Thursday, February 9, 2012
By Elaine Liner
Dallas Observer

Five years ago, actress Diana Sheehan had what she describes as "the most euphoric day of my life." Both of her young children were in school all day at last and, for the first time in years, Sheehan found she was free to do whatever she wanted.

"I danced for joy," she says of that day. "It was this incredible re-awakening. Everything, all my senses, came alive. I started writing down songs. Before you know it, I had 25 songs written down. I divided them into two parts. The first group is all songs about waking up again. The next part is about how these songs work together, all about longing and hope."

The result of this blast of creative energy became Midway, a solo 90-minute cabaret show Sheehan will perform for local audiences for the first time at this year's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival at Addison's WaterTower Theatre. (Dallas Observer is a sponsor of the 10-day celebration of theater, music and dance.)

?"It's the story of my midlife crisis," says Sheehan, 46. "Your midlife crisis can keep going. It's all about how you look at it. The show asks, are your best days ahead or behind you?"

Sheehan will do Midway in the intimate Stone Cottage at the Loop Fest, and the space will be fitted out with small café tables for cabaret atmosphere. Musical director James McQuillen will play piano. There'll also be a cellist and string bass.

The music comes from the American musical theater songbook, with selections by Rodgers and Hart, Gershwin, Sondheim, Jacques Brel, Peter Allen and Leonard Cohen. "It's a big range of music," says Sheehan. "As I tell my story, I talk a lot about the songs, where they came from and who wrote them."

Sheehan, a Massachusetts native, moved to Dallas from New York several years ago, when her husband, a doctor, accepted a job at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She had been a busy actress back east, working Off-Broadway and performing Midway at Manhattan's Triad Theatre. She wasn't sure if she'd pursue stage work in Dallas, but was soon cast in Lyric Stage's revival of As Thousands Cheer, and was then picked for the starring role of Little Edie in WaterTower's terrific production of Grey Gardens. Sheehan landed another lead at WaterTower in the musical Black Pearl Sings and co-starred with James Crawford last summer in WaterTower's sweet two-hander Shooting Star.

"I moved here to be supportive of my husband. I had no idea there was anything waiting for me here. It was overwhelming to have things happening. I'm amazed at the continued support from the Dallas theater community and the people I meet down here. In New York City you get a tough skin because you have to. Down here, people let you do your work. You don't spend your whole life trying to get the job. You get to live your life and do the job," says Sheehan.

In her show at the Loop festival, the only other character in Midway will be the audience, Sheehan says. "These are really songs as monologue and dialogue. It's really fun to take these songs out of context and reconstruct them and make them relevant and meaningful. It's very universal, this show."

And, she says, a festival like Out of the Loop, with shows happening simultaneously on three stages, is a good way for theatergoers to sample lots of different performances in one place. "For performers, Loop is an incredible opportunity to get your work seen. You're in something bigger than yourself. I hope more people will take advantage of that."

Diana Sheehan's cabaret show Midway will play at 8 p.m., March 2; 2 p.m., March 4; 7:30 p.m., March 8; and 2 p.m., March 10, in the Stone Cottage at WaterTower's Out of the Loop Fringe Festival in Addison. For tickets or more information, call 972-450-6232 or visit www.watertowertheatre.org. Tickets are $10 for Midway, or festival passes are available for $65. Individual tickets go on sale at noon, February 14.

Dallas Observer
Written by Elaine Liner
January 12, 2012

"I want to go on living after my death," Anne Frank wrote in her diary around the age of 14. She wanted to be a professional writer when she grew up, a novelist maybe. Her book, she said in the diary, would be based on the two years she spent hiding from the Nazis with her family and four other Jews in the garret of an Amsterdam office building. She would call her novel The Secret Annex, she wrote, and it would make her famous.

Instead, it was her handwritten diary that lived on after her death in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in 1945, not long before the Allies liberated it. Published in 1947 by her father Otto, the only member of her family who survived the war, The Diary of Anne Frank has been adapted many times for stage, film, television and, in the dramatization by Wendy Kesselman (based on the original play by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett), back to the stage again. (This is the one a young Natalie Portman did on Broadway in 1997.)

There's more interior dialogue in this one taken from Anne's diary entries, especially about her Jewish identity. Amid the bleakness of attic life — no movement or talking until 6 p.m., never enough food — it is Anne who creates homemade Hanukkah gifts for everyone, a happy moment of normalcy achieved by maintaining a beloved Jewish tradition.

In the solid production now running at Addison's WaterTower Theatre, director Terry Martin has found a charming young actress, Molly Franco, for the title role. Franco possesses that special glow-from-within quality that made a teenage Susan Strasberg a star when The Diary of Anne Frank debuted in New York in 1955, and she manages to erase anything that might read "modern girl" in her portrayal.

Franco's Anne is spunky without seeming obnoxious, innocent without tipping over into angelic. In her budding puppy-love with fellow attic dweller Peter Van Daan (Travis Tope, who's also good), she vibrates with excitement, even though their "dates" take place under the eaves. Franco makes Anne Frank real for the audience, and that's the best you can ask. The role deserves that.

The rest of the cast works fine as a tight ensemble moving carefully around designer Clare Floyd Devries' ingenious three-story top-floor set. Paul Taylor is especially good as Mr. Van Daan, who in real life was Otto Frank's business partner. He's a blowhard who dreams only of gorging on cream cakes, ripping his wife's beloved fur coat from her hands to sell when they need money, not caring that it's her last memento of a middle-class life they once shared. Lucia Welch, as Mrs. Van Daan, gives that scene a powerful wallop of sadness.

Ted Wold brings dark neurotic tics to the role of Mr. Dussel, the dentist who joins the Franks and Van Daans in their tiny rooms. As Anne's sister Margot, Jessica Renee Russell matures from nervous teen in early scenes to thoughtful young woman toward the end. She had hoped for a career in nursing. She died in the camp with Anne.

D Magazine
Written by M. Lance Lusk
January 11, 2012

Sometimes “important” stories lose their effectiveness no matter how many times we are reminded of why they are so. But then there are works that transcend redundancy and endure even bad iterations. What a nice surprise, then, when a fresh adaptation of a stalwart original receives a remarkable production with an incredible cast and crew. WaterTower Theatre’s The Diary of Anne Frank by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, and adapted by Wendy Kesselman makes a crucial play come alive.

The tremendous and necessary impact of the publication of Anne Frank’s diary (1947), Pulitzer Prize-winning stage play (1955), and Academy Award-winning movie adaptation (1959) are well-documented and have spawned countless interpretations. Kesselman’s 1997 humanizing adaptation uses unpublished diary entries and new evidence to present a more complete and honest picture of young teen struggling with her confinement and burgeoning maturation. Kudos to director Terry Martin and his creative team for taking the source material and adaptation to even new heights of heart-warming, braking excellence. They have crafted a transfixing and utterly moving piece of art that contains much pathos, yet is really a beautiful story about an incredible life.

The action begins in Amsterdam in 1942 with the Frank and Van Daan families moving into a secret annex to avoid the Nazis. The occupants in the cramped living space are Mr. and Mrs. Frank (Stan Graner and Emily Scott Banks), their two daughters, Anne and Margot (Molly Franco and Jessica Renee Russell), Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan (Paul Taylor and Lucia Welch), and their son, Peter (Travis Tope). A dentist, Mr. Dussel (Ted Wold) is a late addition. A good Christian soul, Miep Gies (Dana Schultes in a lovely performance) brings them food, supplies, and news from the outside.

What happens in these tiny quarters (intricately rendered levels and period furnishings by Clare Floyd DeVries and Georgana Jinks) to these people, particularly Anne as the central figure and narrating voice, and how they deal with waiting and hiding is the real play.

Franco as the “quicksilver Anne” is an exuberant and irrepressible girl who simultaneously annoys her housemates (complete with door-slamming teen angst) and reminds them of the joy and promise of youth (providing thoughtful homemade Hanukkah presents to everyone). Franco is totally believable as a charming, if exhausting, young girl. She has a tremulous, bubbly spark in her voice, and makes statements like, “I feel spring awakening inside of me” with complete earnestness.

Russell (hilarious in WingSpan’s The Importance of Being Earnest) is the courteous, “good” Frank daughter. She is quiet, sad, and lonely, and of all the inhabitants, she is the one with nobody of her own. Tope is the reluctant Peter, the object of Anne’s soaring ardor. He is charming in a shy and retiring way that leads into lingering gestures and glances as his relationship with Anne matures.

Banks plays the Frank matriarch with a restrained, yet intense sadness both over her family’s predicament and her deteriorating bond with Anne. Graner, her husband, is the ultimate peacemaking conscience of the house. His performance stands out as a bit unnatural and actorly at times, but it is not enough to take away from the overall excellence of the ensemble.

Wold and Taylor embody two similarly cranky curmudgeons. Both funny and craving in their own ways: Taylor’s sour Van Daan jones for cigarettes and food, while Wold’s prickly dentist pines for his lost love.

Lights by Susan A. White are colorful and expressive, and Curtis Craig and Scott Guenther’s music box songs, rail car noises, whistles, sirens, factory sounds, and other effects complete this immersive theatrical experience.

John Garcia's The Column
Written by Chris Jackson
January 11, 2012

In October of 1997 Natalie Portman made her Broadway debut starring in the revival of The Diary of Anne Frank along with Linda Lavin and George Hearn, and directed by James Lapine. Wendy Kesselman adapted the stage script by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, originally presented in the mid-1950s. Their script was based on the 1947 publishing phenomenon Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, with a forward by Eleanor Roosevelt no less. The book, eventually translated into 56 languages, and the original play, riveted Americans with its revealing and personal account of the Holocaust, presenting in this one family's story a glimpse of an event so horrendous as to be almost incomprehensible.

Goodrich and Hackett aimed their script at an audience only 10 years away from the depicted events. As Vincent Canby said in his 1997 review, "Israel was a new state, aged seven, (and) Elie Wiesel's Night would not be published in English for another five years". Ms. Kesselman on the other hand had access to the 1995 definitive edition of the diary and other documents that the earlier writers did not. She also restored the "Jewishness" of the story and Anne's writings about her burgeoning sexuality that had been toned down in the '50s to make the play more palatable to a wider audience. Finding the upbeat, optimistic attitude of the original script not consistent with the source, she retained the more somber and realistic tone of the book.

As we in the audience watched the actors of WaterTower Theatre's version of The Diary of Anne Frank (playing at Addison Theatre Centre through January 29) enter the attic onstage, I felt pretty certain that the lump in my throat was not the only one. In the back of my mind was the knowledge that these actors were portraying real people who suffered and died a terrible death. And yet, even with this knowledge, I found myself caught up in their story, hoping that they would be rescued, straining with them for every bit of optimistic news and event.

For the actors the challenge was not to play the ending from the beginning, something especially hard to do with such a well-known story. It was to their credit that for the most part they succeeded. Of course their character's dread of the possible tragedy was hanging over their heads constantly but the hope for rescue and freedom was the driving force.

As Anne, Molly Franco made a nice transition from the rather giddy thirteen year old "Miss Quack Quack" to the more mature Anne at the end of the play. She looked the role and was successful in playing Anne's faults as well as her virtues. Her more effective moments came in the second act as the character approached the age of the actress. Her change in attitude toward Peter from play fellow to romantic interest was well done and believable. The play was episodic by necessity but Miss Franco and the other actors managed to find a through-line for their characters and stick to it.

Stan Graner was Anne's father, Otto Frank, and his role, as written, was a really rather one-dimensional one of solidity, goodness and stability. We never got a glimpse into his darker areas of despair or doubt until the end of the play in the epilogue. Mr. Graner did a fine job with the words he was given and played the affectionate husband and father to good effect. That he was the tallest on the stage was a visual plus in helping make him the authority figure. His last moments alone on stage were heart-felt and touching. The final monologue of the play, which related the fates of the other characters, was delivered by Mr. Graner with restraint and deep emotion.

In the role of Anne's mother Edith, Emily Scott Banks turned in another of her solid and nuanced performances. She created a wide range of character traits for Mrs. Frank, from fear and strength to jealousy and exasperation. Her love for her family and her effort to hold the situation together was a strong arc throughout her performance.

Peter Van Daan was ably played by Travis Tope, nicely growing into young adulthood before our eyes. His transitions from the shy, withdrawn teen in the first scenes to the more complex and interesting young man in the final scenes were effective. His growing affection for Anne was believable and gently played. I kept thinking as I watched the show how difficult the situation must have been for all three teens. Adolescence is hard enough without the added stress of very little privacy and constantly being in real danger.

Paul Taylor and Lucia Welch as Mr. and Mrs. Van Daan were a believable couple caught up in a terrible situation. Ms. Welch's vanity and pretensions and Mr. Taylor's distraction and frustrations as the Van Daans were displayed with restraint until the moments when the outbursts gave the show its needed minor climaxes on the way to the ultimate ending. Both actors gave solid, believable performances.

In what could be a throwaway role as Margot Frank, Jessica Renee Russell gave a riveting performance as the complex and withdrawn young woman. Ms. Russell has been seen recently on local stages, and her performance in The Diary of Anne Frank showed us why this young actress has continued to get work.

Ted Wold entered the action later than the other characters in the role of Mr. Dussel, the dentist. His was a detailed and eminently watchable performance that solidly impressed, as did Dana Schultes as Miep Gies in another role that might have been easily overlooked in the hands of a less skilled actress.

Andrew Kasten played Mr. Kraler. Alvin Combs was a Nazi officer, with Jacob Aaron Cullum as a Nazi soldier and Wes Cantrell as a "man." All of these gentlemen gave well crafted and believable characterizations that helped to solidify the overall effect of the show.

This was another beautifully-produced show by WaterTower Theatre. The set by Clare Floyd DeVries was stark and simple with strong outlines of the attic space that effectively moved into silhouette at various moments in the action. The illusionistic buildings to the side and the tops of the windows in the warehouse below helped establish the locale. The cramped quarters were displayed without losing the strong artistic sense of the design although perhaps a little more grit and grime would have added to the atmosphere. Costumes by Michael A. Robinson worked well for the period and told who the characters were, not an easy job with the layerings and many on and off stage changes. My only quibble was with the unflattering sleeves on Mrs. Van Daan's suit jacket.

Lighting by Susan A. White was helpful in directing the audience's eye to the appropriate stage areas. With the whole cast on stage most of the time, this was essential to following the action. Especially effective was the epilogue lighting which gave a sense of decay and distress that helped underline the mood of Mr. Frank's final monologue. A more subtle light on Anne's diary in the last moment would have been more effective.

The sound design by Curtis Craig and Scott Guenther was almost another character in itself, providing not only the broadcasts the families listened to so eagerly, but also the noises of the outside world from which they were removed. The period props by Georgana Jinks helped established the time frame.

Terry Martin's direction was capable, moving the many characters in the space to good effect. His placement of the actors provided focus where it needed to be although I wished they hadn't been trapped behind the center table so often. The upper attic space seemed under-used until the second act. With that many people crowded into such a small space, I wondered why someone wasn't sleeping upstairs.

The show was solid and serviceable. The terrible stress of the situation brought out the frailties of these normally very affable people. Imagine being trapped for twenty-five months in a small space with seven other people, having to be absolutely quiet during the day and always living with the fear of discovery. The actors took their moments, and the audience was caught up in the plot, but there were other moments such as the end of the Chanukah scene before the thief was discovered or the entrance of the soldiers that didn't quite work. Several scene endings needed just another beat before moving on to put the full emotional impact where it needed to be. I ultimately wanted to be more moved and emotionally involved than I was.

The first moment of the show was extraordinarily affecting as the characters came in and looked around and realized this would be their home for the foreseeable future. The looks on their faces and their body language spoke volumes as the audience took in the yellow Star of David on their clothes and the magnitude of their situation unfolded. Each speaking of what they missed most or what they would do when they were free again and the traditional lighting of the candles were heart wrenching and beautifully played moments. The ending, with the arrival of the soldiers was terrifying as the inevitable unfolded.

The show was slick and professional, moving at times and emotionally involving most of the evening and WaterTower Theatre should be commended for mounting a strong and visually striking production. In Ms. Kesselman's adaptation, while Anne's diary may not be the symbol of hope in the middle of this horror that it was in the original script, it was a testament that bore witness. And it did it most effectively.

Dallas Morning News
Written by Lawson Taitte, Theater Critic
January 9, 2012

WATERTOWER THEATRE ANNOUNCES CASTING AND CREATIVE TEAM FOR AUGUST:  OSAGE COUNTY          

 Pam Dougherty stars and René Moreno directs the Tony Award-winning play which runs at the Addison Theatre Centre March 30 – April 22, 2012

 WaterTower Theatre today announced the cast for August: Osage County, running March 30 – April 22, 2012 at the Addison Theatre Centre.  The cast includes Pam Dougherty as Violet Weston; Cliff Stephens as Beverly Weston; Sherry Jo Ward as Barbara Fordham; James Crawford as Bill Fordham; Ruby Westfall as Jean Fordham; Kristin McCollum as Ivy Weston; Jessica Cavanagh as Karen Weston; Nancy A. Sherrard as Mattie Fae Aiken; Tom Lenaghen as Charlie Aiken; Clay Yocum as Little Charles Aiken; Sasha Truman-McGonnell as Johnna Monevata; Chris Hury as Steve Heidebrecht and Stan Graner as Sheriff Deon Gilbeau.

Making their WaterTower Theatre stage debuts in August: Osage County are Sherry Jo Ward, Tom Lenaghen, Sasha Truman-McGonnell and Chris Hury.

The creative team for August: Osage County is led by Director René Moreno.    Rodney Dobbs is Set Designer, Barbara Cox is Costume Designer, Jason S. Foster is Lighting Designer, Georgana Jinks is Props Designer and Heidi Shen is the Stage Manager.

August: Osage County previews Friday, March 30 and Saturday, March 31; Pay What You Can performance is Sunday, April 1; and opensMonday, April 2, running through Sunday, April 22, 2012.   Press/Media night is Monday, April 2 at 7:30 pm.

August:  Osage County is a gripping play that tells the story of the Westons, a large extended clan that comes together at their rural Oklahoma homestead when the alcoholic patriarch disappears. Forced to confront unspoken truths and astonishing secrets, the family must also contend with matriarch Violet, a pill-popping, deeply unsettled woman at the center of this storm.  A darkly funny tale, the play won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play the same year.

Matt Tolbert Appointed to newly created position of Assistant to the Producing Artistic Director at WaterTower Theatre

WaterTower Theatre Producing Artistic Director Terry Martin today announced the appointment of actor/producer Matt Tolbert to the newly created position of Assistant to the Producing Artistic Director.  The full-time position, which takes immediate effect, will support Mr. Martin with the administrative duties of running WaterTower Theatre’s artistic department.

Mr. Tolbert is in the cast of Spring Awakening playing the role of Hanschen.  His first appearance at WaterTower Theatre was in the production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore (James), directed by Terry Martin.  A graduate of Baylor University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Performance, Mr. Tolbert is the Founding Artistic Director of Greyman Theatre Company (seen at this year’s Out of the Loop Fringe Festival in performances of Dani Girl).  He has previously served as the Company Management Intern at Barrington Stage Company in Pittsfield, MA, and as an Arts Management Intern at Surflight Theatre in Beach Haven, NJ.    

As an actor, he appeared in Fuddy Meers, Iphigenia 2.0, Blood Wedding and Urinetown, among others, at Baylor University and in concert in Greyman Theatre’s Homemade Fusion at WaterTower Theatre this past summer.  In addition to his acting and producing credits, he is also a professional photographer. 

“As the Company’s Producing Artistic Director, I manage both the artistic and administrative sides of this growing, increasingly complex organization,”  noted Mr. Martin. “This past year, it has become quite evident that I needed to create a position, identifying just the right individual with unique artistic and administrative skills, to assist me in my role as the artistic and executive leader of the theatre.  I knew the position of Assistant to the Producing Artistic Director would be one that would require someone with a keen interest in “producing” but also with a background in performance and administration,” said Mr. Martin.

“After working with Matt Tolbert this season on The Lieutenant of Inishmore and the Out of the Loop Fringe Festival (in his position as the Artistic Director of Greyman Theatre Company), it was clear to me that he was the right person for this position.  Energetic and creative with keen leadership skills and, as an actor/director, an understanding of the artistic side of running a company, Matt will fill an invaluable role for me and the organization,” said Mr. Martin.  “I’m looking forward to mentoring Matt in the months to come and the valuable contribution he will surely make to WaterTower Theatre.”

Mr. Tolbert expressed his enthusiasm for this new opportunity:  “If there ever was a career opportunity to come along that had the words “absolutely perfect” written all over it, this is the one.  I have learned a great deal from Terry this past year working with him as an actor and producer, and I’m looking forward to expanding my experience in all areas of theatre production working with one of the most respected theatre producers in the country.”