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— Gunmetal Blues GUNMETAL BLUES GUNMETAL BLUES OPENS THE PLAYHOUSE RECITAL HALL SERIES! The Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company launches a new series in the Vancouver Playhouse Recital Hall with Gunmetal Blues, a musical “stage-noir” of the hard-boiled detective story. This smart and witty “pocket musical” is written by Scott Wentworth with music and lyrics by Craig Bohmler and Marion Adler. Gunmetal Blues is on stage in the Recital Hall of the Vancouver Playhouse from January 23 to February 4, 2012. Evening performances begin at 9:30pm with a 4pm matinee on Saturday, February 4. All seats are just $20, and are available online at www.vancouverplayhouse.com, by phone at 604 873 3311, or in person at the theatre box office (at Hamilton & Dunsmuir). You can buy both shows in the Recital Hall Series (Gunmetal Blues and The Exquisite Hour coming in April) for $35. There is a Pay-What-You-Can/Actors Fund Benefit performance on Wednesday, January 25. Gunmetal Blues tells the story of a world-weary private eye solving the mystery of a missing blonde, while lounge singer Buddy Toupee narrates and comments on the action through song. Director Max Reimer’s love affair with this musical began before it was fully conceived. A musician’s musician, Richard March would entertain the Stratford Festival acting company, including Gunmetal’s authors Scott Wentworth, Marion Adler and Reimer, playing the piano in the upper lounge at the Avon Theatre. He would make up musical puns on the spot and improvise characters that inspired Gunmetal’s Buddy Toupee. This was sauce for Gunmetal’s authors Scott and Marion, who fully appreciated the wit and irony of film noir and were conspiring to write this little piece. Occasionally on those late nights, Richard was accompanied in high style by Marion. They would lash out with bits and pieces of style and substance that can now be seen embedded in Gunmetal Blues.
THE CAST TOM ARNTZEN (The Piano Player, Musical Director) is a vocalist, keyboardist, actor, musical director, composer, arranger, and producer, in many styles of music. He was recently bandleader for the Grey Cup Gala. Tom musically directed The Rocky Horror Show, Red Rock Diner, and Cheatin’ Hearts (Arts Club), All Grown Up (Gateway Theatre), and starred as Roy in A Closer Walk with Roy Orbison (Gateway and Surrey Arts Centre). MEGHAN GARDINER (The Blonde) is a UBC acting graduate, whose credits include Blood Brothers, Paradise Garden, Evita (Arts Club); The Last Five Years, Beauty and the Beast (WCT); My Fair Lady (Chemainus Theatre); The Flannigan Affair (Electric Company); I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change! (Magnus Theatre); Evil Dead: the musical, What About Luv? (DSR Productions); and a recent co-op production of [title of show]. She has been touring her one-woman show Dissolve since 2003. ANDREW WHEELER (The Private Eye). For the Playhouse: La Cage aux Folles, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Clean House, A Little Night Music. Other theatre credits include Re:Union (Pacific Theatre); 1984 (Studio 58/Cultch), August: Osage County, Gypsy, Cyrano, Burn This, Comedy of Errors (Arts Club); Studies in Motion (Electric Company); How it Works (Touchstone); Mamma Mia! (Mirvish); Translations (Stratford); and eight seasons at Bard on the Beach. THE CREATIVE TEAM MAX REIMER (The Director) has been the Artistic Managing Director for the Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company since 2008. Playhouse musical credits include the Jessie Award-winning The Drowsy Chaperone, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, The Fantasticks, and most recently, La Cage aux Folles. Max has been a director, associate director, choreographer, actor, and dancer at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival, Citadel Theatre, Charlottetown Festival, Huron Country Playhouse, and Theatre Aquarius. DIANE BROWN (Assistant Director) is a multi-award winning director, actor and Co-Founder/Artistic Director of Ruby Slippers Theatre. As an actor she has received recognition for several leading performances including Sled, Stone and Ashes, Herotic 2, Danceland and A Beautiful View. She has also directed many landmark productions for Ruby Slippers Theatre which include The Cat Who Ate Her Husband, Down Dangerous Passes Road, The Winners, The Waiting Room, The Leisure Society, Trout Stanley, Life Savers, and most recently, Hotel Bethlehem. CONOR MOORE (The Lighting and Set Designer) is a Vancouver based lighting, set, and projection designer with an MFA in Design from UBC. Previous design credits include Falstaff, Henry VI, Richard III (Bard on the Beach); The Patron Saint of Stanley Park (Arts Club); MK Woyzeck, The Madwoman of Chaillot, Romeo and Juliet (UBC Theatre); After Homelessness, Us and Them (Headlines Theatre); and Countryside Christmas (Chemainus Theatre Festival). JENNIFER SWAN (The Stage Manager) has stage managed The Trespassers, One Last Kiss, and Mary’s Wedding, and assistant stage managed La Cage aux Folles and Studies in Motion for the Playhouse. Most recently, she toured to New York City with Any Night, Victoria with Mom’s the Word: Remixed, and over thirty BC elementary schools with Vancouver Opera. In addition to stage management, she works for Electric Company Theatre as their Company Manager.
Gunmetal Blues is generously sponsored by The Vancouver Sun and CBC Vancouver (Media Sponsors). The Vancouver Playhouse Theatre Company is British Columbia’s premier regional theatre company, producing engaging plays of the highest calibre since 1962. www.vancouverplayhouse.com
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