Peninsula Players: "Over the Tavern" Opens July 7th!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Audra Baakari Boyle

July 1, 2010 920 868 3287

Dudzick’s Comedy “Over the Tavern”

Up Next on Peninsula Players stage

Fish Creek, Wisconsin – Peninsula Players Theatre, America’s oldest professional resident summer theater, presents Tom Dudzick’s delightful comedy “Over the Tavern” from July 7 through July 25. Even the Cleavers would be at a loss to give advice when wise-cracking Rudy starts to question ruler-cracking Sister Clarissa. “Over the Tavern” is a rollicking comedy filled with warm humor, nostalgia and coming-of-age mischief. Dudzick’s hit comedy “Greetings!” was produced by Peninsula Players in 2008.

“Over the Tavern” is set in 1959. Eisenhower is president; Ed Sullivan rules Sunday night; the superpowers are in a Space Race, and the Pazinski family is trying to raise four teenagers over a tavern in Buffalo, New York.

Life in their cramped apartment is no walk in the park as parents navigate sibling rivalries, school girl crushes and sugary cereal while the kids wonder why their parents are so strict and not like those they see on “Father Knows Best.”

Everything hits the fan when the youngest, Rudy, is more interested in developing his Ed Sullivan impression than studying his Catechism. Sister Clarissa visits the home when Rudy pronounces he is shopping around for a more fun religion.

“I have wanted to bring this comedy to Door County for years,” said Greg Vinkler, the Players Artistic Director. “Finally this season it fit the bill, and I was able to find some really talented actors to play the children. It’s a show that any family can identify with because it looks at all of the various relations within a family, mother, daughter, sister, brother, etc., and does it in a loving and caring way. On top of that, it’s very funny – it really makes me laugh out loud!

“Having gone to a Catholic school myself and been taught by a very strict nun, the play does hit home for me, but you don’t have to have been raised Catholic to understand Sister Clarissa in the show. She’s the scary teaching figure probably everyone who has been a student has experienced at one time or another. It’s a great night of theater.”

“Over the Tavern” is under the direction of Kristine Thatcher who last appeared on the Players’ stage as Eliza in “Pygmalion” and LCDR JoAnne Galloway in “A Few Good Men.” She wrote the Door County-themed play “Apparitions” that the Players commissioned for its 1995 season. Thatcher has directed several plays for BoarsHead Theater in Lansing, Michigan where she was artistic director from 2005 – 2009 and is founding director of Stormfield Theater.

Returning to the Players stage are Neil Friedman and Karen Janes Woditsch as the parents coping with four teenagers and Peggy Roeder as Sister Clarissa. Friedman was in past Players’ productions of “Born Yesterday,” “Greetings!,” “Into the Woods” and “Unnecessary Farce.” Woditsch was last seen at the Players in “Sherlock Holmes: the Final Adventure” and Roeder in “Cabaret.”

These actors have extensive credits in Chicago theaters such as Writer’s Theater, Chicago Shakespeare, Goodman and Steppenwolf. Roeder’s additional credits include film credits in “Road to Perdition,” “Stranger than Fiction” and “Groundhog Day.” Friedman recently performed at the Utah Shakespearean Festival and Woditsch in Writer’s Theater’s “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead.”

Making their Players debut are the actors playing the four teenagers. Zachary Keller is the 12-year-old wisenheimer Rudy. Keller’s stage credits include “Ragtime” and “A Christmas Carol” with Drury Lane Oakbrook, City Lit Theater’s “Macbeth” and a Munchkin in the national tour of “The Wizard of Oz” at The Chicago Theatre. Andrew Keltz plays the eldest brother Eddie. Keltz’s recent credits include “The Snow Queen” and “Jacob and Jack” at Victory Gardens.

Jessie Mueller is cast as Annie, the only sister in the family. Her recent credits include “Animal Crackers” and “A Christmas Carol” with Goodman Theater and Drury Lane Oakbrook’s regional premier of “Curtains.” Isaiah Spetz, a student in Door County, is cast as Georgie, the middle brother who is mentally challenged. Spetz played the Candlestick in “Beauty and the Beast” and Philippe the Chef in “Little Mermaid” with the Door County Music and Art School.

The design team for “Over the Tavern” includes scenic designer Tom Burch, costumes by Samantha Jones, props by Sarah Ross, lighting by Stephen Roy White and sound by Cecil Averett, all seasoned Players veterans.

“Over the Tavern” will be on stage July 7 through July 25. Curtain times are Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7:30 p.m., except the closing performance July 25 at 4 p.m. Group and individual tickets are available. Individual ticket prices range from $29 to $36; there are no performances on Mondays.

The Saturday, July 24 performance is the 75th Timeless Theatrical Treasure celebration of Peninsula Players birthday with a picnic dinner served on the theater grounds before the show. Tickets for July 24 are $51, $48 and $44. For more information or to reserve tickets phone the Peninsula Players’ box office at 920-868-3287 or visit the website at www.peninsulaplayers.com.

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Peninsula Players is America’s oldest professional resident summer theater and is unique in the country for its diverse productions, continuing loyalty to a resident company, and its beautiful setting of 16 wooded acres along the cedar-lined shores of Green Bay. In the past 75 years, the theater has become a Door County landmark and its cornerstone arts institution, attracting audience members from throughout Wisconsin and across the country. For more information, please visit http://www.peninsulaplayers.com/.

Peninsula Players Theatre
2010 Playbill – www.peninsulaplayers.com 920-868-3287
Over the Tavern a delightful comedy by Tom Dudzick (July 7 - July 25)

A Little Night Music Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler’s Tony Award–winning masterpiece (July 28 – August 15)

Comic Potential by Alan Ayckbourn named by Time Magazine as "one of the 10 best plays of the past decade." (Aug. 18 – Sept. 5)

Panic by Joseph Goodrich, 2008 Winner of Mystery Writer’s of America Edgar Award for Best Play (Sept. 8 – Oct. 17)

Curtain Times:
July 7 – Sept. 4, Tuesday - Saturday 8 p.m; Sunday 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 8 –October 16, Tuesday - Saturday 8 p.m.; Sunday 7 p.m.
EXECEPT SUNDAYS July 25, August 15, Sept. 5, Sept. 26, and Oct. 17 at 4 p.m.
Ticket prices: Rows 1-10 $36, Rows 11-14 $33 and Rows 15-18 $29, Group rates available

Mission Statement
Peninsula Players Theatre is committed to preserving America’s Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theatre in its unique setting on 16 forested acres along the shores of Green Bay. The theatre’s mission is to support, without reservation, the most exciting theatre company possible; to preserve the Theatre in a Garden’s natural beauty; to provide artists the freedom, tools, and facilities they require to entertain, uplift, and inform our audiences; to foster future generations of theatre professionals through the internship program; and to maintain fiscal policies that insure the future security of the theatre.
Facts

• America’s Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theatre, established in 1935 by Caroline and Richard Fisher, a brother and sister team who envisioned an artistic utopia in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.
• Actors are members of Actors’ Equity, the union of professional actors and stage managers.
• Peninsula Players is a non-profit theater with 501(c)3 status.
• Voted Favorite Door County Theatre by the readers of Door County Magazine

Peninsula Players Announces 75th Season

We LOVE Peninsula Players, and they are in their 75th season - what an accomplishment!

They have just made some announcements regarding the upcoming season. Here is the PR release we just received. . .

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Peninsula Players Announces 75th Season

Fish Creek, Wisconsin – Peninsula Players Theatre, America’s oldest professional resident summer theater and Door County’s theatrical icon announces its historic 75th season, running June 15 through October 17, 2010.

Peninsula Players will open its 75th season June 15 with “Heroes,” by Gérald Sibleyras, translated by Tom Stoppard. Three veterans of World War I plot their greatest adventure yet, to escape the veteran’s hospital! Their wits may not be fully intact, but even in their autumn years they retain a zeal for life that may just get them past the front gates. “Heroes” will run through July 4. It won the Olivier Award for Best Comedy and several Moliere Award nominations, including Best Author.

Peninsula Players 2010 Season Add One …

From July 7 through July 25 the Peninsula Players presents “Over the Tavern” by Tom Dudzick, who is called the Roman Catholic’s Neil Simon. Raising four teenagers over a tavern in Buffalo, New York in the 1950s is a challenge especially just before confirmation when the youngest, Rudy, starts to question the church and ruler-cracking Sister Clarissa. Theatergoers may recall Dudzick’s heartwarming comedy “Greetings!” from the Players’ 2008 season.

Next up from July 28 through August 15 is the multiple Tony Award-winning musical “A Little Night Music” with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler. Greg Vinkler, artistic director of Peninsula Players, will be taking a leave from his role as Doc in the Broadway revival of “West Side Story,” to direct the musical.

“A Little Night Music” features such Sondheim classics as “A Weekend in the Country,” “Every Day a Little Death” and “Send in the Clowns.” This witty, elegant musical is a celebration of romance, a Valentine to Door County audiences.

“Comic Potential” a sci-fi comedy by Alan Ayckbourn moves onto the stage from August 18 through Sept. 5. Time Magazine named “Comic Potential” “one of the best plays of the past decade.” In the foreseeable future television actors are replaced with programmable robots, and Jacie, an android star, is slated for the scrap heap when a programming glitch is discovered. At very inopportune times in her soap drama “Hospital Hearts,” she develops a penchant for humor, of the slap-stick kind. When the writer kidnaps her to save her, adventures really begin!

Closing the season is the Midwest premiere of the scintillating thriller “Panic” by Joseph Goodrich (Sept.8 –Oct. 17). “Panic” is the winner of the Mystery Writer’s of America Edgar Award for Best Play. At a film opening in Paris director Henry Lockwood, known as “the Sultan of Suspense,” finds himself caught in a web of blackmail, deception and murder. Goodrich used Alfred Hitchcock as a model for Lockwood and the suspense filled story.

Peninsula Players 2010 Season Add two …

“We hope audiences enjoy the Peninsula Players 75th year,” Vinkler said. “Shows are filled with enduring friendships, romance, and song and dance. Comic and warm-hearted adventures of a zany family and a futuristic acting robot give way to the thrill of mystery in the fall. We have so much for everyone to enjoy!”

Peninsula Players has been entertaining and exciting audiences since 1935, when the theater opened behind the Bonnie Brook Motel in Fish Creek on July 25, with Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever.” The company was founded by a brother and sister team, Caroline and Richard Fisher, who dreamed of an artistic utopia in the northwoods where actors, designers and technicians could focus on their craft while being surrounded by nature in a contemplative setting. Peninsula Players moved to the theater’s present location along the shore of Green Bay in 1937.

Prior to performances, patrons picnic relax on the grounds while watching the setting sun over the waters of Green Bay from the cedar-lined shore and enjoy the ambience of the beer garden and other gardens.

The Fishers’ dream lives on as professional actors, directors and designers work side-by-side with college interns while living on the Players 16-acre campus as they bring audiences a variety of works including dramas, mysteries, comedies and musicals. In fall, 2005, the troupe closed its season early to begin construction on its new stagehouse and audience pavilion.

The Peninsula Players perform Tuesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 7:30 p.m. in the summer. With the opening of the fall show Sept. 8 curtain times are Tuesday through Saturdays at 8 p.m. and most Sundays at 7 p.m. The closing performance of each show will have a 4 p.m. matinee, July 4, July 25, August 15, Sept. 5 and Oct. 17.

Discount tickets are available for season ticket holders and groups. Individual tickets are also available. Individual ticket prices range from $29, $33 to $36. There are no performances on Mondays. For more information or to reserve tickets phone the Peninsula Players’ box office at 920-868-3287 or visit the website at www.peninsulaplayers.com.

**End**

Peninsula Players Theatre

4351 Peninsula Players Road

Fish Creek, WI 54212

920-868-3287

www.peninsulaplayers.com


Peninsula Players is America’s oldest professional resident summer theater and is unique in the country for its diverse productions, continuing loyalty to a resident company, and its beautiful setting of 16 wooded acres along the cedar-lined shores of Green Bay. In the past 75 years, the theater has become a Door County landmark and its cornerstone arts institution, attracting audience members from throughout Wisconsin and across the country. For more information, visit www.peninsulaplayers.com or call (920) 868-3287.


2010 Playbill

Heroes by Gérald Sibleyras, adapted by Tom Stoppard.

(June 15 – July 4) Olivier Award for Best New Comedy , Moliere Award nominee for Best Author.


Over the Tavern By Tom Dudzick (July 7 – July 25) Dudzick has been called the Roman-Catholic Neil Simon.


A Little Night Music (July 28- August 15) the Tony Award–winning masterpiece with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler.


Comic Potential by Alan Ayckbourn (Aug. 18 – Sept. 5) Ranked in the top 10 of Time Magazine’s best plays of the decade.


Panic by Joseph Goodrich (Sept. 8 – Oct. 17) 2008 Winner of Mystery Writer’s of America Edgar Award for Best Play.

Curtain Times:

June 15 – Sept. 4, Tuesday - Saturday 8 p.m; Sunday 7:30 p.m.

Sept. 8 –October 16, Tuesday - Saturday 8 p.m.; Sunday 7 p.m.

EXECEPT SUNDAYS July 4, July 25, August 15, Sept. 5 and October 17 at 4 p.m.


Ticket prices: Rows A-K (1-10 )$36, Rows L-O (11-14 )$33 and Rows P- S (15-18) $29,

Season and Group rates available



Facts

America’s Oldest Professional Resident Summer Theatre, established in 1935 by Caroline and Richard Fisher, a brother and sister team who envisioned an artistic utopia in the Northwoods of Wisconsin.


Actors are members of Actors’ Equity, the union of professional actors and stage managers.


Peninsula Players is a non-profit theater with 501(c)3 status.


Voted Favorite Door County Theatre by the readers of Door

The Big Read Continues!

Just got this press release from the Peninsula Players
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Alan Kopischke
January 15, 2010 920 868 3841 or 920 370 1034

The Big Read Continues

Keynote Address Among Week’s Highlights

January 15, 2010—Fish Creek, WI— Door County’s popular Big Read program welcomes keynote address speaker, Dr. Susan Maher, to Crossroads at Big Creek on Friday, Jan 22 at 7:00 p.m. Maher, chair of the University of Nebraska English Department and Willa Cather scholar, will discuss the powerful connection people have to the lands that surround them, particularly as reflected in the 2010 Big Read selection, "My Ántonia." Dr. Maher currently serves as vice president on the executive board of the Willa Cather Foundation and has published widely on the literature of the American and Canadian West. She is currently working on a book-length study of Plains nonfiction writers entitled Deep Maps: A Literary Cartography of the Great Plains.

Dr. Maher’s address, “Landscape as Home Place in Willa Cather’s ‘My Antonia’” is being sponsored by the Door County Land Trust, the White Lace Inn and Crossroads at Big Creek. Laurel Hauser, development director for the Door County Land Trust, explains that the land preservation community has strong ties to the artistic community in Door County. “We often hear from and work with writers and artists who find inspiration from Door County’s landscapes and open spaces. The bluffs and orchards and old fields are what make Door County unique and we’re thrilled to have this opportunity to explore how a region’s landscapes can inform its literature.”

The Big Read Door County kicked off its third year with a crowd of 156 people at the Door Community Auditorium enjoying the preview activities Jan 11. The evening included an enthusiastically received speech by Dr Estella Lauter on the major themes of the book and the appeal it holds for a variety of readers, a lively collection of teens and adults learning traditional American folk dance with the Door County Folk Alliance, and the unveiling of a historical rendering of Willa Cather that will be sold through silent auction to raise funds for next year’s Big Read. The second rendering, of Ántonia model Anna Pavelka, will be unveiled at Crossroads at the keynote address.

Other events included the opening of “Barbara’s Farm,” an exhibit of Daniel Anderson’s rural landscape photography at the Miller Art Museum running through March 2 and a professionally staged reading by Peninsula Players company members Sean and Linda Fortunato of Stephen J Miller’s stage adaptation of “My Ántonia” directed by Joe Foust at Birch Creek’s Juniper Hall on Monday.

Events celebrating and exploring Willa Cather’s “My Ántonia” continue through February 10. Third Avenue Playhouse will screen the 1995 USA Network film version of “My Ántonia” Saturday Jan 23. The film stars Neil Patrick Harris, Jason Robards, Eva St Marie and Elina Löwensohn.

The full range of book discussions, family activities and other events can be found at peninsulaplayers.com or doorcountylibrary.org. The Big Read Door County is produced by Peninsula Players in partnership with Door County Library and in collaboration with dozens of community organizations and schools throughout the county.

Funding for The Big Read is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the Friends of Door County Libraries and Door County Community Foundation’s Arts Fund. The NEA also provides reader’s guides and audio guides, available at each Door County Library branch, as well as providing teacher’s guides to each Door County school district.

The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest. For more information about The Big Read visit www.neabigread.org.


Peninsula Players is America’s oldest professional resident summer theater and is unique in the country for its diverse productions, continuing loyalty to a resident company, and its beautiful setting of 16 wooded acres along the cedar-lined shores of Green Bay. In the past 73 years, the theater has become a Door County landmark and its cornerstone arts institution, attracting audience members from throughout Wisconsin and across the country.
The National Endowment for the Arts is a public agency dedicated to supporting excellence in the arts—both new and established—bringing the arts to all Americans, and providing leadership in arts education. Established by Congress in 1965 as an independent agency of the federal government, the Arts Endowment is the nation’s largest annual funder of the arts, bringing great art to all 50 states, including rural areas, inner cities and military bases. For more information, visit www.arts.gov.
The Institute of Museum and Library Services is the primary source of federal support for the nation’s 122,000 libraries and 17,500 museums. The Institute’s mission is to create strong libraries and museums that connect people to information and ideas. The Institute works at the national level and in coordination with state and local organizations to sustain heritage, culture and knowledge; enhance learning and innovation; and support professional development. For more information, visit www.imls.gov.
Arts Midwest connects people throughout the Midwest and the world to meaningful arts opportunities, sharing creativity, knowledge, and understanding across boundaries. Arts Midwest connects the arts to audiences throughout the nine-state region of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. One of six non-profit regional arts organizations in the United States, Arts Midwest’s history spans more than 25 years. For more information, visit www.artsmidwest.org.

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