Patti Colombo News

Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT)'s 2014 season is 'still rockin' with their remarkable season closing production of the high-energy dance musical, FOOTLOOSE, running August 6 - 23. Check out a first look at highlights below!

Early in the first act of the Tom Snow - Dean Pitchford 1998 musical Footloose, Ren declares his passion for dancing - 'I can't sit still' - and, indeed, by the end of the evening at the Pickard Theatre, the audience for Maine State Music Theatre echoes his mantra. They are cheering, swaying, and shouting to the music, and embracing the exuberant, touching message of this show. Directed and choreographed brilliantly by Patti Colombo (assisted by Karl Warden) and performed by a dynamic cast, this fourth and final production of MSMT's 2014 season dazzles and delights.

Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT)'s 2014 season is 'still rockin' with their remarkable season closing production of the high-energy dance musical, FOOTLOOSE, running today, August 6 - 23.

Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT)'s 2014 season is 'still rockin' with their remarkable season closing production of the high-energy dance musical, FOOTLOOSE, beginning tonight, August 6, and continuing through August 23.

'So here I am, a preacher's son, playing the preacher!' smiles David Ruprecht. The renowned star of television, film, and stage muses about his latest gig playing the Reverend Shaw Moore in Maine State Music Theatre's production of Footloose, which runs from August 6-23. Ruprecht's affinities for the part and this production are numerous. It is, first of all, directed and choreographed by his wife, Patti Colombo, an experience he says he finds 'very interesting because I never have worked with her as a director before, only once long ago as a choreographer.' Then there is the role of the charismatic and troubled Texas preacher who forbids dancing to the townsfolk of Bomont. 'My dad was a preacher [a Lutheran minister] in Florida, where I grew up, and he was very, very charismatic. Naturally, he wanted his son to become a preacher, too. I had all the talents, but not the calling, so I did the next best thing and became an actor. After all, both actors and preachers put on costumes and speak to large groups or people, and both have a little wine after the show,' he jokes mischievously.

'Dance is a metaphor for expression, for freedom. In Footloose we use dance to express ourselves when we have no words. [As characters] we are all closed off, and finally at the end of the story, we are loosened; we become individuals again.' Speaking is Kristen Martin, who plays Ariel in Maine State Music Theatre's final season production of Footloose, which runs from August 6-23. Her co-star, Eric Sciotto, agrees that his character, Ren, is 'on a journey to find himself after being abandoned by his father. Ren sees in Ariel a troubled soul who reminds him of himself. They recognize immediately that they are kindred spirits.'

Maine State Music Theatre (MSMT)'s 2014 season is 'still rockin' with their remarkable season closing production of the high-energy dance musical, FOOTLOOSE, running August 6 - 23.

Paper Mill Playhouse has announced that single tickets will go on sale to the public for its highly anticipated season on Wednesday, July 30th at 10:00am. Tickets can be purchased online at www.PaperMill.org or by calling our box office at 973.376.4343, or by visiting the theater box office at 22 Brookside Drive, Millburn, New Jersey.

'It's the heart that makes it fun! The adrenalin gets going; we are all so engrossed in each other with different stories developing every night. There are always discoveries being made. This show is an adventure every single night!' The speaker is actor-dancer Carson Twitchell, who is talking about Maine State Music Theatre's latest hit, the Patti Colombo staging of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, which opened July 17th at the Pickard Theatre in Brunswick, Maine. Twitchell is part of a six-person panel assembled at the Curtis Memorial Library on July 23 for the third Peek Behind the Curtain talkback. Joined by Barbara Whidden, MSMT's Director of Development, Kristen Thomas, House Manager, Leo Stagg, Technical Director, and fellow actors (Ruth) and Merill West (Dorcas), the panelists spoke with BWW's Carla Maria Verdino-Sullwold about the thrill of this exuberant musical.

'I definitely have a choreographic style - much of what I do is ballet-based and athletic, but I was trained in the Jack Cole manner. My mentors, Ron Lewis, Ron Fields, were all Jack Cole people. I have a strong sense of jazz, true American jazz based in ballet.' The speaker is a petite, svelte, red-haired dynamo of energy and bubbly enthusiasm. Seated opposite me a few days before the opening of her latest theatrical endeavor, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers at Maine State Music Theatre, director-choreographer Patti Colombo talks about her Maine debut and her other award-winning theatrical projects - among them, On the Town, West Side Story, Mask, L'il Abner, Peter Pan, Seussical, which have taken her to Broadway and around the world.

For its third production of the season, Maine State Music Theatre has staged a dazzling revival of the beloved 1954 classic, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. The company, under the direction of Patti Colombo, delivers a joyous, heartwarming, foot stomping, breathtaking extravaganza of brilliant dancing, convincing characterization, and first-rate production values.

'What I love that Patti [Colombo] is doing with this show is that she is not making it a sepia-toned romance,' declares Jarid Faubel, the actor who portrays Adam Pontipee in Maine State Music Theatre's new production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, directed and choreographed by Patti Colombo, which opens its three-week run July 17th. His co-star, Heidi Kettenring, concurs: 'Millie is one of the most challenging musical roles I have done of late. I am basing her character on a line early in the play where she says that she buried her parents on the Oregon Trail and finished the trek herself. She is feminine, but strong enough to have made that journey alone.'

Paper Mill Playhouse will open its 2014-2015 season with the Broadway-bound, world-class revival of Can-Can starring Kate Baldwin as Pistache and Jason Danieley as Aristide.

New Jersey Ballet celebrates some of Broadway's most memorable dance sequences when it performs Ballet on Broadway at the Mayo Performing Arts Center tonight, May 17 at 8 pm.

New Jersey Ballet celebrates some of Broadway's most memorable dance sequences when it performs Ballet on Broadway at the Mayo Performing Arts Center on Saturday, May 17 at 8 pm. Tickets are $29-59

The tradition continues! Each year Paper Mill Playhouse sends out five images that hold small clues as to the upcoming season titles. Check out the images above, and then let us know your best guesses for the 2014-15 lineup!

The last time I saw Seven Brides for Seven Brothers was during the 2006 UK Productions tour which starred Dave Willetts and Shona Lindsay; a production that is close to my heart as it is one of the shows that made me want to pursue a career in theatre.

If the January blues are getting you down, I can suggest no better cure than to do-si-do on down to the Bristol Hippodrome this week for a thigh-slapping evening of musical mayhem with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. A show packed full of raucous dance numbers, rugged sets (and men!) and downright rollocking entertainment, this old-fashioned musical is sure to bring even the grumpiest of bears out of hibernation.

Voting is now underway for Los Angeles! We have a record number of votes in already, but if you haven't voted yet, click here to vote! If you have voted already, tell your friends.

Voting is now underway for Los Angeles! We have a record number of votes in already, but if you haven't voted yet, click here to vote! If you have voted already, tell your friends.