The Grand Marais Playhouse is in full swing preparing for the summer! The plays are in rehearsal and the crew is assembled and working on the productions. This year Sue Hennessy will be assisted by a team familiar to the theater community, led by Jackson Nickolay as assistant technical director and Administrative Assistant Maria Nickolay as the backstage coordinator. Sarah Warren, Yvonne Block, Melanie Stoddard, Cy Fortunato, and Brenna Hay complete the crew that will work building each show and work on the running crew. Several Kids Plus Incredible Exchange students will be assisting the crew—Alyssa Lashinski, Aurora Schelmeske and Sam Sietsema.
Volunteers are still needed for building, painting, costumes, locating properties, running crew, ushers, box office, and more. If you are interested, please contact the Playhouse at 387- 1284x2orplayhouse@boreal.org.We would love to have you join us!
The first production opens on June 27. Freud’s Last Session by Mark St. Germain and Samuel French Publishers is directed and designed by Jackson Nickolay with the cast of Kevin Kager as Sigmund Freud and David Warren as C.S. Lewis.
The director and cast of the next Grand Marais Playhouse production, Freud’s Last Session, are hard at work rehearsing the touching play that explores the minds, hearts and souls of two brilliant historical figures. (LR) David Warren who will play C.S. Lewis; Director Jackson Nickolay; and Kevin Kager, who takes on the role of Dr. Sigmund Freud.
The play is described as centering on legendary psychoanalyst Dr. Sigmund Freud who invites the young, rising Oxford don C.S. Lewis to his home in London. On the day England enters World War II, Freud and Lewis clash about love, sex, the existence of God, and the meaning of life, just weeks before Freud took his own life. Freud’s Last Session is a deeply touching play filled with humor, exploring the minds, hearts and souls of two brilliant men addressing the greatest questions of all time.
The play has gotten fantastic reviews wherever it has been offered—here are just a few of the fantastic reviews the play has received:
“Delightful! A brainy fencing match of Olympic caliber.” Bloomberg News.
“It’s a sharp, lively discourse, and audience members searching for engaging debate will be pleased…Mark St. Germain’s script is astute, and the humor is plentiful.” NY Times.
“…Lively, plausible and provocative… dynamic, often comical.” Associated Press.
“Riveting theatre! In Freud’s Last Session, Sigmund Freud and C.S. Lewis engage in a battle of wits that is exciting and thought provoking… their extraordinary debate comes alive [in] Mark St. Germain’s crisp, carefully calibrated script. Freud’s Last Session is a theatrical and intellectual delight.” Huffington Post.
“…A juicy intellectual debate between two great minds…food for thought.” NY Post.
“Bracing theater! Intractably analytical and amusingly conversational… wittily and compassionately dramatized clash of personalities and ideologies.” CurtainUp.
The Playhouse will be transforming the Arrowhead Center for the Arts into an intimate black box theater for this production with the audience and actors all on the stage, creating an intimate setting for the gripping dialogue. This will lower available seating capacity so purchase tickets early online at www.grandmaraisplayhouse.com. Performances are June 27 – 30 and July 4-7. Tickets are $17 adults and $7 students 18 and under.
The Grand Marais Summer Theater Festival begins July 18 and runs through August 11 at the Arrowhead Center for the Arts. The hilarious musical Church Basement Ladies by Jim Stowell and Jessica Zuehlke with music and lyrics by Drew Jansen will perform in repertory with the equally funny, The Odd Couple by Neil Simon. Each show will perform every other day, Thursday – Saturday at 7 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m.
Church Basement Ladies is directed by Sue Hennessy, Hilja Iverson and Karina Roth with the cast of Mark Abrahamson, Rose Arrowsmith Decoux, Yvonne Mills, Diane Stoddard and Linda Waterhouse. Performances are July 18, 26, 28, August 1, 3, 9 and 11.
The Odd Couple is directed by Sue Hennessy with the cast of Kerri Bilben, Yvonne Block, Julie Fredlund, Jane Gellner, Gerry Grant, Erin Larsen, Jackson Nickolay and Jason Winters. Performances are July 19, 21, 25, 27, August 2,4, 8 and 10.
Tickets for the Summer Theater Festival are $20 adults and $10 students. Save $5 when you purchase tickets to both performances.
The Grand Marais Summer Theater Festival will also include theatrical classes. Acting classes for adults and children will be led by Susie Kelnberger and Rose Arrowsmith- Decoux; a workshop, Forum Theater, will be led by Jackson Nickolay; and Character Development will be led by Kathleen Gates. For the inaugural festival all classes and workshops will be $10 per student. There will be more details and possibly more workshops to come in the next Backstage Buzz. If you are interested in leading a theatrical workshop or have a request for a workshop, please contact the Playhouse.
It’s going to be a great summer of theater in Grand Marais! Come be a part of it!
Grand Marais Playhouse Artistic Director Sue Hennessy provides this behind-the-scenes look at Grand Marais Playhouse activities.
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