Born and raised in the metropolitan New York area, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold took her degrees at Sarah Lawrence College and Fairleigh Dickinson University. She began her career as a teacher and arts administrator before becoming a journalist, critic, and author. In addition to contributing to Broadway World, her theatre, film, music and visual arts reviews and features have appeared in Fanfare Magazine, Scene 4 Magazine, Talkin’ Broadway, Opera News, Gramophone, Opéra International, Opera, Music Magazine, Beaux Arts, and The Crisis, and her byline has headed numerous program essays and record liner notes. Among her scholarly works, the best known is We Need A Hero! Heldentenors from Wagner’s Time to the Present: A Critical History. She helped to create several television projects, serving as associate producer and content consultant/writer, among them I Hear America Singing for WNET/PBS and Voices of the Heart: Stephen Fosterfor German television. Her first novel, Raising Rufus: A Maine Love Story appeared in 2010. Her screenplay version of the book was the 2011 Grand Prize Winner at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. She is also the author of a second novel, The Whaler's bride, and three collections of short stories, BOOKENDS Stories of Love, Loss, and Renewal, CAROUSEL, and ROUND TRIP. Ms. Verdino-Süllwold now makes her home in Brunswick, Maine, with her Newfoundland dog, Mariah's Storrm.
Portland Stage joins forces with the Dramatic Repertory Company to revive Tony Kushner’s multiple award-winning 1991 drama, ANGELS IN AMERICA, in a production that Artistic Director Anita Stewart proudly calls “all Maine-made.” The company has shouldered the huge task of presenting the sprawling seven-hour epic in two parts, the first of which “Millennium Approaches” proves its ability to create a powerful emotional impact long after its premiere.
“The world is coming back online, and people are getting back to who they were before the pandemic,” declares MSMT Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark. “Ticket sales are as close as they have come to pre-pandemic levels, and there is an extraordinary buzz surrounding the upcoming 2024 season.”
What did our critic think of JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTAR at Merrill Auditorium?
Maine State Ballet revives one of its favorite classics, CINDERELLA, in an elegant and ageless production with the choreography of Linda MacArthur Miele and the design wizardry of Gail Csoboth. The production, grounded in the Balanchine tradition in which Miele was nurtured, is eloquent in its disarming simplicity of narrative and timeless traditionalism of its dance. Set to Serge Prokofiev’s stirring score, Miele’s eighty minutes of dance offers an afternoon of enchantment.
Portland’s Good Theater poetic, poignant revival of the Ahrens/Flaherty musical, A MAN OF NO IMPORTANCE, exquisitely directed by Brian P. Allen, marks several memorable milestones for this company which has been a jewel in Portland’s theatrical scene for twenty-one seasons.
Katie Forgette’s bittersweet memory play about a Catholic childhood in the 1970s takes the stage at the Public Theatre in Lewiston in a gently funny and touching production directed by Janet Mitchko. INCIDENT AT OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP focuses on the O’Shea family, a prototypical middle class Irish-American Catholic family, who grapple with the daily struggles of making ends meet, raising two daughters, and caring for each other within the context and constraints of their Catholic upbringing and community. The universality of the characters, and their quest for compassion and forgiveness gives the work its heart.
Portland’s Good Theater newest production is a side-splittingly funny, perfectly timed farce with ancient roots in Italy’s Commedia dell’Arte, Richard Bean’s ONE MAN TWO GUVNORS.
The Good Theater presents a fresh take on its annual musical revue, BROADWAY AT THE GOOD: THE TWIN PIANO EDITION, this time honoring six seminal musicals from Broadway’s Golden Age, performed by a sprightly company of nine under the direction of Brian P. Allen, who conceived and directed the show and serves as its charming emcee.
Portland Stage opens its fiftieth season with a warm, witty, insightful new play by one of Maine’s most original voices, Monica Wood, in a stylish production directed by Sally Wood. Portland Stage’s commitment to new work has been an enduring one, and surely one of the theatre’s brightest new endeavors has been to nurture the playwrighting talents of Monica Wood. Her latest work, SAINT DAD, is a polished and poignant play about the intersection of people from two very different worlds brought together by the sale of a family camp in rural Maine and the journey they take individually and collectively to reach some transformative epiphanies.
The Good Theater opens its 21st season with a luminous production of Matthew Barber’s poignant 2017 play about the flickers of late-life romance, expertly directed by Brian P. Allen, starring Valerie Perri in a nuanced, delicate and incandescent performance. FIREFLIES, as the title and central metaphor suggest, draws a subtle portrait of the sparks that simmer repressed in a lonely woman’s soul, only to be kindled by the attentions of an erratic, but appealing drifter who comes into her life and enables her to shake off decades of claustrophobic expectations. Barber draws his four characters with great insight and empathy, and though the ending may be fated from the start, keeps the audience guessing as to the directions the principal pair will choose. His dialogue is wry, laced with a warm wit and tender pathos, and he manages to infuse every moment of the week-long action with palpable emotion.
The Public Theatre in Lewiston opens its 2023-24 season with the world premiere of Cary Crim’s latest work, PAINT NIGHT, a heartfelt exploration of the complexities and conflicts that confront mothers and daughters in our contemporary world. The six-character play, directed by Janet Mitchko, strikes some familiar chords and appears to resonate with the theatre’s audience.
The MSMT Singers, the spectacularly talented group of young professionals in residence at Maine State Music Theatre all summer, bid farewell to Brunswick with two splendidly crafted and performed cabarets at the Freeport venue, Cadenza. The eight performers were able to showcase their triple threat talents and the new skills they honed all summer, in a program of musical theatre song and dance.
The record crowd who came out to fill the Brunswick Mall and celebrate the final week of the theatre company’s 2023 season were treated to a summer’s evening of joyful song, performed by the stars of SOMETHING ROTTEN! (the current main stage production) and the MSMT Singers. The concert, presented in conjunction with the Brunswick Downtown Association and funded in part by a gift from the Maine Arts Commission, featured sixteen selections from the musical theatre repertoire and was emceed by MSMT Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark with his customary flair.
Maine State Music Theatre closes its TYA series with an imaginative revival of Robin & Clark’s ALICE IN WONDERLAND. The third children’s production of the season features a young cast – local actors ages 11-18 from the theatre’s Summer Intensive program and the MSMT Singers - in a colorful, clever production that combines song, dance, and puppetry
“As an actor, I have a huge sense of play, and this show is very much that. It’s really like a fun game of tennis with lots of back and forth. We don’t always know what is going to happen until we are in the moment, declares Tyler Hanes, who portrays Shakespeare in SOMETHING ROTTEN!, the musical which closes out MSMT’s 2023 season. Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark concurs, “SOMETHING ROTTEN! is like a game I love to play; it teases you verbally, vocally, and instrumentally to name those Broadway musicals. It is so much fun!” “It is everything I love about musical theatre all in one show,” agrees Lucy Godinez, who plays Bea Bottom. “It’s joyful; it’s fun; there is love. The sense of play in this show gives you the license to fill in the blanks.” Bryant Martin, who plays Nick Bottom, adds that not only is the show great fun with lots of great musical numbers, but it also “speaks to the struggle all artists have dealing with validation. Nick asks why his peers are having success and he isn’t. It’s a situation with which we as actors can easily resonate.” The foursome are serving on a panel moderated by BWW World Maine Editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, at MSMT’s final Peek Behind the Curtain on August 16 at Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library to discuss MSMT’s hilarious production of SOMETHING ROTTEN! And judging by the laughter in the room, the large audience agrees that the musical by Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick is not only clever and hugely funny, but a crowd-pleasing hit.
Dancing omelettes, a zany soothsayer, THE Bard of English theatre, and a ragtag troupe of Renaissance actors struggling to survive all share the Maine State Music Theatre stage in dizzying profusion in the final main stage production of the season: SOMETHING ROTTEN! - an outrageously funny, simultaneously urbane and plebeian send up and homage to classical theatre and that unique genre the MUSICAL. The stylish and brilliant co-production with Lancaster’s Fulton Theatre, directed by Marc Robin, creates an entirely new imaginary universe, a world at the intersection of Elizabethan England and modern American musical theatre – part Renaissance Faire (on steroids), part Monty Python at their most hilarious. The evening, which is filled with endearing characters, showstopping song and dance numbers, comedy fueled by allusions, puns, slapstick, scatological jokes, and occasionally even poetry, is pure entertainment. No one will need to “brush up his Shakespeare” or be able to “name that tune” in order to come away from SOMETHING ROTTEN! thoroughly exhilarated and brimming with joy.
“Whether you get all the references or not, this show is still smart and funny. It’s a little like HAMILTON, which creates a gateway into history, in that it offers the audience a gateway into theatre. It makes them interested in the art form as a whole,” Bryant Martin says. “And the audience will be impressed with the singing and dancing – with the pure spectacle of what they are seeing on stage. There is something in this show for everybody from the book to the musical aspects,” concurs Tyler Hanes. Hanes, who plays William Shakespeare, and Martin, who portrays his rival playwright and theatrical producer, Nick Bottom, are waxing enthusiastic about SOMETHING ROTTEN!, the last main stage show of Maine State Music Theatre’s 2023 season which begins performances on August 9th.
For two brief hours in Brunswick, Maine, the king of rock ‘n’ roll seems to come to life again on stage at the sold out (waiting list only) concert, KING IN CONCERT, as Victor Trevino, Jr. re-creates the vocal and physical charisma of Elvis Presley in a high energy, kinetically seductive performance. His evening featuring Elvis’ most beloved hits successfully captures the visceral magic of the man who is arguably the most important and revolutionary figure in popular music in the 20th century.
“MSMT has been trying for years to get the rights to 9 to 5 THE MUSICAL, so I was delighted when we finally were able to present this show this season. When we screened the movie at our May Teaser Tuesday series, the entire room guffawed all night long, and I knew the musical would be the perfect choice for 2023. People want to laugh, and they deserve to laugh, especially after all we have been through in the past few years.” Artistic Director Curt Dale Clark is talking about the Dolly Parton musical now in its last week at the Pickard Theater in Brunswick, Maine. He is joined by cast members Lauren Blackman, Jaden Dominique, and Kevin Earley as part of MSMT’s Peek Behind the Curtain panel hosted by Broadway World Maine Editor, Carla Maria Verdino-Süllwold, held at Brunswick’s Curtis Memorial Library on July 26. The conversation explores the enduring appeal of Dolly Parton’s musical, the lessons it teaches through humor, and and the resonance it continues to have today.
Stiles & Drewe’s THE THREE LITTLE PIGS returns to Maine State Music Theatre after its popular 2019 run in an enchanting revival directed by Raymond Marc Dumont. The production is a lighthearted, contemporized version of the traditional English fairytale, told with humor and warmth and presented with the first-class production values for which Maine State Music Theatre is known.
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