By Bonnie Langston
Freeman staff

The 25th anniversary season of Shadowland Theatre, in Ellenville, will kick off May 29 with Arthur Miller’s “The Price” featuring notables Orson Bean and Stephanie Zimbalist.

Bean, a stage, film and TV actor, is known for his longtime role as a panelist in television’s “To Tell the Truth,” while Zimbalist grabbed the attention of viewers in her portrayal of Laura Holt on the NBC detective series “Remington Steele.”

“The Price,” a title that refers to the cost of decisions people make in their lives, first appeared on stage in 1968. But Brendan Burke, Shadowland’s producing artistic director, said the drama’s message is as pertinent today as it was then.

“As society cycles around, (Miller’s) plays become relevant again every 20 years. I mean, they’re always relevant, but really timely again every so often,” Burke said. “We did ‘All My Sons’ a few years ago, which could have been ripped right out of the headlines, although that was a play originally written in the 1950s. ‘The Crucible’ is another example.”

The remaining season also comprises “Almost Maine,” “Gutenberg! The Musical!” “Accomplice” and “American Buffalo.” The plays include a comedy, small musical and a few “edgier” — thought-provoking, relevant and less frequently staged pieces — a formula that has worked well for the theater through the years, Burke said.

In “The Price,” Zimbalist plays the wife of a city cop who sacrificed his life to care for his father, who lost everything in The Great Depression. Bean is the comic relief as a crafty, ancient antique dealer.

“It’s a wonderful, wonderful role,” Burke said, “so I can’t imagine he’s going to be anything less than brilliant in it. He’s perfect for it.”

“Almost Maine” follows, starting June 19. The play, a series of love stories, was written by John Cariani, who received a Tony Award nomination for his performance in the recent Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof.” The Shadowland staging will be his directorial debut.

The play opened in its namesake state, became a hit, and moved to New York and beyond. Burke said it is one of the most popular works on stages of regional theaters throughout the country.

“It’s a very charming, truthful, honest … romantic series of stories,” Burke said. Continued...

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“Gutenberg! The Musical!” a spoof on Broadway musicals by Scott Brown and Anthony King, which opens July 17, is an obvious contrast.

“It’s kind of like a mix of ‘Forbidden Broadway’ and ‘The Complete Works of Shakespeare, Abridged,’ (a play in which three performers execute all the works of the bard in 1 1/2 hours,) Burke said.

“It’s two aspiring and thoroughly misguided musical-theater writers who’ve written what they see as the penultimate biographical musical, and they’ve chosen (the reputed first European to print with moveable type, Johann) Gutenberg, of all people, to write it about.”

The authors think they are auditioning a collection of interested producers, but Burke said, “It’s just them, 30 hats and a piano. ‘Zany’ would be the word for that show.”

“Accomplice,” by Rupert Holmes, has some laughs of its own. But there’s much more to the show scheduled to open Aug. 14.

“It’s a comic, murder-mystery chiller kind of script. I think I’ve billed it as ‘Agatha Christie meets Monty Python,’” Burke said. “It’s not silly enough to be a true comedy, but there is comic in it …. There’s plot-twist after plot-twist after plot-twist, which leads to a very surprising ending. It’s really one of the greatest roller-coaster rides that have been written in the last 20 years.”

The season-ender “American Buffalo,” by David Mamet, should be a memorable conclusion to Shadowland’s quarter-century mark. Frank Rich, in a review for “The New York Times, called it “one of the best American plays of the last decade.”

“There’s a thriller aspect to it, it’s a drama, and it’s also, I mean it’s Mamet. It’s very, very, very funny — profane, but funny.”

Just as the season opener, “The Price,” is relevant today, addressing issues that include the economy, so does “American Buffalo,” which opens Sept. 11.

“It’s an iconic American play,” Burke said. “I’d call it a view of American business from the underbelly. It’s the low end of capitalism.” Continued...

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The play features three men who plot a heist of rare coins, in a pawn shop, but they can’t seem to get out of their own way, Burke said.

Unlike the “disappointing” production in a massive Broadway house this past winter, Burke said, he expects the 148-seat Shadowland Theatre to provide the kind of intimacy that play — and the others — call for.

“We have this beautiful space to see a show, and we always keep that in mind with the shows we’re choosing,” he said. “I think each of these scripts benefit from being done in our particular venue, where you’re really just kind of sitting on the edge of the action, it’s right there for you, kind of eavesdropping in on it.”

In addition to the intimate space, he said the theater has additional plusses. The facade is new since last season, and water leaks within the building have been resolved.

“There was this one nasty place in the inner lobby that has come and gone. It never really affected the audience …,” Burke said. “Sometimes backstage, in the office and elsewhere we’ve been battling water in this building forever. We’ve made great headway over the last five years.”

In addition to hiring performers through Actors Equity Association, a union of professional actors and stage managers, the theater enhances performers’ abilities through new sound and lighting systems installed within the past four years.

“We’re now, technical-wise,” Burke said, “sitting in a theater easily of Broadway quality.”

He gives high marks to the theater’s stagecraft as well.

Resident set designer Drew Francis, head of the design department at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., is among personnel he praised. Francis does “incredible” work, according to Burke, often aided by student interns.

Aside from Burke’s many aforementioned reasons for audiences to show up this season at Shadowland, he said the price is right. Continued...

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“Easily the best bargain probably anywhere on the East Coast,” he said. “I’m only slightly hyperbolic about that.”

Ticket prices range from $21 to $26, depending upon factors like the date and any available discounts. The lowest subscription rate, for Sunday afternoons, is $95.

“That’s less than $20 a ticket, and you get five shows. You’re seeing the same people you would see on Broadway; there’s no tolls, there’s no trip to New York (City), there’s no parking hassles,” he said. “There’s none of that to deal with. Being affordable is very important to us. We want to be as accessible to as many people as possible.”

In addition, the theater has a program on Thursday and Friday nights called “Pay What You Can,” and that’s exactly what it means. The only hitch is unsold seats must be available when a potential ticket-purchaser comes by on those days or possibly the day before.

“We’ve been doing that for sometime, and this year we’re trying to push it up in all of our publicity a little bit more because I think in these times even $26 could be a tough nut to crack for some people,” Burke said. “I’m not just saying this because it sounds good. We really want our stuff to be accessible to everybody. We believe the theater should be relevant, and we believe it has a place in people’s lives, not just certain people’s lives.”

In fact, part of Shadowland’s mission is to offer productions that touch and speak to everyone, Burke said, not just musicals and comedies more typical of summer fare in the Catskills.

“We try to go a little bit beyond that, to try to do stuff that’s a little bit more contemporary and a little more relevant,” he said, “not necessarily as popular as (plays) other theaters would offer.”

For ticket information about Shadowland Theatre, 157 Canal St., in Ellenville, call the box office at (845) 647-5511, or visit the Web site www.shadowlandtheatre.org.

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