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24 | March 1, 2018 | The frankfort station life & arts
frankfortstation.com
Curtain Call Theatre to bring ‘Enchanted April’ in March
T.J. Kremer III
Contributing Editor
Springtime is all about
rebirth and discovery. All
around Nature transforms
from the cold and gloomy
winter into the warm and
vibrant spring.
So it’s only appropriate
that during the first two
weekends in March, Curtain
Call Theatre is scheduled
to present its rendition
of “Enchanted April”
to the stage, a play that’s
focused on transformation
of the human heart
and spirit.
“It’s a story of self-discovery
and coming to terms
with, if you want to say baggage
and demons and ghosts
in your life,” said the play’s
Director Mark Frost.
Based on the 1922 novel,
“The Enchanted April,” by
Elizabeth von Arnim, the
play follows the lives of
four women who decide to
shrug off dreary post-WWI
London in favor of a holiday
in Genoa, Italy.
Two of the women, Rose
Arnott and Lotty Wilton,
who are acquainted through
sight only at the same church
but are both struggling with
issues in their marriages,
read an advertisement for a
trip to Italy; however, they
can’t afford the trip on their
own, so they get two more
women, the widow Mrs.
Graves and young socialite
WATERSHED WORKS
SATURDAY, MARCH 10, 7:30PM
Ozinga Chapel, Palos Heights
Stilian Kirov, Conductor
BERNSTEIN: Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
MAHLER: Symphony No. 1 “Titan”
This program is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency.
If you’re going…
What: “Enchanted April”
When: 7:30 p.m. March
2, 3, 9 and 10; 2 p.m.
March 4; 2 p.m. March
11 is sold out.
Where: 11112 Front St.
in Mokena.
General admission is
$20. Tickets can be
purchased online at
ccctheatre.com, or by
calling the box office at
(708) 607-2281
Caroline Bramble, to help
share the expenses.
“Everyone is trying to escape
dreary London for this
beautiful enchantment that
you will find at San Salvatore,
[which] is the name of
the castle where they go on
holiday,” Frost said. “And,
so, it’s a story of those
inter-relationships with
each other, but then how
they use those to figure out
some things for themselves,
and each one of them finds
some transformation. And
so I think that’s timeless because
all of us, I think, have
at times have things in our
lives that don’t go the way
we exactly plan them to be
and we’re looking to transform
ourselves, from time
to time.”
Lynn Meller, of Tinley
Park, who plays Rose, said
she connected with her
character as a straight-andnarrow
sort who has some
disdain for others not like
her, but, by the end, learns
to accept her own need for
change.
“We all go through
changes as we get older,
as we find our place in life
and what we are meant to be
doing, or what we think we
are meant to be doing, and
that’s kind of what’s going
Tickets from $25 in advance. Students, $10. Group tickets available. (Fees may apply.)
IPOMUSIC.ORG | 708.481.7774
Curtain Call Theatre cast members (left to right) Dan McGrath, Joshua Reid, Judie Brugler and Deb Brunette rehearse on
Feb. 22. T.J. Kremer III/22nd Century Media
Pre-concert
Q&A with
Maestro Kirov
6:25PM in the
auditorium
Stilian Kirov, Music Director
on in this show,” Meller
said.
“We go on this trip to try
and get away from people
when we realize that wasn’t
the entire point of what we
should’ve been doing: We
should’ve been trying to
find out who we are as individuals,
and then we can get
back together with all of our
friends and family and start
anew in a way.”
Dan McGrath, also of
Tinley Park and is making
his return to Curtain Call
Theatre after a hiatus of a
couple years, plays Mellersh
Wilton, the husband
of Lotty Wilton, who is an
acquaintance of Rose. Mc-
Grath said his character, at
first, represents a profound
resistance to change.
“He’s very prim and
proper,” McGrath said. “He
tends to think that the world
revolves around him, especially
with regard to everything
in his immediacy,
that he can have any kind of
control and he wants to control
it, including his wife.”
Judie Brugler, of Frankfort,
plays Costanza the
Italian housekeeper. Brugler
said her character is in the
middle of all these transformations
and unusual situations,
and she doesn’t know
quite what to make of it all;
however, even Costanza
gets caught in the transformative
web by the end.
One challenge for Brugler
was the fact that none of her
lines are in English.
“All my lines are in Italian,”
Brugler said.
But, with the help of some
friends from northern Italy,
Brugler was able to prepare
for the role.
“It was wonderful to sit
down and have a glass of
wine with them, and they
Upcoming productions
•”Who Sings Your Story,”
an evening of music at
7:30 p.m. March 24.
•Auditions for “12 Angry
Jurors” are scheduled for
April 8-9, performances
June 15-17 and June
23-25.
would tell me about their
travels in Italy and what the
people were like, and their
thinking and their philosophies,
and that helped me a
lot,” she said.
She added she thinks the
overall theme of the play is
about "second chances."
Joshua Reid, of Mokena,
plays Antony Wilding,
a young artist who was
raised British and fought
in WWI. Wilding’s parents
and grandparents owned the
Please see theatre, 26