[Capdist-announce] Fw: Area premier of "Duet for One, " Nov 13-14, 20-21, Boght Arts Center

[Charles Treadwell]

For Immediate Release: 
CONTACT: SCOTT B. ADAMS 518-785-ARTS  boghtarts at verizon.net 
  
  
Area premier of Duet For One at new Boght Arts Center 
  
D&M Productions, a local theater company founded by veteran actor Ed McMullen, will present the Capital District premier of Duet For One at the Boght Arts Center in Latham on Nov 13, 14, 20 and 21. 
  
The company specializes in two-and three-character pieces not previously staged in the area, including Faith Healer and Molly Sweeney by Brian Friel, Wrecks by Neil LaBute, and Chinese Coffee by Ira Lewis. 
  
Duet, written by Tom Kempinski, is loosely based on the late Jacqueline DuPre, the renowned cellist whose brilliant career was halted when she was stricken with Multiple Sclerosis. Her fictional counterpart in this play, Stephanie Abrahams, is a world-famous violinist who also finds herself at the mercy of MS. No longer able to play and descending into suicidal despair, Stephanie begins to see an existential psychiatrist, Dr. Feldman. The play, like HBO's In Treatment, focuses on their therapeutic sessions together. As Feldman probes Stephanie's psyche in an effort to help her find meaning despite the loss of her most cherished art, he encounters a woman of tremendous determination. The question emerges: will she use this characteristic to move beyond her emotional pain or will this determination falter and take Stephanie into further despondent descent? 
  
The play, which originated on the London stage in 1980, came to Broadway in late 1981 with Anne Bancroft and Max Von Sydow playing Stephanie and Feldman. 
  
In D&M’s upcoming rendition, McMullen is Feldman. In addition to founding the company in 1997, he has worked in several other theater companies, playing a wide spectrum of diverse characters, such as Roy Cohn in Angels In America, Valmont in Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Frank Hardy in Faith Healer, and Thomas Becket from Murder in the Cathedral.  McMullen has also directed productions of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Faith Healer, and Chinese Coffee. 
  
Michael Kennedy, playing Stephanie, has worked in local theatre for over thirty five years as an actor, director, producer and writer. For the past five years at NYSTI’s Theatre Arts School , Michael has taught acting and worked with other professionals and students to write and direct an original script each year. She has directed staged readings of David Mamet’s Oleanna, Neil Labute’s In A Dark, Dark House and The Mercy Seat at Home Made Theater’s Shuster Reader’s Series. 
  
Her most recent acting credits include A Delicate Balance (Agnes) with Steamer 10’s Theatre Voices, Betrayal (Emma) at Schenectady Civic Theater and Worlds of Shakespeare (Lady Macbeth, Goneril) at Albany Civic Theater. From 1998-2004, Michael was a member of Pentimento Playback Theatre, an improvisational theatre company that invites audience members to tell personal stories which are then immediately played back as theatre. 
  
F. Paul Dellio, a longtime collaborator with McMullen, is directing. Theatre art has been a part of Dellio’s life for 30 years.  He has directed, performed and choreographed in semi-professional, university and community theatre in the Capital District, for the Gary -The Olivia Theatre, in Bethlehem Connecticut and in SoHo .  Possessing a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre from SUNY at Albany , Mr. Dellio was trained as a classical dancer at The New York Conservatory of Dance, Skidmore College and Russell Sage College and the Emma Willard Dance Program.  Other notable artistic enterprises have been collaborating with The Capital Chamber Artists in new plays and operas, written and composed by area playwrights and composers. Dellio is also a playwright, presently researching a piece on the trial and execution of Edmund Campion.  He has directed several area liturgical choirs over a 30- year period. 
  
Duet for One will be the first dramatic production staged at The new Boght Arts Center Theatre.  The theatre has a maximum capacity of 120 and is arranged in a way that no one is more than 50 ft from the stage.   A limited amount of tables are available on a reservation only basis.   The Boght Arts Center Gallery will open 60 minutes prior to each performance & will be featuring photography from actor/photographer Leonard Nimoy and his “Shekhina” Exhibit. The pieces are on loan from The R. Michelson Galleries. 
  
Showtimes are at 8 pm for all performances. Admission is $15. For reservations, 
call 518 785-ARTS or reserve online at www.boghtarts.org 
  
The Boght Arts Center 583 Boght Rd.,  Cohoes , NY 12047 
(located 2 miles North of Latham Circle) 
  
DIRECTIONS: From I-87 (The Northway) Take Exit 7, Follow Signs to Route 9 North, Proceed 1 ½ miles to the intersection of Boght Road, Turn Right, proceed ½ block, Arts Center is on the Left. 




      
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