Donna Green-Townsend
Multimedia Productions
Aired on WUFT on January 6, 2011
What do astrophysics, the rapture, global warming and twister have in common? All have a tie to the latest production opening Friday night at the Hippodrome State Theatre in Gainesville. Florida’s 89.1, WUFT-FM’s Donna Green-Townsend talked with two of the actors from “End Days”.
Aired on WUFT on January 12th, 2010
Imagine someone having access to all of the deleted messages, voicemails and contacts on your cellphone. That’s what happens in the Hippodrome State Theatre’s new comedy, “Dead Man’s Cellphone.” the play opened January 8th. Donna Green-Townsend talked with one of the actors in the production, Jessica Morris, who plays the role of the estranged wife and widow of the dead man.
A gripping thriller that will keep the audience guessing all the way to its fearful climax. Mindgame has a little bit of everything, from sex and horror to laughs and special effects. Critics say Mindgame serves up a variety of twists and turns as well as highs and lows.
In the play true crime writer Mark Styler is looking for his next subject. After “monster” success with his books, he turns to Fairfields Institute for the Criminally Insane to obtain access to one of its notorious patients – a serial killer known as Easterman.
It’s coming up on the 30th anniversary of Easterman’s arrest, and there’s huge interest in the story. If Styler can just get past the strange behavior and reluctance of Dr. Farquhar, head of the asylum, he’d be off and running to the next leap in his career. But will he get the interview with Easterman and will it be what he expected?
Soon, nothing can be trusted, not even Styler’s own eyes. Through a series of lies, manipulations and memories, dark secrets are revealed and questions keep surfacing.
Just in time for Halloween, the Hippodrome brings you a story you think you knew… until now! In the Hipp’s Dracula the audience members will be immersed in a world of danger, lust and temptation as they witness an epic battle of good versus evil with only one possible outcome.
The young solicitor Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania for work, but after meeting Count Dracula and his lovely Vampyrettes, he begins to lose his sanity. Back in England, he finds himself in Dr. Seward’s asylum providing clues about Count Dracula for Seward, Professor Van Helsing, and the boisterous American Quincey Morris. They must also try to save the bitten Lucy’s soul while Mina fights strange temptations.
Dracula was also presented on the Hippodrome State Theatre Stage in 2005, albeit a more traditional version….and when Dracula was being portrayed by a character with the last name of “Bloodworth,” let’s just say the audience experienced some chilling moments.
Two wacky off Broadway creators, “Jed” and “Boyd”;, are in the borrowed Park Avenue penthouse of Mrs. Sidney Lipbalm to perform their new creation, an epic musical that spans the history of the world from the Big Bang to the present, for potential backers. Their play is budgeted for $83.5 million with a cast of 318 performers and 6,428 costumes.
Two zany creators accompanied by a third on piano perform eighteen side-splitting musical numbers, singing, dancing, narrating, and portraying every major figure in world and pop history (Adam and Eve, Attila the Hun, Julius Caesar, Napoleon, Plato, Jesus, Cher, to name a few).
Forever Plaid begins when four young, eager male singers are killed in a car crash on the way to their first big concert. Miraculously though, the boys are revived (as angels, of course) for the chance to fulfill their dream and relive the concert they never saw. Singing along with the piano and bass, the “Plaids” perform some of the 1950s biggest hits including, Chain Gang, Heart And Soul, Love Is A Many Splendored Thing, Magic Moments and many other classic tunes.
The Hippodrome Mainstage turns into the Grand Ole Opry as Always …Patsy Cline, takes the stage. Based on the life of Patsy Cline, the woman who epitomized country music in the late ’50s and ’60s, Always…Patsy Cline is a song-filled evening and an intimate and uplifting look at the life of country music’s most beloved singer. The play focuses on the unusual friendship Patsy shared with star-struck housewife Louise Seger. Seger, and most of the nation, fell in love with Patsy’s voice after seeing her perform “Walkin’ After Midnight” on Arthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts in 1957. Seger followed Cline’s career via radio and television and finally met the singer at a Houston concert in 1961. The two became pen-pals up until the 1963 plane crash that claimed Cline’s life. The play’s title refers to the manner in which Cline would close each of her letters: Love always … Patsy Cline.
Always… Patsy Cline is an intimate look at the woman behind the legend. The show includes more than 20 country standards including Cline’s hits “I Fall to Pieces,” “Crazy,” “Back in Baby’s Arms” and “She’s Got You.”