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Stagefright

Stage and screen star Stacy Keach will portray Richard Nixon in the upcoming touring production of Peter Morgan’s play Frost/Nixon. The play had a very successful run on Broadway last year, with Frank Langella winning the Tony award for playing Nixon. The film version, directed by Ron Howard, is already in the works. The tour is set to kick off in September. Keach got a Tony nomination in 1969 for playing Buffalo Bill in Arthur Kopit’s Indians. He has done extensive regional work. Several years ago, he was a charming King in The King and I at the CLO in Pittsburgh.

O’Connell & Company will replace the previously announced Dames at Sea (April 17-May 18) with the musical revue Side by Side by Sondheim. This will be the last show that the company will be performing at the Cabaret in the Square since the space will no longer be a theater. Coincidentally, the company’s first production at that space was Side by Side 10 years ago. This time the show will be directed by Roger Paolini, with music direction by Don Jenczka, starring Bobby Cooke, Nicole Marrale Cimato, Wendy Hall, Michael Tosha and Jeff Coyle. The narrator will be played by Studio Arena’s CEO Kathleen Gaffney and other people during the run. Side by Side was supposed to be Studio’s final show this season.

Moving beyond the Square, O’Connell and Company have already scheduled Hats! (The Red Hats Society musical) for the Riviera Theatre, May 1-18. Directed by Mary Kate O’Connell, the show will star Mary Craig, Pamela Rose Mangus, Victoria Perez and Mary Moebius.

Stage and screen star, Stacy Keach

Loraine O’Donnell will be taking over the role of “Concert Judy” in the MusicalFare production of Beyond the Rainbow. O’Donnell replaces the previously announced Colleen Marcello who is leaving for medical reasons. The show will also star Michelle Marie Roberts, Todd Benzin, Kathy Weese and Marc Sacco. By the way, O’Donnell will be singing 1960s and 1970s favorites at the Riviera Theatre on March 29, opening for the 1960s vocal group The Vogues.

Sunday in the Park with George will be on the boards at MusicalFare in 2008-09, as part of the company’s three-year Sondheim retrospective. The show, which originally opened on Broadway in 1984, is currently enjoying a very successful revival at Studio 54.

Alleyway Theatre’s Buffalo Quickies, the festival of one-act plays turns 17. The festival logo is the inspiration for one of the plays this year, the comedy Buffalo Quickies by Michael Fanelli. Also in the line-up The Look of Love by Donnamarie Vaughan, and The Actress’ Dilemma by Australian playwright Alex Broun.

Up next for Torn Space, the world premiere of Stivale, written and directed by Dan Shanahan, with video design and installation by Brian Milbrand, Tim Stegner and Frank Napolski, and original sound score by Justin Rowland. Stivale opens April 18 and it will star Ivan Rodriguez, Dechen Dolkar and Kelly Meg Brennan.

After a somewhat long absence, Mary Ann Moselle returns to the stage to appear in TOY’s upcoming musical If You Give a Pig a Party. Directed and choreographed by Michael Walline, the production will also star Matt Mooney, Lisa Delvecchio, Sarealys Matos, Kurt Guba and Kevin Kennedy.

Kevin Keleher joins Eileen Dugan and Dan Walker in BUA’s upcoming production of Facing East by Carol Lynn Pearson. The play is about a Mormon couple dealing with the suicide of their gay son. Kelli Bocock Natale directs.

Rochester’s Geva Theatre will present August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson, starring Buffalo’s own Roslyn Ruff. The theater has announced that it will offer $20 tickets for Studio Arena subscribers. Ruff left the area several years ago, and has been acting steadily in regional theaters and in New York. She won the 2007 Obie Award (off-Broadway) for Seven Guitars, the 2002 Barrymore Award (Philadelphia) for In the Blood, and the 1999 Artie Award for Amen Corner.

Paul Todaro will be spending the next few months at Pittsburgh’s Irish and Classical Theatre appearing as Edmund in King Lear, Goring in An Ideal Husband and the Young Syrian in Oscar Wilde’s Salome.

Cristen Gregory is the new executive director at Lancaster Opera House. Gregory is a member of the theater department faculty at Niagara University and serves as President of the Board of Directors for the Arts Council of Chautauqua County.

The Chautauqua Theater Company turns 25 this summer. This also marks the fourth season for artistic directors Vivienne Benesch and Ethan McSweeney. The season will include Miller’s Death of a Salesman to be directed by McSweeney, Craig Lucas’s Reckless starring Benesch and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

The McCarter Theater in New Jersey will present the American premiere of Richard Maltby and David Shire’s Take Flight, September 5-October 12, 2008.

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