The Explosive “Evita” Caps Northern Stage Season
Eva Perón shocked the worked with her rise to fame, and her life has provoked impassioned debate ever since. Was she an angel or a devil? A savior or a gold digger? A hero or a villain? Decide for yourself as the Andrew Lloyd Webber – Tim Rice smash hit Evita bursts onto the boards at Northern Stage on April 13.
The company has gathered an unprecedented group of the most talented New York singers and dancers for this extravaganza, including Wicked performer and recording artist Merideth Kaye Clark as Eva, Adam Fleming from the Broadway companies of Hairspray and Wicked, and Fred Rose, who has appeared on Broadway in Company, Phantom of the Opera and Cabaret, as Juan Perón.
Returning from the recent hit The Wizard of Oz are award-winning director Brooke Ciardelli and choreographer Connor Gallagher, who appeared on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast and has won multiple awards in New York for his choreography. After Evita, Gallagher joins the creative team for the upcoming musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The musical director is Northern Stage newcomer Adam Wachter from Broadway’s The Addams Family and Off-Broadway’s Spidermusical.
Evita runs live on stage at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction from April 13 – May 8, 2011. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 p.m. (except for the Opening Night performance on Friday, April 13 at 7:00 p.m.), and Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 and 7:30 p.m. (no performances April 24), with an additional 2:00 p.m. matinee on Thursday, April 21. For tickets and information, call 802-296-7000. Tickets are also available through the Northern Stage website, www.northernstage.org.
Evita is sponsored by Mascoma Savings Bank, Domus and White River Toyota.
Eva Perón came to Buenos Aires at the age of 15, a child born out of wedlock who grew up in poverty. Her drive and charisma led her to a career as an actress that resulted in her marriage to Colonel Juan Perón; the next year, Juan was elected President of Argentina, and Eva became a powerful First Lady. Her fight for labor rights and women’s suffrage made her a powerful political force in her own right, and she founded the nation’s first large-scale women’s political party, the Female Peronist Party. Upon her death at the age of 33, she was given a state funeral and was named the “Spiritual Leader of the Nation” by the Argentine Congress.
At the same time, the Perón regime weathered accusations of fascism, and Eva’s habit of wearing expensive furs, designer dresses and gaudy jewelry made some question her commitment to the poor and disenfranchised. Rumors of Swiss bank accounts swirled. Meanwhile, the military and the upper classes remained suspicious of her motives, believing that she was using her public position to further her personal goals, and the military played a role in her decision to renounce her nomination for the vice-presidency.
About the Play
Eva Perón: angel or devil? The answer to that question depends very much on who you ask. To some, she was a shrewd opportunist who rode her husband’s coattails to a position of power. To others, she was a hero of the common people who fought for women’s suffrage and the rights of workers and established a foundation that built houses, schools, hospitals and orphanages. There is no doubt that Argentina at her death from cancer in 1952 at the age of just 33 was very different from when she arrived in Buenos Aires in 1934 at the age of 15. The rigid class divisions had crumbled, public health had improved dramatically, and water and electrical service reached many more communities.
One thing remains unquestioned: she was a fascinating subject for a musical.
Evita was the third in a series of successful collaborations by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The two first teamed up in 1965 for The Likes of Us, a musical based on the life of Irish philanthropist Thomas John Barnardo that was put aside and not performed until 2005. They followed with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the Biblically-based story that began as a concept album in 1969 and hit London’s West End in 1973 and Broadway in 1982. Next came Jesus Christ, Superstar, released as an album in 1970, which opened on Broadway in 1971.
After those two tremendous successes, their next step was unclear. British producer Robert Stigwood suggested that they write a musical based on Peter Pan, but that project never came together. Meanwhile, as Webber moved on to write a more traditional musical with playwright Alan Ayckbourn, Jeeves, based on the P.G. Wodehouse character—which turned out to be a critical and commercial failure—Rice heard a radio play about Argentinean first lady and folk hero Eva Duarte de Perón and was hooked. He even traveled to Buenos Aires to learn about her and named his first child Eva.
Webber, fresh from his bad experience with Jeeves, agreed to collaborate on a new work with Rice. As they had with Joseph and Superstar, they began by releasing the material as an album, with Julie Covington, who sang on the original cast recording of Godspell and originated the role of Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show, as Eva. They approached producer Harold Prince about staging the show, but he was busy with other projects. Meanwhile, the album sold better than Superstar around the world (except in the U.S.), and Covington’s rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” hit #1 on the U.K. charts, with Barbara Dickson’s “Another Suitcase, Another Hall” also producing a hit.
After the composers made several changes to the work, Prince finally agreed to participate in 1978. He made three important changes: he asked Webber and Rice to remove Che’s song “The Lady’s Got Potential,” he requested a song that would show Juan Perón’s rise to power (resulting in “The Art of the Possible”), and he insisted that the character of Che—originally envisioned as a representative of the peasantry—be depicted as Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. (Although Guevara attended medical school in Buenos Aires and traveled through Argentina extensively, he was not directly involved with the Peróns.) The character of Che returned to his more anonymous roots in the film and the later revival of Evita.
The show, directed by Prince, opened in the Prince Edward Theatre in London’s West End on June 21, 1978, with Elaine Paige as Eva (Covington turned it down) and David Essex (who had appeared with Covington in Godspell and scored an international hit with “Rock On”). The show ran in London for 2,900 performances, finally closing in February 1986. Evita came to the Broadway Theatre in New York on Sept. 25, 1979, with Patti LuPone in the title role and Mandy Patinkin as Che. Because of the difficulty of the role, five other actresses alternated with LuPone at various times. LuPone did not enjoy her experience. She said, “I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women.” A London revival in 2006 featured Elena Roger as Evita, although Abbie Osman was cast as an “alternate” Eva to spell Roger.
Plans for a Ken Russell-directed film in the 1980s fell through; names discussed included Barbra Streisand or Liza Minelli as Eva and Barry Gibb or Elton John as Che. The 1996 film, directed by Alan Parker, starred Madonna and Antonio Banderas. A new song, “You Must Love Me,” was written for the film and won an Oscar for Best Original Song. That song first appeared on stage in the London revival and has been included in the Northern Stage production.
Like Joseph and Superstar, Evita is essentially operatic, in that it is sung through and contains almost no dialogue. “The show is conceptual, not plot-driven,” says Director Brooke Ciardelli, and the three major productions—original, film and revival—all saw different treatments of the material. Che, who narrates the play, was initially portrayed as an antagonist to Eva, criticizing her as an opportunist. In subsequent productions, he has taken on a more balanced role, considering both aspects of Eva’s persona and leaving the audience to decide.
About the Composers
The gifted Andrew Lloyd Webber was born in 1948 in Kensington, London, the son of composer William Lloyd Webber and Jean Hermione, a violinist and pianist. Webber has given us Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, By Jeeves, Evita, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game and The Woman in White. He composed the film scores of Gumshoe and The Odessa File, and a setting of the Latin Requiem Mass Requiem. Just his three longest-running Broadway shows—CATS, The Phantom of the Opera and Evita—have combined for over 18,000 performances (and counting, as Phantom continues its 23-year-plus, record-breaking run).
He has also produced in the West End and on Broadway not only his own work but the Olivier award-winning plays La Bête and Daisy Pulls It Off. Love Never Dies—something of a sequel to Phantom—opened in 2010 but has had a somewhat bumpy ride; a planned spring 2011 Broadway opening has been delayed indefinitely. He most recently teamed up once again with Tim Rice to write new songs for a London production of The Wizard of Oz.
He bought the Palace Theatre in 1983 and now owns seven London theatres including the Palace, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the London Palladium.
Webber received a Kennedy Center Honor, one of the highest awards for achievement in the arts in the United States. Other awards include seven Tonys; four Grammys, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Requiem and a Grammy Legend Award in 1990; seven Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar (Best Original Song” for “You Must Love Me” from Evita); an International Emmy, and the London Critic’s Circle Award. He also picked up the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service in 2008, given to those who have “shown an outstanding commitment to President Woodrow Wilson’s dream of integrating politics, scholarship and policy for the common good.” He was knighted in 1992 and made a life peer as Baron Lloyd-Webber, serving as a Conservative member of the House of Lords.
Sir Timothy Miles Bindon (“Tim”) Rice (both he and Webber have been knighted, and their joint publishing company is Two Knights Rights Ltd.) was born in 1944 in Buckinghamshire, England. His father was an Army major, and his mother served in the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). After the war, both worked at the de Haviland aircraft manufacturer. Rice began his professional career as a management trainee and assistant producer at EMI Records, after studying for a year at the Sorbonne. The lyricist has collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on Jesus Christ, Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Wizard of Oz and Evita, among others; with Howard Ashman and Alan Menken on Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin; with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA on Chess; and with Elton John on The Lion King. He has two daughters; his eldest was named Eva after the title character of Evita.
About the Cast
The ensemble Director Brooke Ciardelli put together for this production includes over a dozen Broadway credits, several World Premieres and many more National Tours. Merideth Kaye Clark (Eva) performed in the leading role of Elphaba on the First National Tour of Wicked, as well as four Off-Broadway shows, including stints at the Irish Repertory Theatre and Ars Nova. A talented multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, her second album has just been released. Adam Fleming (Che) comes from the Broadway production of Wicked and played Sketch in the original Broadway production of Hairspray. Fred Rose (Juan Perón) boasts a Broadway pedigree that includes playing Max and Ernst in Cabaret and Raoul in Phantom of the Opera, as well as roles in Company (which he reprised in the television production) and Cyrano de Bergerac.
Other highlights include Karen Elliott, who appeared in both the original and revival versions of Les Misérables on Broadway; Joe Paparella, a singing star who has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center, in addition to Broadway roles in Les Misérables, Jesus Christ Superstar and Good Vibrations; Frankie Paparone, who played the White Rabbit in Broadway’s Shrek: The Musical, and Annie Petersmeyer, returning to Northern Stage after her appearance as a Silly Girl in Beauty and the Beast.
About the Director
BROOKE WETZEL CIARDELLI is the founding artistic director of Northern Stage, a regional non-profit theater operating under an AEA LORT-D contract, located on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire, with over 30,000 visits per year and a $1.8 million annual operating budget. In her career, Brooke has directed over 60 productions and is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
As a director, Brooke has been honored by the New England Theatre Conference’s Moss Hart Awards for Excellence in Theater three times, for All My Sons (2004), Les Misérables (Best Professional Production, 2008) and Hamlet (Best Professional Production and Best Overall Production, 2009). She directed a staged reading of Arthur Miller’s then-unpublished Resurrection Blues with the playwright himself in residence. She has directed Patrick Stewart and Lisa Harrow in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and worked with playwright Sonja Linden on the American Premiere of The Strange Passenger. Brooke has also directed regional premieres of Wit, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Pride’s Crossing and No Orchids For Miss Blandish, as well as a significant number of large-scale musicals.
As a creator, Brooke has adapted a number of classical pieces for the stage. In 1997 her adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The “O” Myths - “A most delightful and refreshing original theater piece based on this ancient masterpiece” - was performed at Dartmouth College as the basis of an international exchange between Dartmouth students and actors from New York, Zimbabwe, Mexico and Romania. Her adaptation The Shrew Tamer (a coupling of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and John Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed) was reviewed as “a delicious new comedy,” and Ed Siegel of the Boston Globe wrote, “Ciardelli has fashioned a play of significant historical interest.” She is currently working on a stage adaptation of Boccaccio’s Decameron for international production and developing a musical based on the life of Anastasia Romanov.
Brooke has a great interest in creating collaborative partnerships with international artists and is currently working with Giles Ramsay (www.gilesramsay.co.uk) and his U.K.-based company Developing Artists (www.developingartist.co.uk). Through their relationship, she has worked with actors from Zimbabwe, Mexico and England, as well as touring, as co-director, with I Am My Own Wife (www.nswife.com), starring Kevin Loreque, to Harare, Zimbabwe and Edinburgh, Scotland. Future plans include new projects with Palestine, Israel and Macedonia both in those countries and in the U.S.
Brooke has been a guest lecturer at the State University of New York, Albany; Chad’s College, Durham University, England; Harare International Festival of the Arts, Zimbabwe; the Elderhostel Program Tour to the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland; Dartmouth College, NH; New England Theatre Conference, Boston, MA; Kendal at Hanover, NH; Adventures in Learning, NH; Keene State College, NH and others. She is a Visiting Fellow of University College, Durham University, Durham, England.
Brooke received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, with a concentration in directing; worked at The Williamstown Theater Festival and Broadway general management/producer’s office of Gatchell & Neufeld; and currently lives in Norwich, Vermont.
About Northern Stage
Northern Stage now stands as one of the most prestigious and fastest-growing regional theaters in New England. Founding Artistic Director Brooke Ciardelli brought the company to the Briggs Opera House in 1997; since then, Northern Stage has offered over 90 productions, including World Premieres such as The Shrew Tamer, Ovid: Tales of Myth & Magic and A Christmas Carol: The Musical. Other highlights include a staged reading of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Patrick Stewart and Lisa Harrow and a reading of Resurrection Blues, with the playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Miller, in attendance. The company has been honored with Moss Hart Awards for Excellence in Theater from the New England Theatre Conference four times, for productions of To Kill A Mockingbird (1999), All My Sons (2004), Les Misérables (2008) and Hamlet (2009), as well as an Addison Award for The Shrew Tamer (2004) and 2010 Owl Awards for Best Actress and Best Musical.
Community support has enabled the company to sell over 30,000 tickets in downtown White River Junction in the last year to enjoy entertaining and thought-provoking professional theater and theater education here at the crossroads of northern New England. They have also reached out to offer residencies and workshops at over a dozen area schools; initiated “Project Playwright,” a literacy program for fifth and sixth graders; and launched NS Touring, which sends top productions to theaters throughout the world and brings international talents to the U.S.
For information or tickets, call 802-296-7000, e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or log on to www.northernstage.org. The Box Office at the Briggs Opera House is open beginning two hours before all performances; tickets for all shows are available by phone or at the Northern Stage administrative office at 28 Gates Street, White River Junction, Monday-Friday from 12 noon-6 p.m.
Eva Perón shocked the worked with her rise to fame, and her life has provoked impassioned debate ever since. Was she an angel or a devil? A savior or a gold digger? A hero or a villain? Decide for yourself as the Andrew Lloyd Webber – Tim Rice smash hit Evita bursts onto the boards at Northern Stage on April 13.
The company has gathered an unprecedented group of the most talented New York singers and dancers for this extravaganza, including Wicked performer and recording artist Merideth Kaye Clark as Eva, Adam Fleming from the Broadway companies of Hairspray and Wicked, and Fred Rose, who has appeared on Broadway in Company, Phantom of the Opera and Cabaret, as Juan Perón.
Returning from the recent hit The Wizard of Oz are award-winning director Brooke Ciardelli and choreographer Connor Gallagher, who appeared on Broadway in Beauty and the Beast and has won multiple awards in New York for his choreography. After Evita, Gallagher joins the creative team for the upcoming musical adaptation of Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. The musical director is Northern Stage newcomer Adam Wachter from Broadway’s The Addams Family and Off-Broadway’s Spidermusical.
Evita runs live on stage at the Briggs Opera House in White River Junction from April 13 – May 8, 2011. Performances are Tuesdays through Fridays at 7:30 p.m. (except for the Opening Night performance on Friday, April 13 at 7:00 p.m.), and Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 and 7:30 p.m. (no performances April 24), with an additional 2:00 p.m. matinee on Thursday, April 21. For tickets and information, call 802-296-7000. Tickets are also available through the Northern Stage website, www.northernstage.org.
Evita is sponsored by Mascoma Savings Bank, Domus and White River Toyota.
Eva Perón came to Buenos Aires at the age of 15, a child born out of wedlock who grew up in poverty. Her drive and charisma led her to a career as an actress that resulted in her marriage to Colonel Juan Perón; the next year, Juan was elected President of Argentina, and Eva became a powerful First Lady. Her fight for labor rights and women’s suffrage made her a powerful political force in her own right, and she founded the nation’s first large-scale women’s political party, the Female Peronist Party. Upon her death at the age of 33, she was given a state funeral and was named the “Spiritual Leader of the Nation” by the Argentine Congress.
At the same time, the Perón regime weathered accusations of fascism, and Eva’s habit of wearing expensive furs, designer dresses and gaudy jewelry made some question her commitment to the poor and disenfranchised. Rumors of Swiss bank accounts swirled. Meanwhile, the military and the upper classes remained suspicious of her motives, believing that she was using her public position to further her personal goals, and the military played a role in her decision to renounce her nomination for the vice-presidency.
About the Play
Eva Perón: angel or devil? The answer to that question depends very much on who you ask. To some, she was a shrewd opportunist who rode her husband’s coattails to a position of power. To others, she was a hero of the common people who fought for women’s suffrage and the rights of workers and established a foundation that built houses, schools, hospitals and orphanages. There is no doubt that Argentina at her death from cancer in 1952 at the age of just 33 was very different from when she arrived in Buenos Aires in 1934 at the age of 15. The rigid class divisions had crumbled, public health had improved dramatically, and water and electrical service reached many more communities.
One thing remains unquestioned: she was a fascinating subject for a musical.
Evita was the third in a series of successful collaborations by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice. The two first teamed up in 1965 for The Likes of Us, a musical based on the life of Irish philanthropist Thomas John Barnardo that was put aside and not performed until 2005. They followed with Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the Biblically-based story that began as a concept album in 1969 and hit London’s West End in 1973 and Broadway in 1982. Next came Jesus Christ, Superstar, released as an album in 1970, which opened on Broadway in 1971.
After those two tremendous successes, their next step was unclear. British producer Robert Stigwood suggested that they write a musical based on Peter Pan, but that project never came together. Meanwhile, as Webber moved on to write a more traditional musical with playwright Alan Ayckbourn, Jeeves, based on the P.G. Wodehouse character—which turned out to be a critical and commercial failure—Rice heard a radio play about Argentinean first lady and folk hero Eva Duarte de Perón and was hooked. He even traveled to Buenos Aires to learn about her and named his first child Eva.
Webber, fresh from his bad experience with Jeeves, agreed to collaborate on a new work with Rice. As they had with Joseph and Superstar, they began by releasing the material as an album, with Julie Covington, who sang on the original cast recording of Godspell and originated the role of Janet Weiss in The Rocky Horror Show, as Eva. They approached producer Harold Prince about staging the show, but he was busy with other projects. Meanwhile, the album sold better than Superstar around the world (except in the U.S.), and Covington’s rendition of “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina” hit #1 on the U.K. charts, with Barbara Dickson’s “Another Suitcase, Another Hall” also producing a hit.
After the composers made several changes to the work, Prince finally agreed to participate in 1978. He made three important changes: he asked Webber and Rice to remove Che’s song “The Lady’s Got Potential,” he requested a song that would show Juan Perón’s rise to power (resulting in “The Art of the Possible”), and he insisted that the character of Che—originally envisioned as a representative of the peasantry—be depicted as Latin American revolutionary Che Guevara. (Although Guevara attended medical school in Buenos Aires and traveled through Argentina extensively, he was not directly involved with the Peróns.) The character of Che returned to his more anonymous roots in the film and the later revival of Evita.
The show, directed by Prince, opened in the Prince Edward Theatre in London’s West End on June 21, 1978, with Elaine Paige as Eva (Covington turned it down) and David Essex (who had appeared with Covington in Godspell and scored an international hit with “Rock On”). The show ran in London for 2,900 performances, finally closing in February 1986. Evita came to the Broadway Theatre in New York on Sept. 25, 1979, with Patti LuPone in the title role and Mandy Patinkin as Che. Because of the difficulty of the role, five other actresses alternated with LuPone at various times. LuPone did not enjoy her experience. She said, “I was screaming my way through a part that could only have been written by a man who hates women.” A London revival in 2006 featured Elena Roger as Evita, although Abbie Osman was cast as an “alternate” Eva to spell Roger.
Plans for a Ken Russell-directed film in the 1980s fell through; names discussed included Barbra Streisand or Liza Minelli as Eva and Barry Gibb or Elton John as Che. The 1996 film, directed by Alan Parker, starred Madonna and Antonio Banderas. A new song, “You Must Love Me,” was written for the film and won an Oscar for Best Original Song. That song first appeared on stage in the London revival and has been included in the Northern Stage production.
Like Joseph and Superstar, Evita is essentially operatic, in that it is sung through and contains almost no dialogue. “The show is conceptual, not plot-driven,” says Director Brooke Ciardelli, and the three major productions—original, film and revival—all saw different treatments of the material. Che, who narrates the play, was initially portrayed as an antagonist to Eva, criticizing her as an opportunist. In subsequent productions, he has taken on a more balanced role, considering both aspects of Eva’s persona and leaving the audience to decide.
About the Composers
The gifted Andrew Lloyd Webber was born in 1948 in Kensington, London, the son of composer William Lloyd Webber and Jean Hermione, a violinist and pianist. Webber has given us Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, Jesus Christ Superstar, By Jeeves, Evita, Cats, Starlight Express, The Phantom of the Opera, Aspects of Love, Sunset Boulevard, Whistle Down the Wind, The Beautiful Game and The Woman in White. He composed the film scores of Gumshoe and The Odessa File, and a setting of the Latin Requiem Mass Requiem. Just his three longest-running Broadway shows—CATS, The Phantom of the Opera and Evita—have combined for over 18,000 performances (and counting, as Phantom continues its 23-year-plus, record-breaking run).
He has also produced in the West End and on Broadway not only his own work but the Olivier award-winning plays La Bête and Daisy Pulls It Off. Love Never Dies—something of a sequel to Phantom—opened in 2010 but has had a somewhat bumpy ride; a planned spring 2011 Broadway opening has been delayed indefinitely. He most recently teamed up once again with Tim Rice to write new songs for a London production of The Wizard of Oz.
He bought the Palace Theatre in 1983 and now owns seven London theatres including the Palace, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the London Palladium.
Webber received a Kennedy Center Honor, one of the highest awards for achievement in the arts in the United States. Other awards include seven Tonys; four Grammys, including Best Contemporary Classical Composition for Requiem and a Grammy Legend Award in 1990; seven Oliviers, a Golden Globe, an Oscar (Best Original Song” for “You Must Love Me” from Evita); an International Emmy, and the London Critic’s Circle Award. He also picked up the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service in 2008, given to those who have “shown an outstanding commitment to President Woodrow Wilson’s dream of integrating politics, scholarship and policy for the common good.” He was knighted in 1992 and made a life peer as Baron Lloyd-Webber, serving as a Conservative member of the House of Lords.
Sir Timothy Miles Bindon (“Tim”) Rice (both he and Webber have been knighted, and their joint publishing company is Two Knights Rights Ltd.) was born in 1944 in Buckinghamshire, England. His father was an Army major, and his mother served in the WAAF (Women’s Auxiliary Air Force). After the war, both worked at the de Haviland aircraft manufacturer. Rice began his professional career as a management trainee and assistant producer at EMI Records, after studying for a year at the Sorbonne. The lyricist has collaborated with Andrew Lloyd Webber on Jesus Christ, Superstar, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, The Wizard of Oz and Evita, among others; with Howard Ashman and Alan Menken on Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin; with Bjorn Ulvaeus and Benny Andersson of ABBA on Chess; and with Elton John on The Lion King. He has two daughters; his eldest was named Eva after the title character of Evita.
About the Cast
The ensemble Director Brooke Ciardelli put together for this production includes over a dozen Broadway credits, several World Premieres and many more National Tours. Merideth Kaye Clark (Eva) performed in the leading role of Elphaba on the First National Tour of Wicked, as well as four Off-Broadway shows, including stints at the Irish Repertory Theatre and Ars Nova. A talented multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, her second album has just been released. Adam Fleming (Che) comes from the Broadway production of Wicked and played Sketch in the original Broadway production of Hairspray. Fred Rose (Juan Perón) boasts a Broadway pedigree that includes playing Max and Ernst in Cabaret and Raoul in Phantom of the Opera, as well as roles in Company (which he reprised in the television production) and Cyrano de Bergerac.
Other highlights include Karen Elliott, who appeared in both the original and revival versions of Les Misérables on Broadway; Joe Paparella, a singing star who has appeared at Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center and Lincoln Center, in addition to Broadway roles in Les Misérables, Jesus Christ Superstar and Good Vibrations; Frankie Paparone, who played the White Rabbit in Broadway’s Shrek: The Musical, and Annie Petersmeyer, returning to Northern Stage after her appearance as a Silly Girl in Beauty and the Beast.
About the Director
BROOKE WETZEL CIARDELLI is the founding artistic director of Northern Stage, a regional non-profit theater operating under an AEA LORT-D contract, located on the border of Vermont and New Hampshire, with over 30,000 visits per year and a $1.8 million annual operating budget. In her career, Brooke has directed over 60 productions and is a proud member of the Stage Directors and Choreographers Society.
As a director, Brooke has been honored by the New England Theatre Conference’s Moss Hart Awards for Excellence in Theater three times, for All My Sons (2004), Les Misérables (Best Professional Production, 2008) and Hamlet (Best Professional Production and Best Overall Production, 2009). She directed a staged reading of Arthur Miller’s then-unpublished Resurrection Blues with the playwright himself in residence. She has directed Patrick Stewart and Lisa Harrow in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and worked with playwright Sonja Linden on the American Premiere of The Strange Passenger. Brooke has also directed regional premieres of Wit, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Pride’s Crossing and No Orchids For Miss Blandish, as well as a significant number of large-scale musicals.
As a creator, Brooke has adapted a number of classical pieces for the stage. In 1997 her adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, The “O” Myths - “A most delightful and refreshing original theater piece based on this ancient masterpiece” - was performed at Dartmouth College as the basis of an international exchange between Dartmouth students and actors from New York, Zimbabwe, Mexico and Romania. Her adaptation The Shrew Tamer (a coupling of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and John Fletcher’s The Tamer Tamed) was reviewed as “a delicious new comedy,” and Ed Siegel of the Boston Globe wrote, “Ciardelli has fashioned a play of significant historical interest.” She is currently working on a stage adaptation of Boccaccio’s Decameron for international production and developing a musical based on the life of Anastasia Romanov.
Brooke has a great interest in creating collaborative partnerships with international artists and is currently working with Giles Ramsay (www.gilesramsay.co.uk) and his U.K.-based company Developing Artists (www.developingartist.co.uk). Through their relationship, she has worked with actors from Zimbabwe, Mexico and England, as well as touring, as co-director, with I Am My Own Wife (www.nswife.com), starring Kevin Loreque, to Harare, Zimbabwe and Edinburgh, Scotland. Future plans include new projects with Palestine, Israel and Macedonia both in those countries and in the U.S.
Brooke has been a guest lecturer at the State University of New York, Albany; Chad’s College, Durham University, England; Harare International Festival of the Arts, Zimbabwe; the Elderhostel Program Tour to the Fringe Festival, Edinburgh, Scotland; Dartmouth College, NH; New England Theatre Conference, Boston, MA; Kendal at Hanover, NH; Adventures in Learning, NH; Keene State College, NH and others. She is a Visiting Fellow of University College, Durham University, Durham, England.
Brooke received her Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College, with a concentration in directing; worked at The Williamstown Theater Festival and Broadway general management/producer’s office of Gatchell & Neufeld; and currently lives in Norwich, Vermont.
About Northern Stage
Northern Stage now stands as one of the most prestigious and fastest-growing regional theaters in New England. Founding Artistic Director Brooke Ciardelli brought the company to the Briggs Opera House in 1997; since then, Northern Stage has offered over 90 productions, including World Premieres such as The Shrew Tamer, Ovid: Tales of Myth & Magic and A Christmas Carol: The Musical. Other highlights include a staged reading of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Patrick Stewart and Lisa Harrow and a reading of Resurrection Blues, with the playwright, Pulitzer Prize winner Arthur Miller, in attendance. The company has been honored with Moss Hart Awards for Excellence in Theater from the New England Theatre Conference four times, for productions of To Kill A Mockingbird (1999), All My Sons (2004), Les Misérables (2008) and Hamlet (2009), as well as an Addison Award for The Shrew Tamer (2004) and 2010 Owl Awards for Best Actress and Best Musical.
Community support has enabled the company to sell over 30,000 tickets in downtown White River Junction in the last year to enjoy entertaining and thought-provoking professional theater and theater education here at the crossroads of northern New England. They have also reached out to offer residencies and workshops at over a dozen area schools; initiated “Project Playwright,” a literacy program for fifth and sixth graders; and launched NS Touring, which sends top productions to theaters throughout the world and brings international talents to the U.S.
For information or tickets, call 802-296-7000, e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , or log on to www.northernstage.org. The Box Office at the Briggs Opera House is open beginning two hours before all performances; tickets for all shows are available by phone or at the Northern Stage administrative office at 28 Gates Street, White River Junction, Monday-Friday from 12 noon-6 p.m.
