THEATER: Weekend Theater plays a double-header

By The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Contact)

Madison Sullivan (from left), Patrick Kellycooper, Sam Pettit and Jace McPherson rehearse a scene from Brundibar, one of the two latest Weekend Theater productions. 2008-04-30 10:12:00

LITTLE ROCK — The Weekend Theater, which is always cooking up new directions in the theatrical arts, has a new approach with its latest production - or, in this case, productions - opening tonight.

The theater will offer a double billing of a musical and a drama.

Brundibar, the musical, is about children in a concentration camp during World War II.

Contact With the Enemy, the drama, is set in 1993 and depicts two veterans of World War II.

The combo opens at 7:30 p.m. today, with additional performances at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2:30 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. May 9-10 and 16-17; and 2:30 p.m. May 11 and 18 at the theater, West Seventh and Chester streets, Little Rock.

Tickets are $18; $14 for students and senior citizens age 65 and older.

For more information or reservations, call (501) 374-3761 or visit the Web site www.week endtheater.org.

The Weekend Theater’s producing artistic director, Ralph Hyman, is directing Brundibar. Lori Isner is the music director. The opera’s music was written by Hans Krasa, with libretto by Adolf Hoffmeister.

Brundibar is set in concentration camp Theresienstadt in occupied Czechoslovakia, and performed by the children there, on musical instruments they are able to find in the camp: flute, clarinet, guitar, accordion, piano, percussion, violins, cello and a double bass. The opera shares some of the plot elements with Hansel and Gretel.

Two children, Aninka and Pepicek, are a sister and brother, without a father, who need milk to help their sick mother recover. They decide to sing in the marketplace, but first they must chase away an evil organ grinder (the play’s title character) before they can do so. They get help from animals and other children.

The Brundibar cast features Patrick Kellycooper as Pepicek, Madison Sullivan as Aninka, Sam Pettit as Brundibar, Nicole Sullivan as Ice Cream Girl, Tatiana Campbell as Bakerette, Jesse Mellor as Policeman, Sky Cardwell as Sparrow, Madison Crane as Cat, Rachel Blackburn-Parish as Cat, Madeline Robinson as Dog, Jace McPherson as Monkey andMichael Bartholmey as Milkman. In the chorus: Savannah M. Johnson, Claire Frueauff, Will Frueauff, Daniela Berlinski, Serena Hanson, Kiva Hanson, Charlie McCracken, Elias Baer, Julia Taylor, Adriana Napolitano and Mary Catherine Martin.

Contact With the Enemy is set in front of the Holocaust Museum in Washington when two men, one a businessman and the other a writer, meet by chanceand realize they had been in the same Army division during World War II.

They had been among the soldiers who had liberated one of the lesser-known Nazi concentration camps, Ohrdruf-Nord.

A guide interviews the men, played by Ralph Hyman and Duane Jackson.

Alan Douglas is directing the show written by Frank Gilroy.

Weekend, Pages 67 on 05/02/2008