BY ED LIBONATI
June begins the Summer Theatre of New Canaan”™s 12th season. We continue to work hard to raise the bar. By this I mean the experience our audiences, casts, staff, interns and student share. This is a process of building a sustainable relevance within the communities and extended communities we serve; children, parents, adults, seniors, artists, patrons and sponsors who enable us. The list of things to improve on each year seems endless once you scratch the surface. Carrying this responsibility I find my personal goal has become refined into an act of falling forward each year ”” as compared to stable steady growth expected by our trustees.
Landing on my face has its benefits. Like the phoenix in classic mythologies, a spontaneous recovery happens every time I attend our shows, rehearsals, talk to our audiences before and especially following a performance or see our students learning. Our programs for college interns, high school pre-college theater intensives and Middle School Junior Company all reap personal dividends. I experience minor miracles regularly in our DramaRamas program for children 8-18 with special needs and we witness daily miracles of personal development. This unique program engages our professional actors and college interns who work one on one as personal mentors with the children as they put on their own performance. We were just notified by the Connecticut Critics Circle that they are giving our DramaRamas program a special award. Falling forward can be very rewarding.
We will be producing “Legally Blonde, the Musical,” running June 24-Aug. 9. It is one of the most fun upbeat Broadway hit musicals written. After the success last year of our production of “Hairspray,” “Legally Blonde” continues the theme of female empowerment. We selected our professional cast after auditioning more than 700 performers and I am happy to say we have several local Connecticut pros in the cast. Thursday nights will be “Girls Night Out” with boutique and spa door prizes, great pre-show happy hours and special dinner deals from New Canaan”™s best restaurants. A perfect evening to polish up on the “Bend and Snap.”
Our theater for a young audience series again this year features a world premiere: a new musical adaptation of “Cinderella,” titled “Cinderella, A Fairy”™s Tale,” July 3 and in rep with our other young audience shows “Charlotte”™s Web” and “Wizard of Oz” weekends through Aug. 9. Falling forward may hurt a little but you get up smiling wanting more! Information and tickets: stonc.org.
Hope to see you at Waveny Park.
Ed Libonati is executive director of Summer Theatre of New Canaan, a member of the Cultural Alliance of Fairfield County.