The Festival Begins!

Welcome back to the Heritage Blog! Hard to believe we’re already here, but the first show of the Heritage Theatre Festival season opens this Friday! That’s right, you heard me, THIS FRIDAY. As in two days. From now. Unless you’re reading this late… in which case it might already be open and you’re missing it. Or maybe you’re reading it during intermission, in which case I hope you are enjoying yourself! If you don’t have tickets yet, get them now – the shows are selling out fast. Go, go, click the box office link above. Go on, I’ll wait…

Phew, isn’t that a relief? So, you’ve got your tickets for Middletown and you can’t wait to see it; but you’re thinking to yourself – what’s next? Well, I’ll tell you. It’s Woody Guthrie’s American Song. That’s what’s next. And trust me, you’re not going to want to miss this one either. I’ve been talking to the cast and they are tearing it up in rehearsals. This is a super talented group of musicians and actors, and actor-musicians; heck, there are even some musician-actors; and they are all looking forward to showing you what they’ve been up to in just 9 days time!

So we’ve mentioned that Woody Guthrie’s American Song is an exploration of Woody Guthrie’s catalog, but haven’t had the chance to talk about how the heck it all ties together into a show yet. The main through-line is that the cast of 5 take on several characters that embody the feeling of Guthrie’s music in different times and places. The amount of responsibilities our actors juggle is pretty amazing, they have to move seamlessly between scene and song, playing their own instruments, and beautifully weaving together tight, complex harmonies. Seriously, this music is beautiful.

Alisa Ledyard, a member of this band of intrepid performers, talked with us about how exciting it is to work on something that at the outset seems very simple, but when you break it down becomes increasingly intricate. And based on the laughter coming out of the rehearsal rooms, the rest of the creative team seems to be loving it, too.

I know what you are thinking now. You don’t want to wait 9 days! You want to see what this show is all about as soon as possible. Well, I have good news for you. If you head down to the Charlottesville City Market bright and early this Saturday, you will get to see the cast of Woody Guthrie’s American Song live and in person. The cast will be performing live from the Market on WTJU’s Atlantic Weekly show around 9:00am.

We can’t wait to see people turning up this weekend as Middletown gets things rolling, we’ve got a feeling that this is going to be a summer of theater to remember.