Little Women
Feb. 16 - March 11, 2012
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| 1:30 pm |
7pm |
1:30 & 7 pm |
| Marian Theatre, Santa Maria | |
Little Women
June 14 - July 1, 2012
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| All Solvang Performances 8:00pm |
| Solvang Festival Theater | | Running Time: Approx. 2hrs 20mins
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Astonishing!
When people discover Passion,
They’ve come upon something rare.Brimming with all the life of Louisa May Alcott's classic novel, Little Women, the Broadway Musical follows the adventures of the four March daughters as they grow up in Civil War America. Jo longs to publish a novel. Meg longs for a fiancé. Beth longs for a piano. Amy longs to be admired. This timeless tale has been given new life as an exhilarating musical filled with glorious song, dancing and a few tears. Jason Howland’s score celebrates personal discovery and a young America finding its voice and coming of age in a time of challenge and transformation.
--Appropriate for all ages - a great show to see as a family--
Little Women, the Broadway Musical
Book by Allan Knee
Music by Jason Howland
Lyrics by Mindi Dickstein
Based on the novel by Louisa May Alcott
|
| Director |
|
Roger DeLaurier |
| Musical Director |
|
Callum Morris |
| Choreographer |
|
Michael Jenkinson |
| Scenic Designer |
|
DeAnne Kennedy |
| Costume Designer |
|
Judy Ryerson |
| Lighting Designer: |
|
Jennifer 'Z' Zornow |
| Sound Designer |
|
Elisabeth Rebel |
| Stage Manager |
|
Christine Collins* |
Cast of Characters |
| Jo March |
|
Karin Hendricks |
| Professor Bhaer |
|
Andrew Philpot* |
| Amy March |
|
Brittney Monroe |
| Meg March |
|
Sarah Girard |
| Beth March |
|
Renee Wylder |
| Marmee March |
|
Elizabeth Stuart* |
| Mr. Laurence |
|
Michael Tremblay |
| Laurie Laurence |
|
Scott Fuss |
| Aunt March |
|
Anna Romero |
| Mr. John Brooke |
|
J.R. Yancher |
| Mrs. Kirk |
|
Molly Stilliens |
| Clarissa |
|
Ahnastasia Albert |
| Braxton |
|
John Keating |
| Rodrigo |
|
Justin Crabtree |
| Knight |
|
Billy Breed |
| Hag |
|
Layli Kayhani |
| Troll |
|
Deanna Ott |
| Rodrigo 2 |
|
Cristina Gerla |
| Ensemble |
|
Steven Michael Stone, George P. Scott |
| *Member, Actors' Equity Association |
Little Women Notes
ABOUT THE PLAY
Alcott’s 1868-69 widely popular two-part novel serves as the basis for the 2005 musical by the same name. The first part of the novel relied heavily on autobiographical plot and details from the Alcott family life; Meg is a characterization of Anna Alcott, Jo is Louisa’s alter ego, Beth is Elizabeth, and Amy is cleverly anagrammatic of May Alcott. Most of this novel’s plotline stems from actual events of the Alcott household, and the closeness of the sisters as well as “Jo’s” determination to become the family breadwinner are based on the truth of Alcott family dynamics. Intriguingly, while Marmee is a strong presence for balance and moral character, Mr. March is both physically and emotionally absent from the lives of his daughters and wife.
The second half of the novel involves more imaginative creation of plot and character and Alcott seemed to be responding to the views and values of her readers as much as her own powerful moral compass. So Meg, despite a love for beauty and wealth, happily marries a poor clerk. While many readers longed for the marriage of Jo and Laurie, Alcott reasserts Jo’s independence, ambition, and self-awareness by rejecting a relationship that cannot fulfill either “friend”. This choice allows Laurie to find true happiness with the artistic and appreciative Amy, while Jo finds her soul mate in the pragmatic and unexpectedly, and unconventionally, romantic Professor Bhaer. Beth’s death is one of the most poignant events in the novel and may reflect Alcott’s true pain and loss of Elizabeth, who died at the age of twenty-three.
While the novel balances the lives of the family members, the two act structure of the musical focuses heavily on Jo as storyteller. While the March family patriarch is away serving as a Union Army chaplain, his four daughters’ lives unfold in a series of events that move through both parts of the original novels, and are intercut with “sensationalized” presentations of Jo’s short stories. The Broadway production opened in 2005 after 55 previews and closed after 137 performances. The musical toured for the next year with some of the Broadway cast reprising their roles on tour. In 2008, the musical premiered in Australia.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
American novelist Louisa May Alcott was born into a noted transcendentalist and reformist family in 1832. Her parents, Bronson and Abigal May were educators, forward thinking social workers, and active in the abolitionist movement. While her birthplace was Germantown, PA, the family quickly relocated to the “intellectual” center of the new philosophical, artistic and educational movements in pre-Civil War America – Concord, Massachusetts. Bronson Alcott established a school and allied with the major thinkers of the transcendentalist movement – Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. (Transcendentalism began as a philosophical movement in 1830s New England in reaction to the intellectualism of Harvard University. In this new philosophy, man and nature were believed to be inherently good and man’s corruption was the result of the negative influences of organized religion and political ideologies. The best man was the “self-reliant” independent thinker.)
The family’s fortunes suffered from Bronson’s lack of income, failures with his school, and his desire to found the utopian community of Fruitlands, which soon collapsed fiscally in 1844. The family was finally able to purchase a house with Abigal’s inheritance and financial assistance from Emerson. While Alcott’s childhood and education were active and much advanced for a woman of her era, the fiscal vicissitudes of the family she dearly loved made her determined to pursue a career that would guarantee stability and regular income for all. After working as a governess, teacher, seamstress and domestic charwoman, Alcott began writing regularly for publications such as Atlantic Monthly and producing collections of short tales for children.
During six weeks of the Civil War, she served as a nurse at the Union Hospital in Washington, DC and her letters home were later revised as Hospital Sketches, a collection that received critical acclaim in 1863 and was republished in 1869. She also wrote sentimental novels and novelettes in the “gothic” style under a nom de plume of A.M. Bernard. But her true literary success came with the publication of the first part of Little Women: or Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy in 1868. This semi-autobiographical novel presented four sisters in childhood and was followed by Part Two (Good Wives, 1869) where the sisters reach adulthood and step into their respective marriages. Of the eight works that make up the Little Women series, these first remain the most popular. Despite the strong “autobiographical” ties between Alcott and her character “Jo”, Alcott herself never married. Alcott had pursued a relationship with Ladislas Wisniewski or “Laddie” while living abroad, but he appears to have served as the model for Laurie rather than Professor Bhaer in the novel. When Alcott’s younger sister May died in 1879, Louisa adopted May’s daughter “Lulu.” Alcott was also active in the Women’s suffrage movement and was the first woman to register to vote in Concord. Alcott’s health seriously deteriorated in 1888 (she had never been well since contracting typhoid fever during her nursing stint) and after having visited with her dying father, she returned to a rest home and died in her sleep the next morning. The father and daughter received a joint funeral and later burial in the family plot in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Concord.
Allan Knee (Book), a graduate of Yale Drama School, is a writer for film and televisions whose credits include the play source for Finding Neverland and the critically acclaimed recent work, Syncopation. Jason Howland (Score) was born in Concord, Massachusetts and grew up in Williamstown. While at Williams College, he interned on the 1992 development production of Jekyll & Hyde and established his credentials for future Broadway work. In addition to composing the score for Little Women, he also served as co-producer with his wife, Dani Davis. Mindi Dickstein (Lyrics) is the recipient of numerous awards for her lyrics and other commissioned works from companies in New York and abroad. She is a graduate of NYU’s graduate program in musical theatre, where she was an Oscar Hammerstein Fellow.
ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
While most audience members have grown up with some experience of Little Women, every stage adaptation faces the daunting task of reducing the epic novel to the right blend of stage moments that capture our favorite events, lines and characters. For director Roger DeLaurier, the pleasure of this musical lies partly in the creators’ astute choice to focus on Jo’s artistic journey as it parallels her personal one. In this musical, Jo is the central character; in fact she sings half of the music in the play. And so as Jo learns about life, love, family and life choices, she also explores and expands as an artist. DeLaurier is also intrigued by the questions about identity that the play poses: how can we lead a meaningful life; how can we learn to be authentic to our own nature; and in an age of complexity and complication, how do we avoid losing sight of our own journeys of self-discovery.
These essential questions for the play’s characters, as well as it audiences, are explored in a truly beautiful and haunting musical score. Despite its contemporary nature, the music has depth and resonance with the themes of the play. The beauty of the music is also matched by a fluidity of scenic transformation. For DeLaurier’s production, designer DeAnne Kennedy has created both a deck-level turntable that allows for quick scene shifts, and an ever present attic where Jo’s writing and self-discovery remind us of the core values of the play. DeLaurier is also pleased to work once again with costume designer Judy Ryerson. They first worked together in 1988 when she was PCPA’s Resident Costume Designer and in the years since have done over 12 plays together. It is an artistic partnership that DeLaurier is very pleased to share once again. |
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