Bus Stop Media Kit

Nov 21–Dec 23

By William Inge Directed by David Schweizer

MEDIA KIT features

Style Magazine WYPR: MD Morning

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reviews

The Washington Post

The Baltimore Sun WYPR: MD Morning City Paper DC Metro Theater Arts Broadway World Chesapeake Taste Baltimore Post-Examiner DC Theatre Scene

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Style Magazine

feature (November, 2012)

Busman’s Holiday Joe Sugarman

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 2

feature

WYPR: Maryland Morning (December 18, 2012) 12-18-12: Snowbound with William Inge Bus Stop by William Inge, was written in 1955, and CENTERSTAGE has revived it. The action takes place in a diner west of Kansas City. where a group of individuals are snowbound for the night. It’s directed by David Schweizer, who talks about the experience of crafting the production here, with Tom Hall.

Listen to the mp3 of this interview on this cd.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 3

The Washington Post

review (December 5, 2012)

Cozy Bus Stop has a loudmouth center that’s complemented by subtler portraits Nelson Pressley The thermostat is set at “cozy” for CENTERSTAGE’s new production of Bus Stop, the 1955 William Inge drama about a slightly worldly young woman trying to escape the clutches of a love-struck idiot galoot. The lonely drifters stranded together in a blizzard carry on with a cheerful brand of the blues: The acting is bright and the rural decor is awful purty in David Schweizer’s agreeable show.

This is a lot warmer than the gripping, frigid revival seen at the Olney Theatre Center two years ago, when director Austin Pendleton nudged the melancholy plot to its aching limits. In Schweizer’s staging, the chill is largely symbolic: The snow falling outside is gorgeous, but the walls of James Noone’s old-fashioned bus stop diner set glide gracefully into view without ever quite meeting.

You get the picture: Shelter from the storm is a scarce commodity in Inge’s world.

That idea registers far more fully onstage than in the better-known 1956 Marilyn Monroe picture, a rambunctious adaptation that cut out a lot of the valuable subplots. For Inge, the saga of big dumb Bo Decker and his loudmouthed pursuit of the comely Cherie was complemented by the subtler portraits of love and lust unfolding on the edges of this Kansas outpost.

On the sweet side, there’s the flirty byplay between Grace, the diner owner played here with earthy flair by Pilar Witherspoon, and Carl, the bus driver (whose romantic maneuvers could be a touch more understated in Malachy Cleary’s performance).

More sour is the May-December intrigue between an innocent young waitress (the funny and appealing Kayla Ferguson) and a shifty, philosophizing old lech (Patrick Husted, his voice a whisky-soaked gargle).

These figures are grace notes amid the cacophony as swaggering Bo treats wooing like a rodeo event. Bo’s is a thankless role — body of a god, brain of a puppy — yet Jack Fellows manages not to be too abrasive with the unrelenting high spirits. That Fellows is strappingly handsome doesn’t hurt.

As Cherie, Susannah Hoffman daringly treads near Monroe territory: eyes wide, peroxide hairdo fashioned in a Marilyn cut. Hoffman’s performance is no mere knockoff, though: She quickly establishes her own wonderful ease with Cherie’s coltishness (which comes in part from clambering about in the tight slit skirts provided by costume designer Clint Ramos) and with tenderhearted Cherie’s tough shell.

As persuasive as Hoffman is, the flinty performances may be the most Inge-y. Michael D. Nichols has taciturn command as Will, the local sheriff trying to keep the peace, and Larry Tobias oozes authenticity as the guitar-playing old cowboy who’s been raising the wild orphan Bo. Bus Stop, driven by Bo’s broad, childish lurches toward the girlish Cherie, can seem like a play that’s too eager to please, and Schweizer doesn’t always guard against that. With Nichols and Tobias, he never has to.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 4

The Baltimore Sun

review (Oct 26, 2012)

Bus Stop at CENTERSTAGE a revival worth pulling over for Tim Smith The snowbound folks in Grace’s Diner travel quite a distance, emotionally and physically, while cooped up for a long night in 1955 somewhere outside Kansas City. Things won’t necessarily be smooth for all of them once the roads are finally cleared.

What transpires in that nondescript roadside eatery provides potent fuel for Bus Stop, the classic dramedy by William Inge that has received a welcome and satisfying revival from CENTERSTAGE. Inge had a knack for generating extraordinary theater out of ordinary people, places, passions and, especially, illusions. In this case, he brings together well-known types — cowboy, sheriff, waitress, alcoholic and the like — and gives them fresh and unexpected turns, all the while avoiding easy sentimentality or blatant melodrama.

On the surface, Bus Stop does not have much of a plot, but this slice of American life is deftly carved to reveal a lot of layers, little insights into what makes us crave affection and how we can so easily mess up the process of finding it.

March isn’t the only thing that comes in like a lion as the play starts. First off the bus is the anxious, self-proclaimed chanteuse Cherie. She’s hoping to escape from another passenger, Bo, the young Montana rancher who has taken a shine to her and, it appears, has kidnapped her — though with the intention of matrimony.

There’s something deliciously incongruous about Cherie, looking way too showbizy for a bus trip, let alone a blizzard, and barely concealing her Ozark roots. Her presence transforms and unbalances the whole diner.

Her story is so sweet, her predicament so curious, that Inge could have centered the play solely on her and still had plenty of material. That’s what happened with the movie version of Bus Stop (Inge collaborated on the screenplay). The emphasis was understandable, since the film was a vehicle for Marilyn Monroe, but that meant trimming characters and incident.

The original version requires an actress who can hold the spotlight, but still leave plenty of room for the others, and that’s what CENTERSTAGE offers in the shapely form of Susannah Hoffman.

The actress is a thoroughly endearing Cherie. She makes you believe in this half-flighty, half-purposeful woman, who has been around the block several times, but never could find her way.

Hoffman ensures that the character’s fragility and doubt register as keenly as the naive faith in her abilities as an entertainer.

And what an entertainer. In one of the play’s funniest scenes — an impromptu floor show organized by the young waitress Elma to help pass the time — Cherie gets her chance to go all out.

Changed into a slinky, very-Marilyn gown (Clint Ramos designed the costumes), Hoffman seizes this moment, performing her number in a thin, slightly off-pitch voice and with all sorts of awkward, over-sized gestures. It’s the most wonderfully bad act since Mary Richards tackled “One More for My Baby” in Lou Grant’s office on an episode of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”

You can’t help but laugh, but you can’t help but feel affection, too. Hoffman generates a similar reaction delivering Cherie’s disarming response to the refined speech of fellow passenger Dr. Lyman: “I don’t understand anything you say, but I just love the way you say it.”

And keep an eye on Hoffman’s final moments onstage, when she turns to Grace and Elma to declare, “I’m going to Montana.”

The expression on her face is worth a thousand play scripts.

There are many other small and telling details in the production, smoothly directed by David Schweizer (only his idea for the opening sequence, which involves live music, fails to convince, trying a little too hard to set the mood).

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 5

The Baltimore Sun Cont.

The rest of the cast has much to offer, and will likely get even tighter as the run continues. Maybe Jack Fellows, as Bo, will get subtler, too. Judging by opening night, he’s inclined to overdo the Jethro Bodine side of the terribly immature rancher, here dressed in pristine cowboy duds (Inge envisioned a gruffer appearance).

And, as awkward as Bo may be about the ways of love and what-not, he needn’t move quite as stiffly as Fellows. Still, the lanky actor leaves his mark, especially in the scenes after the inevitable humbling experience that Bo must endure.

As Virgil, Bo’s older, slightly wiser, guitar-pickin’ buddy, Larry Tobias does excellent work, fleshing out the character nicely and handling the musical requirements of the role with a tender touch. (The original score for this production by Lindsay Jones had input from Tobias.)

Pilar Witherspoon is authentic as Grace, a lonely woman who needs to serve more than coffee once in a while, and who always likes to see a good fight.

Kayla Ferguson makes a charming Elma, effectively revealing the high schooler’s mix of brains, dreams and innocence, her desire to be noticed and taken seriously. And Ferguson’s comic instincts sparkle during the let’s-put-on-a-show scene, reciting Shakespeare in a great, giddy whirl.

Elma’s would-be Romeo, Dr. Lyman, is played by Patrick Husted. Some lines could use finessing, but he reveals considerable flair along the way and opens a sympathetic window into the drunken, much-married dirty old man who holds a smidgen of nobility tucked inside his rumpled self.

Filling out the cast ably are Malachy Cleary, as the hardy bus driver, and Michael D. Nichols as the no-nonsense sheriff (he could use a more believable beard).

James Noone’s scenic design warmly evokes the diner, where so many things, big and small, petty and serious, are on the menu one blustery night in March.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

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review

WYPR: Maryland Morning (December 3, 2012) 12-3-12 Bus Stop “CENTERSTAGE’s production of Bus Stop is fairly solid.” -J. Wynn Rousuck Maryland Morning’s theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews CENTERSTAGE’s production of Bus Stop, a play with romantic and comedic elements.

The play is set in 1955 and the action takes place in a diner west of Kansas City. Rousuck says the details in Grace’s Diner are “as realistic as a coffee pot and a plate of donuts.”

Listen to the mp3 of this interview on this cd.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 7

CityPaper

review (Nov 1, 2012)

Innocene and Experience Bus Stop amplifies the deep undercurrents beneath the surface of the 1950s Midwest Geoffrey Himes On a March evening in the early 1950s, a small-town diner 30 miles west of Kansas City fills up with a small crowd of Midwestern innocents. A young cowboy declares that women will love him if he wins enough rodeo trophies, while an older cowboy assumes he can avoid talking to women if he just keeps playing his guitar. An old professor recites Shakespearean sonnets to complete strangers, and a teenage waitress dreams of going away to college. A nightclub singer doesn’t know how she got dragged to this small town by the cowboys or how to get back to Kansas City. A lonely woman owns the diner, and a lonely bus driver is passing through one more time.

In pop culture, innocence is usually portrayed as an enviable quality, an unspoiled, unstained mindset that provides a clear path to true love. William Inge, the author of Bus Stop and the creator of this diner and the crowd inside, is too smart to believe that. He knows that innocence is actually an impediment to love, a lack of knowledge that prevents one from moving forward. He also knows that apparent innocence is often anything but. In CENTERSTAGE’s strong production of this 1955 classic, the disguise of false innocence is soon peeled away and the intoxication of true innocence fades away not long after.

Director David Schweizer doesn’t try anything showy or innovative; he goes for an understated naturalism that suits Inge’s dialogue. The playwright shifts quickly from a conversation in one corner of the diner to a different set of talkers in the opposite corner, and the director makes those transitions so smooth—as synchronized as parts in a big-band arrangement— that we gradually understand how these apparently disconnected scenes comment on one another. We begin to see that the older characters aren’t nearly as guileless as they seem, and the younger characters are slowly learning that the sooner they cast off their naivete, the better. Stranded in the diner by a snowstorm, they get every chance to do just that.

Dr. Lyman, the professor (Patrick Husted), for example, isn’t the dreamy poet he first seems. He’s a calculating, alcoholic seducer of young women, and Elma, the high-school-junior waitress (Kayla Ferguson), is falling into his web. Virgil, the older cowboy (Larry Tobias), has a strange attachment to Bo, the younger cowboy (Jack Fellows), living vicariously through Bo’s adventures like a possessive, if platonic lover. Grace, the diner owner (Pilar Witherspoon), expresses relief that her husband has been gone for months, and she soon lures Carl, the bus driver (Malachy Cleary), to her apartment above the diner. Bo, meanwhile, has kidnapped Cherie, the nightclub singer (Susannah Hoffman), and is taking her to his Montana cattle ranch against her will. Cherie is shocked only because she assumed Bo was just one more one-night stand.

Despite his cocky bluster and his patently illegal abduction of a young woman, Bo is the most innocent person on the premises. A 21-year-old beanpole in a gray cowboy hat and embroidered purple cowboy shirt, he seems to think that if he sleeps with a girl and wakes up loving her that it must lead to marriage, no matter what the girl says. Even Elma isn’t that foolish; she at least seems aware of what she doesn’t know and is eager to fill in the gaps. Though Virgil, Grace, Dr. Lyman, and Will, the sheriff (Michael D. Nichols), all try to set Bo straight, he refuses to give up his idealistic view of love.

As Bo, Fellows captures the arrogance of ignorance with comic accuracy. At one point the cowboy throws the blond singer, in her pink rhinestone dress, over his shoulder as if he were a caveman marching across the checkerboard linoleum floor. But he finds the front door barred by the sheriff, who’s determined to apply Freud’s reality principle to Bo’s jaw in the form of a right fist. Meanwhile, Dr. Lyman is having better luck wooing Elma with deceit. A shabby old man in an ill-fitting gray suit, Husted has a knack for chuckling in the middle of the professor’s flowery talk, a disarming acknowledgement of his own foolishness that only makes him more dangerous.

The show’s standout performance, though, comes from Hoffman as Cherie. An anorexic, peroxide blonde, the actress is able to shoo away Fellows with a hiss and a jabbing motion of her long fingernails. At other times, she seems completely lost, unable to draw any useful conclusions from the series of bad experiences that has been her life. On those occasions, Hoffman goes wide-eyed, like a scared, small animal who has just encountered hunters for the first time. And yet, out of one of those vacant stares, in Hoffman’s deceptively stumbling voice, comes Cherie’s great epiphany: “I just gotta feel that whoever I marry has some real regard for me, apart from all the lovin’ and sex.”

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 8

City Paper Cont.

Just as these Kansas characters are not as simple as they first appear, neither is the Kansas playwright who created them.

Inge is usually eclipsed by the great American playwrights of the ’50s—Tennessee Williams and Arthur Miller—but Williams was a great admirer of Inge, for he saw the tensions beneath the simple surface. This production doesn’t get everything right—the odd relationship between Bo and Virgil is underdeveloped, as are the musical elements—but Schweizer creates a good tempo that allows the shifting dialogues to flow and the facades of innocence to slowly crumble. He brings out the hidden Inge, just as Inge brings out the hidden Cherie and the hidden Dr. Lyman.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 9

DC Metro Theater Arts

review (Nov 29, 2012)

Bus Stop at CENTERSTAGE Amanda Gunther March is sure coming in like a lion! Or so you’ll see as William Inge’s Bus Stop pulls into CENTERSTAGE for the holidays.

Directed by David Schweizer, this charming story brings a blizzard to a little bus stop in Kansas and along with it a band of interesting characters each with their own set of baggage. From the old salt that runs the diner to the chanteuse that’s trying to escape a rogue cowboy there’s a little flavor for everyone’s palette in this drama.

Scenic Designer James Noone crafts an astonishing set for Grace’s little diner. The snow is falling even before the show starts, and the walls of the diner unfold and slide into place, capturing the quaint little space where all the action happens. Noone creates a serene sense of life — captured not in a photographic moment but rather in a little snow globe; a broken down old diner just at the bus stop trapped in a blizzard. The attention to detail in regards to the set is superb, right down to the old fashioned cola poster on the wall. Noone’s efforts result in a rewarding payoff for the audience; a fantastical set that encapsulates the dream era of 1955.

Having spent such intricate time and detail in perfecting the set it is a bit of a jumble from Director David Schweizer in regards to who fits into that carefully crafted world and who doesn’t. There is this bubble containing this little diner — not touched by time or space — standing still as it was the night of that blizzard in Kansas, and there are those who are fully immersed in that world and those who flit about the edges, visiting from time to time without lingering too long.

Virgil, Grace, and Sheriff Will Masters are deeply grounded in the reality of the atmosphere while others in the cast drift in and out like a snowdrift in the storm. One of the problems I had was trying (very hard) to believe that Kayla Ferguson (Kayla Ferguson) and Cherie (Susannah Hoffman) were the right age of the characters they were playing. Hoffman in particular carries a look of being road-worn and didn’t come remotely close to passing for 19, especially not in the way she carries her body. It is understood that her character has had a ‘rough’ five years since she started in with men, but there is an incongruity between her ditzy naiveté and worldly experience that clash – and it left me with a picture of a thirty-something woman from the Ozarks that just doesn’t fit in with what she says and does. Performing the stereotype of the dumb blonde sexedup lounge singer, her portrayal of the lead female role was more of an archetypal notion than a well-rounded and developed character. And despite this, Hoffman does have her shining comedic moments, though. largely to do with her timing of certain lines that really triggered some good laughs.

Jack Fellows as Bo Decker, while thoroughly developed as a rogue cowboy come to claim his one true love, has an issue of emotional restriction. Fellows expresses anger on one note — shouting— but never seems to break the peak of explosion.

You can see it in his facial expressions, particularly when shouting at Cherie and the Sheriff in the beginning, as if he’s restraining himself or holding back, desperate to break free into the next level of emotional expression and never quite getting there. Fellows does, however, master his twang and confident attitude, full of himself in a way that is gracefully expressed both physically and vocally.

Adding comic relief to some tense situations are Grace (Pilar Witherspoon) and Carl (Malachy Cleary). While we don’t see much of these two, when they do share a raunchy quip or laughable moment it’s priceless. Witherspoon’s flirtations with Cleary are none too subtle and carry the grace of a seasoned woman who has made her life in the diner. Cleary’s brash honesty about his feelings toward her are candid if a bit overzealous. The pair make for a great sprinkling of hilarity throughout the production.

As for Will Masters (Michael D. Nichols) – he is in the zone of reality that is the Midwest in the middle of the 1950s. Nichols has one job, and that’s keeping peace and order in the town and he executes this task with a methodical approach. His face is stone serious and his words are the same, creating for a rigid but intriguing character portrayal, and making it that much sweeter when he takes physical victory in a fight.

Tied for best performance in this production are Dr. Lyman (Patrick Husted) and Virgil (Larry Tobias). The two characters couldn’t be more opposite than night and day, but are both equally astounding in their approaches and portrayals. Husted easily masters the staged workings of a drunk without overdoing it. Starting out as a wizened rambler; pontificating on Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

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DC Metro Theater Arts Cont. whatever subject suits him, waxing poetic as if he were being paid by the word to speak, his character is as out of place in the little backwoods diner as a gun in a knife fight. But his execution of the degradation from sleepy and sudsy to plastered and passed out is impeccably timed.

Tobias won my heart without having to say or do much. He is the mostly silent voice of reason trying to calm the hot-headed cowboy, and the tender man with the guitar. His emotions, seldom shown, as befits the character, are raw and real; a man grounded in his own roots with little to prove and a lot to offer. He has the best handle on the sound of a man from Montana and points north and west. The audience even received a rare treat when he got to whistle, yodel, and sing during various points of the show.

So grab your ticket, pull on into the diner and wait for the snow to clear as Bus Stop will be pulling out just as soon as this blizzard stops blowing, somewhere right before Christmas.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 11

Broadway World

review (November 30, 2012)

BWW Reviews: Not in Kansas Anymore: Inge’s Bus Stop at CENTERSTAGE Jack L.B. Gohn Here in Baltimore, it seems to be Bus Stop season. It’s been less than a month since I reviewed the Spotlighters’ community theater production of the William Inge 1955 classic; now it’s CENTERSTAGE’s turn. And of course CENTERSTAGE gives it a fulldress professional staging. The difference is surprisingly great.

It is easy to be so impressed by the credentials and the skills that modern community theaters bring to bear, particularly in this vibrant theater town (of which more below), that one forgets how much more firepower a truly professional outfit can train on a show. Without showing an ounce of disrespect to Spotlighters, this production is so much more impressive in every way, from acting to sets to direction, that it’s almost like watching a different play.

I said, speaking of the earlier production, that Inge had built certain problems into the fabric of the play, that the three couples that come into a bus-stop diner on the Kansas steppes or form there require a pretty heavy suspension of disbelief, and that it’s hard to reconstruct the attitude we’re apparently supposed to have about them. And indeed the program notes by this production’s director, David Schweizer, confront that problem head-on. He writes: “Doesn’t Bus Stop feature a deviant alcoholic, a physically abusive cowboy who kidnaps a young woman to drag her across state lines, a lonely and sex-starved café owner, a brooding sheriff with a shady past, and many others…?”

Despite that, he maintains, this play is intended to be and succeeds as theatrical “comfort food.” I don’t necessarily concur with that conclusion, but I do have to say that he has employed the unique resources of a professional company to sand down some of the rough edges in the script, in a way smaller companies couldn’t do. Using those resources, he has sneakily transformed a mid-century work of American realism into something fantastical like Midsummer Night’s Dream or As You Like It, and thereby has solved a lot of problems.

It starts with stage snow, lots and lots of it, which never lets up through the entire show. At the beginning , before and while James Noone’s impressive set is wheeled in, piece by piece, the snow falls inside the diner area, to be relegated to the scrim at the back of the stage only once the diner is assembled. And even then a generous expanse of actively snowy sky remains on view. We are not truly in Kansas anymore: we have entered a snow-world as separated and set apart from our own as are the woods outside Athens or the Forest of Arden in the two Shakespeare comedies just mentioned. In this realm, magical and fantastic things can occur, and ids can be released without permanent danger. We are almost required not to take things too literally. And that fantastic note continues throughout what follows.

Consider the “physically abusive cowboy,” Bo (Jack Fellows), and Cherie (Susannah Hoffman), the young chanteuse he has more or less kidnapped to take back to his Montana ranch. Taken literally, his behavior is so assaultive, sexist, and egotistical, that even with his reformation before the end, it would offend us for Cherie to be attracted to him enough to remark, despite herself, that she has a feeling she’s going to end up in Montana. In this production, however, Cherie is Marilyn Monroe, almost literally. Monroe played Cherie in the movie, and Hoffman is made up to look like her. And when the characters stage a cabaret in Scene 3, she puts on a Monroe dress – not a showgirl dress such as Monroe herself wore in the movie, but a shimmery “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” dress. Cherie/Monroe are performing: performing resistance to Bo’s impetuosity, performing yielding to his masculinity, performing Monroe-and-DiMaggio. By extension, then, Bo is performing, too. His never-believable naivete about women is not meant to be believed any more than Frederic’s in The Pirates of Penzance; it becomes simply a ritual of courtship, a display of peacock tailfeathers. And if you don’t have to believe it in, you don’t have to be offended by it.

Closely following the Bo-Cherie romance in challenge to the sensibilities and the credibility is the momentary pursuit of the 16 year-old waitress, Elma (Kayla Ferguson) by Dr. Lyman (Patrick Husted), a raffish old reprobate with a fondness for Shakespeare sonnets, drink, ex-wives, and inappropriately young girls. And I suspect Inge just put the ex-wives in to blur the picture slightly, so that we were not looking at an unmitigated ephebophile like Humbert Humbert. But much more than Humbert with Lolita, Dr. Lyman seems to seek a genuine rapport with Elma; if, as it appears, he is engaging in grooming behavior by making what amounts to a date with her in Topeka, it is grooming he falls for himself to a great extent. He seems Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 12

Broadway World Cont. genuinely to harmonize with her own appreciation of Shakespeare. Are we then supposed to think that in some crazy way this “marriage of true minds” could come to pass? Clearly not, but a choice by the director makes this apparent in a charming way. This couple is to do the Balcony Scene from Romeo and Juliet as their contribution to the cabaret. Dr. Lyman may be far too drunk and far too old to do the scene justice, but he is delivering the words correctly. In this production, unlike the one I had just seen, Dr. Lyman knows how to declaim Shakespeare’s lines. But Director Schweizer has Elma, standing on the lunch counter, go the other direction. She recites her speech tonelessly, far too fast, and obviously wrongly, thus destroying any semblance of a mood. Dr. Lyman can hardly fail to be aware after this that Elma is not a plausible soulmate. This allows Dr. Lyman to disengage with a dignity he would not otherwise be able to muster.

And to revert to both the snow and the Shakespearean echoes one more time, there’s the coda to the play, where Virgil, Bo’s mentor (Larry Tobias), the odd man out like Antonio at the end of Merchant of Venice after all the couples depart rejoicing (in this case to get back on the bus or go upstairs and lie down), is ejected from the café. This necessary but casual casting aside of a man who has been like a parent is rendered all the more poignant by the way the café set is disassembled before our eyes as he is dismissed, and we are back at the end, with Virgil, in the solitary cold with the snow still falling. It’s like leaving the Athens woods or the Forest of Arden.

In sum: cast great, direction great, technically great, Inge saved from himself.

Just one thing. I recall sitting with CENTERSAGE’s new artistic director, Kwame Kwei-Armah at a getting-to-know-you lunch with local theater critics, and hearing him talk the talk about CENTERSTAGE becoming more a part of the local theater scene.

I’ve been aware of some initiatives to make good on that pledge, and that the centerpiece of the previous production was local actor Bruce Nelson. But it was really upsetting to read the biographies of the actors and see that seven of eight of them had never appeared at CENTERSTAGE before. And where had they been? New World Stages, Signature Theater (and not the one in Arlington), Playwrights Horizons, Roundabout Theatre. What regional theaters? Well, none from this neck of the woods that I could discern. Training? Oh, Tisch School, University of Connecticut, Harvard. What we have here, in other words, is a fine off-Broadway show. The finest. But it is not local theater. It is simply an evening of off-Broadway dumped into a local venue.

Baltimore and Washington have some first-class theatrical training grounds. We have a great and vibrant local theater scene, one of which CENTERSTAGE was once a part, before Kwei-Armah’s predecessor Irene Lewis destroyed the repertory concept for the company, and handed the operation over to casts-du-jour from New York. Count me among those still waiting for CENTERSTAGE to return to its roots, and begin living up again—and consistently so—to its title of the State Theater of Maryland, not New York.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 13

Chesapeake Taste

review (Oct 25, 2012)

Theater review: Bus Stop at CENTERSTAGE Christopher J. Patrick CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore brings in the Holiday Season with William Inge’s classic Broadway show, Bus Stop. On a cold and snowy night a half empty bus gets stranded at a diner somewhere west of Kansas City. There is the bus driver, an unruly young cowboy and his older best friend Virgil, an old alcoholic academic, a would-be starlet, a lonely sex starved woman running the diner, a young bookish waitress, and the town sheriff. It could have been the start of a murder mystery. A group of strangers, trapped together in a blizzard, with the phone lines down. But it’s not a show about murder and mayhem, it’s a show about love of all kinds. First love, passionate love, love between friends, and some more unorthodox types of love.

The show is a trip back to a simpler time and place, a slice of Middle America. Susannah Hoffman, as Cherie, plays an aspiring singer who might be trying to escape a kidnapping. But as the story unfolds, it’s revealed that maybe she does have feelings for her would-be husband, the unruly cowboy Bo Decker, played by Jack Fellows. Bo and Cherie’s romantic drama plays out as the wild and reckless Bo learns about love and showing your “tender side”. Meanwhile, the other characters interact with one another as various side dramas emerge and are resolved over the course of the long snowbound night.

While the leads do their parts justice, it’s the supporting cast that really shines. Virgil, played by Larry Tobias, channels the wise old traveling cowboy and in some ways reminded me of characters played by Sam Elliot on the big screen. Virgil’s lines jerk on your heart strings as the curtains close. Michael D. Nichols is the quintessential small town Sheriff with a troubled past. He looks and acts the part perfectly. Pilar Witherspoon’s Grace Hoylard, the woman who runs the diner, delivers line after hilarious line and her character’s cool witty remarks provide a perfect foil to the chaos of the crescendo of the second act. What sort of chaotic event takes place in the second act? It might be revealing too much to say, you’ll just need to pick up your tickets and see for yourself. While it deals with some adult topics, this show is family friendly and warms the heart.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 14

Baltimore Post-Examiner

review (Oct 26, 2012)

Classic drama snowbound at Bus Stop Anthony C. Hayes Almost nothing in life is settled in the span of four short hours. But for the characters in the Eisenhower era romantic classic, Bus Stop, a diner-full of snowbound strangers try to do just that as they spend a stormy Kansas night chasing their dreams while searching for someone to share them with.

Written by William Inge, the show originally premiered on March 2, 1955 and was nominated for four Tony awards, including Best Play. It closed the following year after 478 performances. A 1956 film staring Marilyn Monroe and introducing Don Murray is actually based somewhat loosely on two plays by Inge, People in the Wind and Bus Stop.

The play is set in a roadside diner just west of Kansas City, Missouri. An unexpected snowstorm has forced a bus with four passengers (two cowboys returning to their ranch in Montana, an aspiring night club singer and a philosophy professor on the lamb) to seek refuge.

At the diner, the driver and four passengers are met by the owner, her high school aged waitress and a stern yet practical local sheriff. From the start the play is about relationships: committed and contrived romance juxtapose seamlessly beside platonic and professional pairings. Grace, the diner owner is strictly casual with bus driver Carl. The professor, Dr. Lyman, has designs on high-schooler Elma and songstress Cherie and cowboy Bo take turns at running both hot and cold. Cowpoke Virgil and Sheriff Will alternately offer goodly guidance while keeping a steady hand on the reigns.

The relationships in Bus Stop are mixed. Unfortunately, the performances in the current production at CENTERSTAGE in Baltimore are also a jumble.

Pilar Witherspoon as Grace Hoylard, is as delicious as hot apple pie à la mode. Coupled with Malachy Cleary as Carl, their scenes are saucy without being smarmy. As an aside, Cleary reminded this reviewer an awful lot in looks and manner of Cliff Clavin from Cheers.

Kayla Ferguson’s Elma Duckworth curiously came off not so much as an ingenue as a young Mickey Rooney in drag.

Ferguson’s “Let’s put on a show” exuberance was too reminiscent of an Andy Hardy movie; worse, she delivered most of her lines on the balls of her feet, poised as if preparing to spring from a supporting role in Bus Stop to the lead in Peter Pan. Patrick Husted as Dr. Gerald Lyman started off as an eloquent rake, but there was a rattle in his delivery which wore thin rather quickly. This quirk may be something in the actor’s actual voice, so I won’t belabor the point, but if it isn’t, perhaps really filling his prop flask with rye whiskey would have helped Husted out.

Jack Fellows’ twenty-something cowboy, Bo Decker, is braggadocios and boorish. He blows through the door like the winter storm which has stranded the group at the diner. Also, Fellows plays his character with a distinctive Texas accent. This would work fine for his cowboy role were it not for the fact that the script repeatedly makes reference to his ranch in Montana. I know that may sound a bit nit-picky, but if a company is paying for a voice and dialect director, the least she can do is get the accents right.

There is precious little to recommend the character of Bo, and his second act thrashing at the hands of the sheriff could not come a moment too soon. Fellows, like several others in the cast, substitutes swagger for style. There is nothing subtle about his performance; perhaps that is how it was meant to be. But this lack of anything endearing ultimately leaves the audience apathetic. By the time the play ends, the beckoning toot of the bus horn is a note of sweet relief.

As mentioned earlier, the stage play of Bus Stop bears just a general connection to the famous film. Still, for most people, the association with Marilyn Monroe is overwhelming. Any actress who takes on the part of Cherie would do well to distance herself from Monroe and try to make the part her own. “Playing” a sensational 1950s icon is a recipe for disaster.

Just ask Lindsay Lohan.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 15

Baltimore Post Examiner Cont.

Sadly, Susannah Hoffman as the second rate night club singer Cherie delivers a cartoonish Monroe, complete with a teased blond wig and a silver satin gown. Hoffman does not have the finesse nor the figure to fill Monroe’s stilettos and she comes off terribly out of her element. Blame director David Schweizer for sending Ms. Hoffman down this dead-end road. Divorced of Monroe, it would have been nice to see what Hoffman could have done with the part. But Hoffman’s Cherie has too much Monroe mixed in with Thelma Lou from Mayberry.

Larry Tobias as Bo Decker’s mentor and ranch hand Virgil delivers the best performance of this production as he paints a poignant picture of companionship and commiseration. When he and Bo part company for the last time, one gets the sense that Inge nailed the character square on the head. Male friendship is perhaps the hardest of all relationships to honestly convey and the only truly touching scenes in Bus Stop happen between Virgil and Bo. Michael D. Nichols’ Will Masters was at times too stentorian, but given he was up against the two most over the top players in Hoffman and Fellows, one could see where he had to keep pace. His backwoods beard was also distracting, though he was at one point compared to Moses.

Set Designer James Noone and Lighting Designer James F. Ingalls created the look and the mood of the snowy wayside diner. Costume Designer Clint Ramos’ wardrobe mostly works, though I found the anachronistic polished leather hat on Will somewhat out of place. Sound Designer Lindsay Jones hammered the audience with cowpoke yodels. A little Kitty Wells or Webb Pierce would have been a welcome sight.

Bus Stop was written as a drama, with elements of comedy and romance; however, this production weighs heavily on the silly side with the drama just an afterthought. Inge’s crisp dialogue is elastic enough to actually make this transition work and for those willing to look past the limits of the leads, the show can make for an entertaining evening.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 16

DC Theatre Scene

review (December 4, 2012)

Bus Stop Jayne Blanchard Some seasons back, CENTERSTAGE did a delightful job with William Inge’s Picnic, directed with poignancy and joy by thenartistic director Irene Lewis, so a new production of his 1955 play Bus Stop was anticipated with fondness and eagerness.

Any excitement quickly dissipated shortly after the house lights went down. This production of Bus Stop is as stalled and broken down as the unseen bus that deposits a motley group into a lonely diner in small-town Kansas during a blizzard.

When the gently falling snow is the only visually and emotionally arresting element in the show, you know things are not exactly humming on all cylinders.

For an instant, it looks promising. An old cowboy named Virgil Blessing (Larry Tobias) strolls onstage strumming a guitar while the parts of James Noone’s period-perfect diner set glide into place. If only we could hold onto that moment, but then the actors start speaking and any spark of magic sputters.

Bus Stop depicts a dark night of the soul in the lives of strangers thrown together by circumstance. The folks passing time in Grace’s Diner represent different aspects of love—young and headstrong, middle-aged hanky-panky, spiritual love, the bond between a young man and his mentor, and the twisted, soured love of an old man for teenage girls.

The central relationship is the most conventional—Bo (Jack Fellows), a brash man-boy from Montana falls head-over-spurs for the Kansas City chanteuse, Cherie (Susannah Hoffman), a nightclub singer who has packed a lot of male company into her 19 years. Bo is fixing to drag her to Montana and matrimony, but Cherie is anything but on board with his scheme.

While Bo and Cherie hash it out, the plain-speaking and nobody’s fool Grace (Pilar Witherspoon) sneaks off for some lovin’ with the bus driver Carl (Malachy Cleary). She leaves the smart and dreamy bookworm Elma (Kayla Ferguson) in charge of the diner and the high school girl falls under the old world sway and fancy language of Shakespeare-quoting Dr. Lyman (Patrick Husted), an alcoholic ex-professor. A laconic sheriff Will (Michael D. Nichols) drifts in and out of the action, and Virgil, another observer, waxes philosophic from the sidelines.

All of this could be a hushed mood piece, a meditation on the vagaries of love, but under the direction of David Schweizer, Bus Stop is just a bunch of people saying their lines.

Much of the production is downright painful to watch. The actors not only lack chemistry, but also seem unable to establish the slightest connection to each other, preferring to play solely to the audience. They rarely make eye contact and seem so isolated from one another they might as well be on Skype. We feel like the characters—stranded in a Podunk diner—and envy Grace for making up a headache excuse and fleeing the premises.

The variety displayed in Bus Stop is dismayingly finite. Every actor has one shtick, and by God they stick to it. Miss Hoffman’s Cherie is all tics and I-gotta-use-the-bathroom pressed-kneed twitches skittering across the stage in ill-fitting shoes, coming off as rather alarmingly deranged. She’s supposed to be 19 and yes, sexually experienced, but not so hard-bitten and invulnerable you choke back guffaws when she announces her age.

Her partners in one-note performances include Bo, who shouts and spits out every one of his lines, whether conveying anger or tender confusion; and Mr. Cleary’s Carl, who appears to equate heartiness with yelling. Even Miss Ferguson’s Elma—who, along with Miss Witherspoon’s Grace, are the most naturalistic and approachable characters in the play—succumbs to the lure of overacting, especially in the variety show scene in the second act.

The production drags along like a busted tailpipe until you begin praying for the storm to let up so that bus gets moving again and everybody can leave. This is the existential version of Bus Stop, with characters and audience alike all trapped in an inert location, waiting for something—anything—to happen.

Media Representative: Heather Jackson | hjackson@centerstage.org | 410.986.4016 (direct)

Bus Stop

Media Kit | pg. 17