acting in different plays on different stages.

”I’ve been a regional theater actress from the very beginning,” she says before a day’s rehearsal at George Street Playhouse in New Brunswick. “In fact, when I first went to New York, I would say, ‘I want to do the classics, and the only place I can do the classics is in what’s called regional theater.’”

These days she’s acting in new plays like Thom Thomas’ A Moon to Dance By, which delves into four days Frieda Lawrence spent with the son she left in order to marry the writer D.H. Lawrence. Ms. Alexander played the part in Pittsburgh earlier this year with the same creative team that has brought it to George Street through Dec. 13.

The real-life Frieda was a German-born woman who married Ernest Weekly, a professor embedded in proper British society. In 1912, she ran off with one of her husband’s students, D.H. Lawrence. As Mr. Thomas writes in notes about the play, Victorian conventions were smothering, especially to women. But Frieda flaunted her affair and encouraged fellow unsatisfied housewives to follow her lead.

”Frieda was described, even at the time she was a little girl, as bold, impudent,” Ms. Alexander says before sharing a story about Frieda and Ernest’s honeymoon night. Prior to that night, physical contact between the two had been limited to a peck on the cheek. ”On the wedding night he went out of the room while she got herself ready,” Ms. Alexander says. “She climbed on top of the wardrobe in her camisole and panties — on top of the wardrobe like a little elf waiting for him to come in!”

To understand Frieda, Ms. Alexander considered how she grew up in Germany in the 19th century, where a sort of free love movement was going on. ”Frieda kind of grew up in that atmosphere, even though she was not part of the group, it was in the air in Germany,” she says. “So when she went to a very conservative English town of Nottingham with this husband who was probably a lovely guy but very straight-laced, I think she chaffed all the time. And when she met this man... David Herbert Lawrence, she just fell for him.” Frieda paid a price for her choice, losing her relationship with her son, Monty, who was 12 years old when she left England to live with Lawrence in America. She maintained relationships with her two daughters, but Monty, according to the playwright’s notes, grew to despise her. In July of 1939, nine years after D.H.’s death, Monty visited his mother at the New Mexico ranch she lived on with her younger lover, Angelo Ravagli. ”Thom Thomas just came across this fact, which was that Monty Weekly had visited his mother after a long estrangement for four days,” Ms. Alexander says of the play’s creation. “He came all the way from England for four days, to New Mexico.” Little is known about the visit other than the fact that it happened. No record was made as to what happened during the brief reunion. But Mr. Thomas read through letters between Monty and his mother written after the visit. “In trying to sense the unspoken feelings between the lines, I feel I have resolved some of these unanswered questions,” he writes. Co-starring in the play with Ms. Alexander are Robert Cuccioli (whose Broadway credits include the title roles in Jekyll & Hyde) as Angelo and Gareth Saxe as Monty. Directing is Edwin Sherin, who also helmed the play in Pittsburgh.

”We were really astonished at the response of the audience,” she says. “We thought we had a good play, but in Pittsburgh... we were sold out by the last two weeks, totally sold out. Word of mouth was incredible, the reviews were great, and the audiences responded so emotionally. And there are a lot of laughs, so it’s a great time in the theater I think.”