Linda McInerney

For Immediate Release
Contact: Linda McInerney
lmciner@aol.com
413.774.4527

WORKING TOGETHER TO BRING THE PERFORMING ARTS
TO THE ACADEMY OF MUSIC
THE COMEDY, DON JUAN BY MOLIERE ON DECEMBER 1 at 8:00 PM

A group of local performing arts groups including a ballet company, a theatre troupe and an opera company are all working together to fill the Academy of Music with vibrant performing arts this season. “There’s so much going on this season that it’s been a real challenge to fit us all in. With THE NUTCRACKER, RIGOLETTO, and DON JUAN happening almost at once there have been all kinds of overlapping needs. It has forced us into a kind of co-operation that you’d only expect from a marriage. But it is working. And it’s been terrific to collaborate in new ways. We all have known each other for years, twenty years in some cases if I think about my friend at the Pioneer Valley Ballet, Dan Rist. It is thrilling to finally be working together to fill this beautiful theatre with living, breathing art,” said Linda McInerney, Artistic Director of Old Deerfield Productions whose production of DON JUAN by Molière comes to the Academy of Music on December 1 at 8:00 PM. “If it weren’t for the amazing team at the Academy this wouldn’t have been possible. They have bent over backwards to be sure that we can all have our scheduling needs met and that is no mean feat,” she added.

This flurry of activity is just what the board of trustees of the Academy of Music had in mind when they announced their new strategy at the Gala for the Academy of Music at the Hotel Northampton on September 6. The idea is to create a guild of local performing arts groups to bring their work and audiences to the Academy so that the focus of the venue becomes about the performing arts again. Said McInerney, “When you walk into that theatre and feel the history and resonance of the great performers who have sung, spoken and danced on that stage you know that it’s a place for live performance. I am so happy to be a part of the movement to bring that back. And DON JUAN will be the perfect show for the Academy. I hope that people will come to enjoy it. I don’t have a track record in Northampton, but my Deerfield audience loved it. It got great reviews. Chris Rohmann, who is very discerning, gave us a real rave.” Indeed, Rohmann, who is the theatre critic for WFCR and the Valley Advocate had this to say about the production, “This excellent staging of Molière’s comic investigation of deceit, lust and hypocrisy is deliciously irreverent, delightfully relevant and deliriously funny. The new translation by Virginia Scott is graceful, authentic and eminently playable.”
This new production of Molière’s comedy DON JUAN is translated by Virginia Scott and produced and directed by Linda McInerney. Virginia Scott is Professor Emerita of Theater, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She has translated a number of Molière’s prose plays including THE MISANTHROPE and THE MISER published by Broadway Play Publishing. Her biography of the playwright, Molière: A Theatrical Life, has been praised by the Economist, Library Journal, The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books and to quote the Washington Post is, “...eminently readable… scholarly without lapsing into jargon, witty without straining to be clever, flavorously personal but never self-indulgent.” Said McInerney, “DON JUAN is not often produced because it is controversial, has a wildly dark sense of humor, and a shocking ending. It is a great honor to be directing Virginia’s translation of the play as it really embraces the humor and theatricality of the piece. So often when you do a classic play in translation it’s hard to find the theatrical teeth of it. In this translation, Molière’s theatrical genius shines through. The comic bits are right there. The humor plays beautifully. And the political hit of the play just crackles. I was attracted to the play because it doesn’t just deal with Don Juan’s promiscuity, although it is always fun to do a play that is filled with sexuality. But for him that is one step in his escalating hubris – it gets really interesting when he takes on other social structures like family and God. I think his speech about hypocrisy is one of the most prescient things I’ve heard in years. I can feel the collective audience gasp every time I hear it. There are some folks in Washington might want to give it a listen.”

Don Juan, the “Seducer of Seville,” originated as a hero-villain of Spanish folk legend, is a famous lover and scoundrel who has made more than a thousand sexual conquests. Witty, urbane, and poetic in its prose, DON JUAN is, most importantly, as funny now as it was for audiences when it was first presented. Scott’s new translation captures the comedy, dark wit, and brilliant theatricality of the original. Kate Thaw is the costume designer and the visual inspiration for the piece comes from the Baroque painter, Carravagio whose rich colors, dramatic lighting, which Paul Yager will be interpreting, and dramatic subjects are akin to the flavor of the play. The cast includes: Steve Eldrege as Don Juan with Marina Goldman, Bill Stewart, Ben Clark, Jon Polgar, Dylan Flye, Cambrian Thomas-Adams, John Reese, Michael Fleck, Sigrid Van Wendell and Moe McElligott. And Paula Kimper, the composer of the Captivation of Eunice Williams, composed and performs accompanying music along with sound design by Christopher Isshi. Tickets are $18-$15 and are available at: www.tix.com or by calling (800) 595-4TIX (4849) or can be purchased at the Academy of Music box office on the night of the show.