Introducing
Half Moon's 2007/08 season!
Up
Next...
The
wee bit naughty and irreverent but totally hilarious holiday
entertainment !!!!
A
sardonic, merrily subversive tale, David Sedaris' humorous and
acerbic account of working as an elf at Macy's in
Manhattan...
The
Santaland Diaries
by the one and only David Sedaris
Four
weeks in Poughkeepsie and Kingston -11/29 through 12/23
Featuring veteran stage actor Tom Ford* direct from his
appearance as the lead in Shakepeare's Comedy of Errors at
The Pittsburgh Public Theatre.
Directed
by Half Moon Theatre's Artistic Director, Margo Whitcomb, most
recently director of last year's smash hit, Cinderella: A New
telling of an Old Tale and a new adaptation of The Tempest
featuring Olympia Dukakis at the Long Wharf Theatre.
*
Member of Actors' Equity Association, The union of professional
actors and stage managers.
Viewer
Discretion advised ... which is why you should come see it!
Half
Moon Theatre, the Hudson Valley region's own professional theatre
company is delighted to mount the area premiere of the notorious
anti-holiday classic that launched the career of David Sedaris.
First read by the author on NPR, it has since become a stage play
and made a sensation across the United States as the perfect
holiday outing for adults escaping the holiday crush.
NPR
humorist and best-selling author David Sedaris made his comic debut
reading his "Santaland Diaries" on National Public Radio's
Morning Edition. Sedaris' sardonic humor and incisive social critique
have since made him one of NPR's most popular and humorous commentators.
He is the author of the bestsellers Barrel Fever and Holidays
on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked
and Me Talk Pretty One Day. Sedaris and his sister, Amy
Sedaris, have written several plays which have been produced at
La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City.
In 2001, David Sedaris became the third recipient of the Thurber
Prize for American Humor, and was named by Time magazine
as "Humorist of the Year."
New-> Chronogram.com Article
on Our produciton of Santaland
All
of the following is from Ben Brantley's NY Times review of the first
stage production:
When
David Sedaris first read excerpts from ''The Santaland Diaries,''
his delightfully thorny account of working as a Yuletide elf at
Macy's, on National Public Radio four years ago, he immediately
struck chords in an audience that knew that Christmas is the season
to be desperate.
Describing
the surreal daily ritual of ushering children and their parents
to visit a department store Santa Claus, he cast a cool but oddly
compassionate eye on the behavior of frayed families and his fellow
employees, who ranged from out-of-work actors to displaced white-collar
workers who ''never suspected a green velvet suit in their future.''
So
''Santaland'' has now been adapted as a handsomely produced hour-long
monologue . The narrative is laced with priceless observations,
both outrageous and subtle. (Having to flatter people all day,
the character says, had made him ''immune to compliments.'')
The sliding scale admission idea is that you pay what you are able to within the range of $10-$25.00.
It is a way for us to insure that those of less means can see affordable professional theatre. Those
of more means (or those who have had a really good week), can give more.
All seats are general
admission.
This
is the perfect relief for the holiday crush.
Bring
a date, your friends, your spouse, your whole office!!
-
But leave the
kids at home!
Play Program for Santaland
