Posts Tagged Pride and Prejudice

MN Monthly Interview with China Brickey

“I’m noticing the deeper I go into my career, everything I do as an actor, in this body, is a statement because I’m not someone you see normally in that role. It’s a big responsibility, and I definitely don’t take it lightly.” – China Brickey
China Brickey, the warm and witty actor playing Elizabeth Bennet in Park Square’s current production of Pride and Prejudice, sat down with Minnesota Monthly Magazine’s Lianna Matt McLernon to dish about her love of Jane Austen, her hilarious cast-mates, and what it means to her to play the inimitable Elizabeth Bennet.

Read the full interview

Picture of Elizabeth Bennet, played by China Brickey, holding hands with Mr Darcy, played by Paul Rutledge. Mr Darcy is on one knee as though proposing marriage.

China Brickey as Elizabeth Bennet. Paul Rutledge as Mr. Darcy. Photo by Dan Norman.

Cyber Monday Specials!

Share the joy of great theatre this holiday season with our 2 for 1 Cyber Monday Specials. Choose Area 1 (2 for $55-60) or Area 2 (2 for $40-45) tickets* to select Park Square performances!
Use code MON when ordering.

ONLINE ONLY! Cyber Monday Specials start Sunday, Dec 1, and are valid through Monday, Dec 2 at midnight. Offers do not apply to previously purchased tickets or with other offers.

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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
On Stage through Dec 22, 2019
Love is a serious game and the Bennets are playing for keeps!

Cyber Monday Special Dates
Wednesday, Dec 18, 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Dec 19, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Dec 20, 7:30 p.m.
BUY TICKETS to Pride and Prejudice


FACE TO FACE: OUR HMONG COMMUNITY
Mar 5-15, 2020
Community members tell their unique stories.

Cyber Monday Special Dates (All tickets 2 tickets for $30! No seating areas.)
Thursday, Mar 5, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Mar 6, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Mar 7, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Mar 8, 2:00 p.m.
BUY TICKETS to Face to Face

HOLMES AND WATSON
Jun 12-Jul 26, 2020

Sherlock Holmes is Dead, or is he?

Cyber Monday Special Dates
Thursday, Jun 25, 7:30 p.m.
Friday, Jun 26, 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, Jun 27, 7:30 p.m.
Sunday, Jun 28, 2:00 p.m.
BUY TICKETS to Holmes and Watson


GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE ONLINE, BY PHONE or IN PERSON

Now through Dec 31, 2019, buy $80 in gift certificates and receive a $10 voucher for tickets through December 2020 – just for you! PURCHASE GIFT CERTIFICATES

 

*2019-2020 season seating areas. (No seating areas for Face to Face).
Graphic Seating Chart for Proscenium Stage - Please phone the ticket office at 651.291.7005 for assistance with accessibility and seat selectionGraphic Seating Chart for Boss Thrust Stage - Please phone the ticket office at 651.291.7005 for assistance with accessibility and seat selection

Black Friday Specials!

Share the joy of great theatre this holiday season with our 2 for 1 Black Friday Specials. Choose Area 1 (2 for $55-60) or Area 2 (2 for $40-45) tickets* to select Park Square performances! Use code FRI when ordering online, or call the ticket office at 651.291.7005.

Black Friday Specials are valid through Saturday Nov 30 at midnight. See details below.

Order online or call 651.291.7005 (The Ticket office is open Fri & Saturday 12-5 p.m.)

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PRIDE AND PREJUDICE
On Stage NOW – Dec 22, 2019
Love is a serious game and the Bennets are playing for keeps!

Black Friday Special Dates
Fridays: Dec 6, 13 & 20 at 7:30 p.m.
BUY TICKETS to Pride and Prejudice


FACE TO FACE: OUR HMONG COMMUNITY
Mar 5-15, 2020
Community members tell their unique stories.

Black Friday Special Dates
Fridays: Mar 6 & 13 at 7:30 p.m.
BUY TICKETS to Face to Face

HOLMES AND WATSON
Jun 12-Jul 26, 2020

Sherlock Holmes is Dead, or is he?

Black Friday Special Dates
Fridays: July 3, 10, 17 & 24 at 7:30 p.m.
BUY TICKETS to Holmes and Watson


GIFT CERTIFICATES AVAILABLE ONLINE, BY PHONE or IN PERSON

Buy $80 in gift certificates and receive a $10 voucher good for tickets through December 2020 – just for you!
PURCHASE GIFT CERTIFICATES

 

*2019-2020 season seating areas.
Graphic Seating Chart for Proscenium Stage - Please phone the ticket office at 651.291.7005 for assistance with accessibility and seat selectionGraphic Seating Chart for Boss Thrust Stage - Please phone the ticket office at 651.291.7005 for assistance with accessibility and seat selection

NOT ONLY ENTERTAINING BUT TIMELESS AND FEMINIST

A Pride and Prejudice Director’s Note from Lisa Channer

I’m not sure how I avoided her for so long but until Park Square artistic director Flordelino sent me Kate Hamill’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, I had never cracked a Jane Austen book. Ever. Not even Pride and Prejudice. I did not know what I was missing all those years! Her portrayals of family dynamics, gender, marriage and class through witty recognizable characters makes her not only entertaining but timeless and feminist.

That this play is funny is undeniable, but it is the desperate stakes of their world that roots all the humor and sets the context in which these characters play out their decisions. With no brothers to inherit the family home the Bennet women face the prospect of poverty, homelessness and desperation if they can’t “win” husbands. But also, for a woman in Regency era England, marriage meant “civil death” in which she ceases to be a separate human being with individual autonomous rights. Tough choice. Poverty or Erasure? And lest we congratulate our modern world too quickly, as recently as 1972 my own mother was unable to apply for a bank account in her own name without a husband’s signature and we still do not have an Equal Rights Amendment. And so Jane Austen remains current.

As I laugh at these brilliant characters in the hands of these talented actors, I am reminded of the great 17th century French playwright Molière. Like Molière, Austen is a genius of comedic social commentary, pointing out preposterous
social rules with a pen as sharp as a knife.

-Lisa Channer, director of Pride and Prejudice

Tickets and Information

 

PARK SQUARE’S FIRST TAKE ON JANE AUSTEN IS A FROLICSOME GAME OF GENDER POLITICS

BUT TRUE LOVE DOES WIN IN THE END

Neal Beckman, Sara Richardson, China Brickey and Kiara Jackson in Pride and Prejudice. Photo by Richard Fleischman.

Park Square Theatre rings in the winter holidays with its first ever production of a Jane Austen novel with the regional premiere of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Nov 15 – Dec 22, 2019) adapted from the classic by Kate Hamill (SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, LITTLE WOMEN) and directed by Lisa Channer in her Park Square debut. This clever comedy offers a decidedly progressive take on the trials of Lizzy, Mr. Darcy, and the whole Bennet clan, with a few dance breaks thrown in for good measure.

“I love it because of the emphasis on the actor and the emphasis on theatricality,” says Park Square Theatre Artistic Director, Flordelino Lagundino. “Many of the actors play multiple roles and there is a sense of joy and abandon. Like the original Austen, it also gets to the depths of what it means to really fight for love and family.”

Many consider Austen to be one of the early feminist writers. To fully mine the gender politics of Austen’s most famous story, Hamill has constructed the role doubling in such a way that some characters have to be played by an actor of the opposite gender. Neal Beckman, for example, plays both Mr. Bingley and Bennet sister Mary, while McKenna Kelly-Eiding, who delighted audiences as Sherlock Holmes in KEN LUDWIG’S BASKERVILLE, plays the bumbling Mr. Collins and the dastardly Wickham.

Hamill also plays on the idea of the “perfect match,” by constructing the action like a game and or military strategy. “As I was writing, I started thinking about when you meet someone and you fall in love or something happens that changes your life beyond your control, and I wanted a way to make that more tangible. So, I thought bells are things you can’t ignore—church bells, wedding bells, alarm bells, door bells—they let us know something has changed, and I wanted to incorporate those in the script. So, every time something happens beyond the character’s control, something happens with a bell.”

Channer sets this decidedly frolicsome world as a play within a play. The entire proscenium stage will be open to the back wall with no side curtains, allowing the audience to see the actors preparing “offstage” for their next time in the “ring” which serves as the playing space.

The cast includes Sara Richardson* (Jane, Miss De Bourgh), China Brickey* (Lizzy), Kiara Jackson* (Lydia), Paul Rutledge (Mr. Darcy), McKenna Kelly-Eiding (Mr. Collins, Wickham), Neal Beckman (Mr. Bingley, Mary), Alex Galick* (Charlotte, Mr. Bennet), George Keller* (Mrs. Bennet).

The Production team includes:  Ruth Coughlin Lencowski (Vocal Coach), Annie Katsura Rollins (Scenic Designer), Sonya Berlovitz (Costume Design), Dan Dukich (Sound Designer), Karin Olsen (Lighting Designer), Josephine Everett (Properties Designer), Scott Stafford (Choreographer) Tim Komatsu (Park Square Theatre Dramaturgy Fellow), Rachael Rhoades (Advance Stage Manager), Megan Fae Dougherty (Production Stage Manager) Jaya Robillard (Assistant Stage Manager), Rane Oganowski (Wardrobe) Charlotte Deranek (Sound Board Operator)  *Member, Actors Equity Association

Ticket prices: Previews: $27-$37. Regular Run: $40-$60. Discounts are available for students, seniors, military personnel, those under age 30, and groups. Tickets are on sale at the Park Square Ticket Office, 20 W. Seventh Place, or by phone: 651.291.7005, (Noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday), or online at parksquaretheatre.org.   #PSTAusten   SEASON TICKETS are on sale now.  Subscription package prices begin at $66.

CALENDAR INFORMATION

Previews: Nov 15 – 21, 2019

Opening Night: Nov 22, 2019

Regular Run: Nov 22 – Dec 22, 2019

Tickets: Previews: $20-$37; Regular Run: $25-$65

PARK SQUARE THEATRE, 20 W. Seventh Place, Saint Paul

Ticket office: 651.291.7005 or parksquaretheatre.org

 

Park Square Announces 45th Season

Park Square Announces 45th Season

First Season for new Artistic Director Flordelino Lagundino Features Big Scale, Big Heart, Three Musicals and One World Premiere

MEDIA CONTACT

Connie Shaver, shaver@parksquaretheatre.org

 

Saint Paul, Minn., Feb. 14, 2019 – Park Square Theatre announced its 45th theatre season for 2019-2020 today. This is the first season to be created by Artistic Director Flordelino Lagundino, who took the reins of the theatre on August 1, 2018, after a national search. Flordelino will direct two shows in his first season, both by Korean American playwrights: AUBERGINE by Julia Cho and UN (the completely true story of the rise of Kim Jong Un) by John Kim.

Flordelino is building on Park Square’s commitment to new work with regional premieres, as well as one world premiere. He is also continuing former Artistic Director Richard Cook’s legacy of guaranteeing that every season includes at least one directing debut by introducing Park Square audiences to nationally recognized directors Mark Valdez, Ilana Ransom Toeplitz and Madeline Sayet, as well as local powerhouses Marcela Lorca and Lisa Channer.

“I wanted my first season to have an emphasis on community and to show as many people as possible that they have a place at Park Square and that they belong here,” said Flordelino. “I’ve been listening carefully to our community my first five months in town and am working to provide us all with stories that uplift, entertain, prod, and ultimately help us understand each other as fellow humans. And I think this is a moment in time when we all need to get up and dance!”

The season opens with that exact counterpoint: a delicious human drama on the Boss and plenty of dance moves on the Proscenium.

First on the Boss Stage will be the area premiere of AUBERGINE (Sept 20 – Oct 20, 2019) by Julia Cho, author of The Language archive, directed by Flordelino Lagundino. In this poignant and lyrical new play, a son cooks a meal for his dying father to say everything that words can’t. Since this first-generation Korean American speaks English and only limited Korean, the making of a perfect meal is an expression more precise than language, and the medium through which his love gradually reveals itself.

“This was one of the most beautiful plays I have ever read,” says Flordelino. “When I encountered it for the first time, I felt it was the best play I had read by an Asian American author in the last ten years. The writing feels so personal. It is a humorous and sensitive play about memories, food, and a relationship fractured by the loss of native language and the distance created between families because of war and the resulting Korean diaspora.”

The season continues on the Park Square Proscenium Stage with the Tony Award-nominated campy rock musical THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW by Richard O’Brien (Sept 27 – Nov 2, 2019), directed by Ilana Ransom Toeplitz. “I really want to rock the house and upend the way that people think of Park Square,” says Flordelino. “This is a great show to bring the generations together – those that stood in line as teenagers to see the original movie in 1975 (coincidentally the year Park Square opened), and young people experiencing it for their first time. I want the walls to shake and for people to get up, dance, laugh and have a good time!”

Ilana Ransom Toeplitz

THE ROCKY HORROR SHOW will be Toeplitz’s Park Square and Twin Cities directing debut. She has served as associate director for the national tours of DIRTY DANCING: THE CLASSIC STORY ON STAGE and A CHRISTMAS STORY: THE MUSICAL!, as well as being a Drama League Director’s Project Alum (2017 Leo Shull New Musicals Directing Fellow). “The whole night should feel like a party that’s been locked up in a time machine for years, begging to come out and play,” says Toeplitz. “It all culminates in Frank-N-Furter’s epic floor show, which has all the glitz of a David Bowie concert combined with all of the glam of an episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Audience participation is encouraged.”

A special one-week only presentation of PAIGE IN FULL by Paige Hernandez will take to the Boss Stage (Oct 25– 27, 2019). This unique experience blends poetry, dance, media and music to share a multicultural girl’s journey through hip-hop to self-discovery. Since its premiere in 2010, this “visual mix-tape” has sold out performances throughout the country and garnered praise from critics and audiences alike for its energy, intelligence, and originality.

Paige in Full

Warren Bowles

Park Square will offer just one weekend of general audience performances of its critically acclaimed production of Lorraine Hansberry’s A RAISIN IN THE SUN, directed by Warren Bowles (Boss Stage, Dec 6-8, 2019), with student matinees playing (Nov 18 – Dec 20, 2019).

Lisa Channer

For the holidays on the Proscenium Stage, Park Square continues its tradition of “counter programming” by featuring the regional premiere of PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (Nov 15 – Dec 22, 2019) adapted from the Jane Austen classic by Kate Hamill (SENSE AND SENSIBILITY, LITTLE WOMEN) and directed by Lisa Channer in her Park Square debut. This clever comedy offers a decidedly progressive take on the trials of Lizzy, Mr. Darcy, and the whole Bennet clan, with a few dance breaks thrown in for good measure. “I love it because of the emphasis on the actor and the emphasis on theatricality,” says Flordelino. “Many of the actors play multiple roles and there is a sense of joy and abandon. Like the original Austen, it also gets to the depths of what it means to really fight for love and family.”

Mark Valdez

2020 kicks off on the Proscenium with a brand-new take on the Broadway musical EVITA by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Weber, directed by Mark Valdez in his Park Square debut with musical direction by Denise Prosek and choreography by Joe Chvala (Jan 17 – Mar 1, 2020). “Mark is blowing the dust off this classic,” says Flordelino. “He is taking on how populism meets politics. What does it take to rise up in today’s society and make a name for yourself? And at what cost do we make our way up the ladder of success and power in any political environment?”

Valdez, who directs frequently at Mixed Blood Theatre, just received the Americans for the Arts 2019 Johnson Fellowship for Artists Transforming Communities, a $65,000 award that will help Mark continue his ground-breaking work in community-based theatre engagement.

The world premiere of UN (the completely true story of Kim Jong Un) by John Kim (Feb 7 – Mar 1, 2020) will be directed by Flordelino Lagundino, who was involved in the early development of the play at Pan Asian Rep in New York City. The play is a hilarious, irreverent, and brutal take on the life and rise to power of Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. It chronicles his life as teen who loves basketball, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, through the shaping of his mythology as the Supreme Leader. “John Kim and I have known each other for about 20 years,” shares Flordelino. “We met when I directed him in David Henry Hwang’s THE SOUND OF A VOICE when John was an undergrad actor at George Mason University. His script looks at the often-insane ways in which power is given and taken, and how the western world looks and frames power from countries that do not share its Eurocentric origins.”

FACE TO FACE: OUR HMONG COMMUNITY (Boss Stage, Mar 5 – 15, 2020) is a first-ever partnership between Park Square and the internationally-renowned Ping Chong + Company, a New York-based leader in innovative community-based theatre engagement. FACE TO FACE will be a community-specific, interview-based theater piece examining issues of culture and identity within Saint Paul’s vibrant Hmong Community. This original play will feature members from the Hmong community that will tell their stories – in their own words. “Minnesota has crossed an important and exciting cultural threshold,” says Executive Director Michael-jon Pease, “with more state legislators named ‘Xiong’ than ‘Johnson.’ This project is a way to explore the many facets of a community who are woven into our Minnesota fabric.”

FACE TO FACE is a larger series of theatre-based engagement projects which lifts up different parts of our community so that we all can know each other just a little bit better,” says Flordelino.

Marcela Lorca

The community spirit continues with the Midwest premiere of MISS YOU LIKE HELL by Tony and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes (ELLIOT, A SOLDIER’S FUGUE, WATER BY THE SPOONFUL, In the Heights) and acclaimed, genre-breaking singer/songwriter Erin McKeown (Apr 17 – May 17, 2020). Marcela Lorca is directing. The musical recently played Off-Broadway at The Public Theater in 2018, where it was nominated for five Drama Desk Awards, including Best Lyrics, Best Music and Best Orchestrations.

After living estranged from each other for years, 16-year old Olivia and her mom, an undocumented immigrant on the verge of deportation, embark on a road trip that crosses state lines. Together they meet Americans of different backgrounds, shared dreams, and complicated truths in this powerful new show with vast heart and fierce humor.

Michael Evan Haney

Summer in Saint Paul kicks off on the Proscenium Stage with Jeffrey Hatcher’s twisting, tantalizing mystery HOLMES AND WATSON (Jun 12 – Jul 26, 2020) directed by Michael Evan Haney. Sherlock Holmes has been dead three years when Dr. Watson receives a message from a mental asylum: three patients are claiming to be Sherlock Holmes. Did the world’s greatest sleuth fake his own death? Who is the real detective and who are the imposters? “Jeffrey is a local playwriting legend,” says Flordelino. “This mystery is Hatcher at his best. The writing is driving, taut, and will keep you on the edge of your seat.” Director Michael Evan Haney will make his Park Square directing debut. “Jeffrey Hatcher has built his play upon one of the most famous mysteries in English Literature—the death? (Disappearance?) of Sherlock Holmes at Reichenbach Falls” added Haney. “ He has created a Rubik’s Cube of a plot in HOLMES AND WATSON—a fast paced 90 minutes of suspense, mystery and thrills.”

The summer fun continues with guillotines and a cry for liberty on the Boss Stage with the regional premiere of THE REVOLUTIONISTS by Lauren Gunderson (Jun 19 – Jul 19, 2020). Four badass women lose their heads in this irreverent, woman-powered comedy set during the French Revolution’s Reign of Terror. Playwright Olympe de Gouges, assassin Charlotte Corday, former queen (and fan of ribbons) Marie Antoinette, and Haitian rebel Marianne Angelle hang out, murder Marat, and try to beat back the extremist insanity in 1793 Paris. This grand and dream-tweaked comedy is about violence and legacy, art and activism, feminism and terrorism, compatriots and chosen sisters, and how we actually go about changing the world.

Madeline Sayet

THE REVOLUTIONISTS will be directed by Madeline Sayet in her Park Square Theatre debut. Sayet is a recipient of The White House Champion of Change Award from President Obama and a member of the FORBES 30 Under 30 in Hollywood and Entertainment for her work as a director, writer, performer and educator. “This story is biting and playful, full of passion, humor and poignant truths for all of us — not just those who die for causes, but everyone who tries to stand up,” says Sayet. “It immediately made me think of the Oscar Wilde quote, ‘If you want to tell people the truth, you’d better make them laugh, otherwise they’ll kill you.’”

In addition to the full season of public performances, Park Square will continue to serve the region’s largest teen theatre audience with 127 daytime matinees for students in 7th-12th grade from select shows in the season as well as from its repertory of literary classics ROMEO & JULIET, adapted and directed by David Mann, and THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK, directed by Ellen Fenster.

 

SEASON TICKETS are on sale now. Current subscribers have priority in ordering through March. Seating of new subscriptions will begin in April. Season packages range in size from all eight plays and three add-ons in the season to a choose-your-own series of three or more. Subscription package prices begin at $66.

 

The Ticket Office is open from noon to 5:00 pm Tuesday through Friday. Call 651.291.7005.

PHOTO LINKS

Madeline Sayet

Ilana Ransom Toeplitz

Michael Evan Haney headshot

Flordelino Lagundino and Michael-jon Pease headshots by Amy Anderson HERE

Paige in Full

Ping Chong + Co

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PARK SQUARE THEATRE. 20 W. Seventh Place, Saint Paul. Ticket Office: 651.291.7005. parksquaretheatre.org

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