AUGUST: OSAGE COUNTY Has a Cast at Eureka College

Tracy Letts' August: Osage County is one of the most celebrated plays of the 21st century. After the 2007 Steppenwolf production in Chicago, the play took home seven Joseph Jefferson Awards and went straight to Broadway, winning six Tonys and nine other New York awards, plus a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Anna D. Shapiro, who was recently named Steppenwolf's Artistic Director, directed August: Osage in Chicago and New York.

Joel Shoemaker, a Eureka College alum, will direct August: Osage County for his alma mater with performances in April, 2015. Shoemaker's cast will include Christopher Tam and Stephanie Sager as Beverly and Violet Weston, the patriarch and matriarch of a deeply troubled Oklahoma family.

The plot of August: Osage County kicks in when Beverly Weston disappears and the three Weston daughters, Barbara, Ivy and Karen, along with Violet's sister Mattie Fae and various other in-laws and offspring arrive, ostensibly to offer support to Violet.

For Eureka, the three sisters will be played by Kayla Pulliam, Alexis Godbee and Emilie Dierks. Austin Bristow II will take on the role of Barbara's husband, with Ashleigh Feger as her teenage daughter. Nathan Bottorff will play Steve, Karen's fiance, along with Sarah Hall as Mattie Fae, Drew Carter as Mattie's husband Charlie and Austin Travis her son Little Charles. Completing the cast are Isabella Anderson as a caretaker for Violet and Jason Punke as the local sheriff who also happens to be Barbara's high school boyfriend.

If you are curious to see how all three stories of Weston family dysfunction will fit on the stage at Eureka College's Pritchard Theatre, you will have to wait till April. But you'll want to keep an eye on Eureka's Facebook page and theatre webpage to stay current in the meantime.

Phone Rings, Door Chimes, in Comes Cornstock's COMPANY

Stephen Sondheim's Company was most recently seen in Bloomington-Normal when the New York Philharmonic's semi-staged version of this seminal musical was filmed and released to screens all over the country for our hometown viewing enjoyment. That one was something of an all-star event, with Neil Patrick Harris as Bobby, the bachelor at the center of a circle of married friends who love him dearly but want him to pair up and join their ranks. Bobby ponders that problem over the course of the play, with his 35th birthday looming and everyone he knows pretty much matched up. What does he want?

For that concert version of the show, Bobby's friends were played by familiar people like Stephen Colbert, Martha Plimpton, Jon Cryer and Patti Lupone, and he got Christina Hendricks, Joan from TV's Mad Men, as one of his love interests.

This week Peoria's Cornstock Theatre opens its own Company, complete with phones ringing and doors chiming, as well as "all those good and crazy people," the married (or soon-to-be married) friends who surround Bobby. Nate Downs will direct for Cornstock, with a cast that includes Todd Michael Cook as Bobby and Kate Erin Kennedy, Mariah Thornton and Lindsey Cheney as the three women he considers as partners. His "good and crazy" friends, the ones who demonstrate the difficulties as well as the joys in living the married life, will be played by Lori and George Maxedon as Sarah and Harry, the couple who enjoys fighting together; Lisa Jeans Warner and Dave Schick as seemingly perfect pair Susan and Peter, who may be splitting up; Carolyn Briggs-Gaul and Joel Shoemaker as hip and happening Jenny and David; Liz Jockisch and Chris Adams-Wenger as Amy and Paul, who are supposed to be headed for the altar; and Cheri Beever and Jerry Johnson as older and more cynical Joanne and Larry. Joanne is the one who blasts out "The Ladies Who Lunch," that caustic anthem to women of a certain age and situation, while Amy has "Not Getting Married,"a hilarious and adorable patter song about a bride with very chilly feet.

Other notable songs in Sondheim's score include "You Could Drive a Person Crazy," a bouncy little ditty sung by the three women Bobby has dated, the very New Yorkish "Another Hundred People," and "Being Alive," an epic, pin-you-in-your-seat piece about whether it's better to be alone or in a relationship. As the song tells us, the other person you share your life with may be "Someone to need you too much, someone to know you too well, someone to pull you up short, and put you through hell." Or perhaps all the emotional upheaval associated with having a partner may be just what you need to feel truly alive. That's Bobby's journey during Company, and it's the depth and complexity of the question that makes Company such a strong piece of musical theatre.

Cornstock Theatre's Company runs from August 23 to 31 with performances at 7:30 pm. You can see ticket information here or here or call the box office directly at 309-676-2196.

Community Players Is S-E-T for the S-P-E-L-L-I-N-G B-E-E

Community Players and director Brett Cottone have the cast in place for their May production of The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

The musical comedy (book by Rachel Sheinkin, music and lyrics by William Finn), about kids vying to win the local spelling bee -- with words like capybara and vug on the agenda -- will feature Joe McDonald and Aimee Kerber as the adults (Vice Principal Douglas Patch and former Putnam County Spelling Bee champ Rona Lisa Peretti) running the show, Chris Stanford as "comfort counselor" Mitch Mahoney, and Brian Artman, Kallie Bundy, Megan Masterman, Joel Shoemaker, Kelly Slater and Austin Travis as the over-invested child spellers.

Bundy will play Olive Ostrovsky, the girl whose mother is off in an ashram somewhere, while Artman will take on the magic foot of William Barfée (note the accent -- he is particular that his name is pronounced BarFAY, not BARFy), who can only spell if he can sketch the words out with his shoe, Masterman will be over-achiever-in-every-way Marcy Park, Slater will play (and perhaps spell the name of ) Logainne Schwartzandgrubenierre, a socially-aware little girl with two gay dads, Travis will personify sweet, not-that-smart Leaf Coneybear, who keeps getting asked to spell the names of rodents, and Joel Shoemaker will bring boy-scout-with-growing-up-issues Chip Tolentino to life.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is an adorable show with characters you can't help but root for. And if you have a hankering to be part of the action, most productions pull volunteer spellers from the audience to compete along with Barfée, Chip, Leaf, Logainne, Marcy and Olive. In New York, Julie Andrews was a guest speller and had to do supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, while I got picked in Chicago on my birthday, and I got asked for lysergic acid diethylamide. The other volunteer speller there got cow, so you just never now.

Performance of this Spelling Bee begin May 9 at Community Players Theatre on Robinhood Lane.

JOSEPH Holiday Tradition Returns to Eastlight

East Peoria's Eastlight Theatre brings back its perennial favorite, the Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, with performances beginning November 30.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat began its life as a short "pop cantata" for a boys' school performance in London, and then became a concept album. After Jesus Christ Superstar made a name for Lloyd Webber and Rice on stage, Joseph, too, became a full-length musical, with successful productions in London's West End, on Broadway and around the world. It even spawned a show called Any Dream Will Do on British TV where potential Josephs battled for the right to play the title role in the 2007 West End revival.

As Eastlight notes, the Lloyd Webber/Rice Joseph is based on the Biblical story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. Joseph was the 11th son (out of 12) of Jacob. He was also the favorite, which did not sit well with his 11 brothers, who plot to kidnap him and sell him into slavery in Egypt. But the plot backfires on them when Joseph rises to prominence as a dream interpreter for Pharoah. Back in Canaan, his brothers have fallen on hard times, and their miseries lead them to grovel at the feet of the Pharoah's right-hand-man, who happens to be the brother they betrayed so long ago.

For Eastlight, Brandon Chandler plays Joseph, while Tami Frow-Meister acts as the Narrator, Joel Shoemaker plays Potiphar and Deric Kimler takes on the role of the Pharaoh. Jeremy Kelly directs a cast that includes a youth chorus, one of the ways Joseph is a family-friendly show.

A scene from Eastligh's 2011 Joseph

This musical is sung-through, with very little dialogue, and the score covers all different musical styles. Eastlight has made it work for them for over 20 years, offering performances during the holiday season. This year, they'll begin with a 7:30 performance on the 30th, followed by seven more shows from December 1 to 9. Tickets to all performances are available here.

They are also offering a "Joseph Experience" at their closing performance at 2 pm on the 9th, when audience members are invited to participate by way of a sing-along. Prop bags to made the experience even more interactive will also be available for purchase.

"You Can't Take It With You" Auditions Tonight and Tomorrow at CP

Community Players is holding open auditions tonight and tomorrow night at 7 pm at the theater on Robinhood Lane for its upcoming production of the classic Kaufman and Hart comedy "You Can't Take It With You."

Performances of the play are scheduled for August 30 through September 9.

Director Jeremy Stiller and Producer Joel Shoemaker are looking for actors to fill seven female roles and twelve male roles, including:

•  Young lovers Alice Sycamore and Tony Kirby
• Tony's staid and respectable parents
• Alice's crazy mom and dad, Penelope and Paul Sycamore
• Alice's sister Essie and Essie's husband Ed
• Grandpa Vanderhof
• Mr. De Pinna, an ice man who dropped by the Sycamore house eight years ago and never left
• An IRS agent named Wilbur Henderson
• Boris the opinionated ballet master
• A former Grand Duchess from Russia who is now a waitress
• An alcoholic actress with overly dramatic ways
• Two servants who don't really understand any of it
• And several FBI agents who've come looking for Communist Manifestos.

Program from the original Broadway production

Suffice it to say that all the Sycamores (with the exception of Alice) are more than a little eccentric. Grandpa doesn't believe in taxes, Dad is making fireworks in the basement, Mom is trying to write a lurid potboiler of a play, Sis is a candy-making ballerina, and Bro-in-Law has a habit of printing whatever strikes his fancy, including seditious broadsides. Their friends and colleagues are even stranger, which leads to comedy when Tony and his stuffy parents pop by to meet their potential in-laws.

"You Can't Take It With You" won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1937, and has continued to be revived successfully in community theaters, high schools, and regional productions ever since. The 1938 film directed by Frank Capra starred Jimmy Stewart and Jean Arthur as Tony and Alice and took home that year's Best Picture and Best Director Oscars, while a 1983 Broadway revival with Jason Robards (as Grandpa) and Colleen Dewhurst (as Olga the Russian duchess) also earned good notices and a Drama Desk nomination for Maureen Anderman, who played Alice.

The play and its message -- that life should be fun -- has never really gone out of style. For more information about Community Players' auditions for "You Can't Take It With You," check out this Facebook page.