By Brandy Lee
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/ndpr/local-ndpr-913885.mp3
July 14, 2010 – The summers in Fargo Moorhead are celebrated by our exuberant youth with acting, singing, dancing, sewing, sawing, painting and all that goes into creating a show. You can tell the time of the season by the subject on stage:
When the sundial is on July 12, it's Shipwrecked! An Entertainment - The Amazing Adventures of Louis de Rougemont (As told by himself)'. Pulitzer Prize-winning play takes the audience on a journey of imagination through the eyes of real life Victorian-era adventurer Louis de Rougemont, who returns to London having been shipwrecked in the South Seas for 30 years. His wild tales turn him into an instant sensation---until his stories fall apart. A Trollwood Second Stage and Theatre B collaboration, this production features a cast of 14 area high school students, challenged by director Matthew Burkholder to create Rougemont's imagination for us on stage. In keeping with the unique flavor of Theatre B productions, the wild tales of Shipwrecked' are brought to us through the use of the actor as artist, with the actors creating all the sound effects live on stage. It wouldn't be a Theatre B show if it didn't make you think----ultimately, about truth & deception. Shipwrecked runs through July 10, and 14-17 at 7:30, with a matinee on July 11 at 2pm, at Theatre B on Main Avenue, Fargo. Tickets through Theatre B Box Office or at the door on show nights.
Next to open is Trollwood's Mainstage Musical, Cole Porter's Anything Goes'. Set sail from New York to London with this crazy-funny musical farce made popular with the tunes Anything Goes, You're the Top, and I Get A Kick Out Of You. Combine an evangelist turned nightclub singer, a debutante, gangsters, a few sidekicks, Bankers, a Reverend, FBI Agents, an Englishman, and a ships crew, and you have yourself the perfect Cole Porter 1934 musical. Trollwood Performing Arts School's production of Anything Goes opens July 14, and runs through August 1. Tickets through Trollwood's Box Office, online, Hornbachers and Gate City Banks.
If you time it just right, you can catch the production created by high schoolers attending the North Dakota Governor's School at NDSU. Selected through a rigorous application process, students from across North Dakota participate in a five week study of Performing Arts taught by NDSU Theatre Professors. The Governor's Revue brings Vaudeville back to the stage with a family-friendly revue filled with specialty acts, dance and song featuring old favorites such as Give My Regards to Broadway' and You're A Grand Old Flag'. These free and open to the public performances run at 8PM, Thursday, July 15 in Askanase Hall, NDSU, and on the corner of Broadway and 2nd Avenue, Downtown Fargo Street Fair at 10am on Friday, July 16th.
Presenting an American premiere is becoming a tradition for the Gooseberry Park Players, now 27 years in Moorhead. A summer theatre program producing musicals based on classic works of literature, the Gooseberry Park Players continue to offer new works with this year's show, A Dszungel Konyve, The Jungle Book. Based on Rudyard Kipling's classic work, this newly translated from Hungarian version features the story of young adult Mowgli in his journey through finding acceptance, told through delightful song and dance. This year's production is again staged on a set beautifully designed by guest artist Doc Miller---a rich tapestry of green allows the actors to weave their story of the Jungle Book and pull us into the lessons of logic, love and honor that Mowgli grows through. A Dszungel Konyve, The Jungle Book, runs July 20-25 in the Frances Frazier Comstock Memorial Theatre on the campus of Concordia College. Tickets through Gooseberry Park Players Box Office or at the door on show dates.
As our sundial inches towards late summer, a new high school show entitled 13: a new musical runs July 29th through August 7th as a production of the Fargo Moorhead Community Theatre's Children's Studio Theatre . Their Broadway Lights Musical Theatre program is a performance and training program that uses the arts for advocacy and positive social change. This summer's production , 13: a new musical, by Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown,is replete with teenage angst, dating, crushes, songs about kissing, who's mad at whom, parties, cheerleading practice and a synopsis that reads like a teenage soap opera. The show is about becoming a teenager, and the cast of talented area high school students belt their way through this new pop musical. This opportunity to see what's new in the musical world opens as our summer holiday begins to close. Tickets for 13: a new musical are available at the Fargo Moorhead Community Theatre Box Office.
Our kids are singing/acting/dancing their hearts out for us this summer, catch one of these shows and give em a hand!
For Prairie Public, I'm Brandy Lee.