Jack the Ripper, HG Wells and a time machine! Thats the rough outline to a new play in Pittsburgh. The Globe ran the following article, Jack the Ripper murders ‘Time After Time’ in world premiere When sophomore Michael Campayno was first cast as John Leslie Stephenson, a character portraying Jack the Ripper, he began spending day and night researching the killer’s motivation. Campayno’s character is part of a world premiere musical entitled “Time After Time,” where a time machine, invented by H.G. Wells, brings Jack the Ripper into 2010, and Wells must find a way to take him back to his time period before he strikes again. “This is really hard because I’ve never had the urge to kill someone,” Campayno said as he developed the character for its first stage production. Because Jack the Ripper was never identified, he looked into famous serial killers, such as Charles Manson, searching for what drives them to kill. Campayno ended his research with an autobiography of his character, resolving the character’s needs for acting purposes. The show is based on a book with the same title written by Karl Alexander, who will be signing books at the Playhouse on opening night of the musical adaptation. The music is by Jeffrey Saver, a current Point Park University musical theater professor and teaching artist, in collaboration with Stephen Cole, who wrote the lyrics and the adopted book for the production. Both were available to tweak characters and lines throughout the production process. This is the first time the show will take place full-scale, but there was a reading and workshop in New York last summer, which helped to develop the characters as well. “It’s a good old-fashioned sci-fi musical romantic thriller,” senior musical theater major John Wascavage said. He plays H.G. Wells, who is the brains behind the show’s time machine from which all of the problems seem to stem. Because he is a character from 1895, his songs are more classically influenced. Wascavage explained that those from 2010 are featured in contemporary pieces from their time period, and there is even some rap.  “It’s in the present time, and some of the songs make fun of how technology has influenced us,” senior musical theater major Sara Manganello said. Manganello portrays Stephenson, Jack the Ripper’s sister and “the embodiment of his subconscious.” Her character has developed and changed along with the show while preparing for opening night. Directed by Gabriel Barre, rehearsals began the week after winter break. This gave the cast of around 30 people about six weeks to rehearse the modern and original musical. “[Barre] is very flexible and all about listening and experimenting,” Manganello said. The musical follows Wells’ search for Jack the Ripper in 2010 and his need to rescue his new-found love, Amy, from the killer’s grasp. The story has a little bit of everything, from science fiction to horror to romance. According to Campayno, this show is very current, including a scene at a McDonald’s and a reference to Lady Gaga. For these reasons, the cast needed to “do a lot of homework” to prepare. “We had a day where we did nothing but movement work to work together as a team,” Wascavage said. Because it is a world premiere, the Point Park theater students had to entirely research and develop their characters, having nothing to directly base them on. Manganello found playing John’s sister changed throughout the entire rehearsal process and is looking forward to seeing how audiences will understand her character. “I don’t think there is a lot out there like this,” Manganello said. “There is romance, gore and suspense … and the message of love.” The show opens on Friday, Feb. 26 with a special preview show Thursday, Feb. 25. It runs in the Rockwell Theater of the Pittsburgh Playhouse on the weekends of Feb. 26 through Feb. 28 and March 11 through March 14. Thursday through Saturday, the curtain rises at 8 p.m. There are also 2 p.m. matinees on Saturdays and Sundays. Student tickets are $7 for matinee and $8 for night shows, and all other tickets are $18 for the matinee and $20 for evening performances. Call (412) 621-4445 or visit www.pittsburghplayhouse.com to purchase tickets or for more information. The Pittsburgh Post Gazette ran the following review… Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10056/1038289-325.stm#ixzz0gZ7lWLIJ When H.G. Wells hurtles toward his future — our present — pursuing Jack the Ripper, dreaming of Utopia and destined for love, the time machine rearranging his molecules for the journey is powered by writer Stephen Cole, composer Jeff Saver and director Gabriel Barre, the creative team behind the new musical “Time After Time.” If that title sounds familiar, it’s because this show started as a novel that became the Nicholas Meyer film in 1979. The movie starred Malcolm McDowell as “Time Machine” author Wells and Mary Steenburgen as Amy, the 20th-century woman who steals his heart. The next phase brings the story into the 21st century with a world-premiere musical by the Point Park Conservatory Theatre Company, opening Friday (after a preview tonight), at the Pittsburgh Playhouse. Mr. Cole set out a decade ago to write a science-fiction musical, with a few stops and starts. “The first idea was ‘The Time Machine’ itself. I thought, ‘OK, I really like the beginning of that.’ Then when I started thinking about the Morlocks in the distant future, I started thinking, ‘Ooh, that smells baaad.’ “ Bad, at least, for a stage adaptation; Morlocks were Wells’ idea of human evolution about 800,000 years in the future. “Time After Time,” on the other hand, is an all-too-human story with elements of sci-fi. It re-imagines real people — Wells and Jack the Ripper — in a time-travel situation. The author, librettist and lyricist, whose “After the Fair” received an Outer Circle Critics nomination for Best Musical, also collaborated with Mr. Saver on another other-worldly show, “Casper.” Mr. Cole obtained the stage rights to “Time After Time” from the novelist Karl Alexander, who plans to attend the premiere Friday and sign copies of his book in the lobby before the show. “When I really delved more into this, there was so much more to it than sci-fi,” Mr. Cole said. “There’s the romance, the comedy and especially the bigger picture of the character of H.G. Wells seeking a Utopia and finding out what the world really was. It screamed to be sung, because it was about love being the only bearable thing in a world with good and evil. “And as the years went by and we wrote the show, 9/11 came, the world changed, and the picture of good and evil changed drastically.” The three collaborators live in New York. In the new musical, Wells lands there following his friend, John, who has been revealed as the Ripper and uses Wells’ time machine to make a getaway. The film had catapulted them from 1895 London to 1970s San Francisco. |
Feb 25
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