The Santaland Diaries: Crumpet's Top 10 Holiday Wishes NUMBER 10

The Santaland Diaries is back for the 12th year in a row at Asheville Community Theatre! This year's production stars Bradshaw Call and is directed by Betsy Puckett. They've cooked up a really creative way to tell this story - and we can't wait to see it!

The Santaland Diaries is, in a nutshell, an "oh my gosh that's SO true" elf's eye view of massive meltdowns, ridiculous expectations, and customer service holiday horrors. If you've ever worked retail during the holidays - or really, if you've ever been in a retail store during the holidays - this story will seem all too true. And guess what? It IS a true story!

Crumpet is the elf name our narrator is required to go by during his stint working at Macy's Herald Square. He's not thrilled about that. Or about a number of other things. So, we put together a list of his Top Ten wishes that would make his holidays a little better. Count down with us all the way to number one! Plus, watch for our "caption this" photo (hint: we'll release it on Wednesday afternoon) to win two free tickets to The Santaland Diaries!

Cabaret: Cast List

Asheville Community Theatre is happy to announce the cast for the upcoming production of Cabaret opening February 7, 2014.

EMCEE - Kevin Moxley*
SALLY - Jessica Hutchman
CLIFF - Mark Jones
FRAULEIN SCHNEIDER - Ruth Butler
HERR SCHULTZ - James Curley*
FRAULEIN KOST - Jess Marie*
ERNST LUDWIG - Luke Haynes

KIT KAT KLUB GIRLS & BOYS: Fleming Lomax, Jax Ranger*, Leslie Lang, Ashley Dillingham*, Karen Panek, Rebecca O'Quinn*, Lyle Laney, Jacob Walas, Van Raynor and Alan Malpass

The Cabaret Creative Team and the staff of ACT would like to thank the 45 talented actors, singers and dancers who auditioned for the 17 roles in this legendary Broadway musical drama.

One of the most exciting things about this wonderful cast is the *6 new actors who will be joining the ACT family for the first time! As the Emcee of the KIT KAT KLUB says "Wilkommen!"

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever: Study Guide

We have two matinee performances during the run of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever that are for school groups only.  For those performances, we provide a study guide that we send to teachers in advance of the field trip.  But guess what? The study guide is great for any young audience member - whether they're attending a school performance or not!

 

Best Christmas Pageant: Cast List

Congratulations to everyone who auditioned for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever! We know how much courage it takes to try out for a show, and we wish that every show had more parts to go around.

Drumroll, please! Here's the cast list for the show:

Father: Jeff Corpening
Reverend: Frank Salvo
Mother: Robin Oswald
Mrs. McCarthy: Carla Pridgen
Mrs. Slocum: Viola Williams
Mrs. Armstrong: Francis Davis
Mrs. Clausing: Karen Lechner
Imogene: Charlie Abell
Beth: Delaney Martin
Alice: JyAire McEachni
Maxine: Eleanor Conner
Doris: Isabelle McLellan
Gladys: Riley Oswald
Beverly: Victoria Weatherman
Shirley: Finlay Martin
Ralph: Cade Wooten
Elmer: Frank Davis
Leroy: Matthew Daggerhart
Claude: Brendan Nickerson
Hobie: Luke McLellan
Charlie: Gavin Reep
Ollie: Reed Atherton
David: Ben Kepple
Baby Angels: Violet Conner, Lucille Conner, Ellery Grace

Annie Get Your Gun: Press and Reviews

Annie Get Your Gun is open! We had full houses for all three performances Opening Weekend and welcomed 380 students and teachers to a school matinee performance just this morning (which ended with high school students chorusing together on songs from the show as they waited for their bus in the lobby). Everyone in the cast and crew is majorly excited and minorly exhausted. At least we think that's the order!

 

A triumvirate of talent: Charlie Davenport (Pat LaCorte),
Sitting Bull (Mike Vaniman), and Buffalo Bill (Richard Blue)
scheme and sing throughout the show. Photo by Tommy Propest

This show has generated a lot of excitement in the press as well. The Mountaineer ran a terrific preview piece on Annie Get Your Gun by Mark Ellis-Bennett of The Biltmore Beacon. It includes interviews with director Jerry Crouch and stars Brandon Kersey and Jacqueline Collison-Canney. Tony Kiss of the Asheville Citizen-Times also chatted with director Jerry Crouch prior to opening.

And this morning, we received our first review! Jim Cavener of the Asheville Citizen-Times says that Annie Get Your Gun is "this is a theater experience to make time and space to see and enjoy." The show runs for three more weekends through October 13 - and we hope that gives you enough time to join us for a performance!

"Annie Get Your Gun" Study Guide

We are trying to up our game in the study guide department - and we're getting closer to where we'd like to be! We're sending this one out to about 700 students who will be joining us for Annie Get Your Gun over the next few weeks. Let us know what you think!

 

Lights! Camera! Annie!

The “Little Sure Shot” of the “Wild West,”an exhibition of rifle shooting at glass balls, etc.
The title is almost longer than the film itself! This short film (only about 21 seconds long) of Annie Oakley and Frank Butler was filmed on November 1, 1894 in Thomas Edison’s Black Maria studio by cameraman William Heise. It's thought to be the 11th motion picture ever filmed!

Note: No need to adjust your volume - there was no sound recorded in early Kinetoscope films.


Annie Get Your Gun runs Friday, September 20 through Sunday, October 13. We've got some tricks up our sleeves, too!  Come and see!

DramaRama: Asheville Night Live Winners

When all the votes were counted and all the judges' sheets were in, we had 6 performers who took home the grand prizes in Asheville Night Live!

Adult Category:
1st Place: Tina Pisano-Foor
2nd Place: Shannon Phillips
3rd Place: Jackie Canney

Youth Category:
1st Place: Ameena Hinchliffe
2nd Place: Claire Amon
3rd Place: Liam Kelley Black

It was such an incredible show, and everyone - and we do mean EVERYONE - who performed did a fabulous job. What a fun, fun night at the theatre. If you were there, you know exactly what we mean. If you weren't there, then you'll want to make plans to come next year!

Photos from rehearsal on Thursday, July 11 by Tommy Propest.