LOTS OF NEWS THIS TIME – HOLD TIGHT! Our fall gathering, The Huddle, will be on Sunday, October 19th, not on the 5th; do come to socialize, to hear about our terrific upcoming season, and to meet the iconoclastic fashion doyenne, Diana Vreeland, personified by Patricia Till in her one-woman show, Full Gallop, which she presented on Nantucket this summer.

You have renewed your membership – right? Just $30, or $20 if you can contribute a mere 4 hours. And, you’ve sent in your season subscription? The address is P.O. Box 22, or phone 978 369 2990 if you’ve misplaced your form.

Auditions for our season’s opener, Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, drew lots of talent. The casting committee – Lynn Duvall, Iain Bason, and Fritz Kussin – chose Myron Feld for the role of Mavolio, Charlie Atherton for Sir Toby Belch, Pamela Dritt for Feste, Judith Broggi for Maria, and many actors new to our stage. Producers Lillian Anderson (978-369-1468), Sheryl Blair, (369-9749), and Dorothy Schecter (369-3259) would love some seamstresses and some set builders, a great opportunity to work on an exciting show. Director Thomas Caron will have his translation of Cocteau’s The Infernal Machine produced by Brown University this fall; his Town Cow Theater Company had a very successful summer season in Chamberlain Park.

We need your input! Under consideration for the newsletter is a migration from print to e-mail; you’d receive it automatically, about once a month, and could read it at leisure, then cut-and-paste snippets to interested friends. (It’s also a money-saver.) If you’d like to read our news this way, please send your e-mail address, with your name, to cwdolphin@aol.com. Thanks!

Now, your news. Shana Dirik is back on the boards, playing 5 different characters in Arlington Friends of the Drama’s hilarious musical comedy, No Way to Treat a Lady: Oct. 3, 4, 10, 11 at 8 p.m. and Oct. 5 & 12 at 2 p.m. Phone 781-646-5922, or visit www.afdtheatre.org.

Mike Finke will appear in the Fitchburg State College production of The Boys and Girls Next Door. It’s “The Boys Next Door” with 2 different casts, ‘a touching yet humorous show about 4 mentally-challenged individuals living in a group home, and the dedicated but burning-out social worker who cares for them.’ Dates are Nov. 4-15, with boys and girls cast on alternate nights; evenings at 7:30 p.m., with high school matinees on Nov. 5 & 13. The Nov 4 performance benefits the Worcester-area Association for Retarded Citizens. Contact Mike for more info., cplayers@finkelinks.net.

Joanne Hines writes from Florida that in June she audited Burt Reynolds Master Acting Class; yes, that one. She says he was his exuberant self, and gave excellent notes. After he discovered Joanne had attended the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, in NYC, he asked if she wanted to do a scene, but she declined.

Sheryl Peters will be in Inspecting Carole with Arlington Friends of the Drama, December 5-7 and 12-14: phone 781-646-5922, or go to www.afdtheare.org.…….Larry Peterson has turned what had been mostly a hobby into a career as a realtor with Coldwell Banker in Cambridge: ‘think of me as a match-maker for buyers and sellers, arranging cyber-dating for lonely homes.’ Contact Larry at 617-864-4430, or his voice mail at 617-245-3916……Jackson Royal got to dance on a giant keyboard this past summer in Foothills Theatre’s musical production of Big – a fantasy fulfilled?.....and Leslie Wagner is in the outrageous farce Don’t Dress for Dinner at Maynard’s Acme Theater, 61 Summer Street, from Sept. 19-Oct. 11, with Fri. and Sat shows at 8, Sunday at 3 p.m. Phone 978 823-0003, or visit www.acmetheater.com.
From Karen Sinclair comes information about The College Light Opera Company at the Highfield Theatre in Falmouth, MA. They provide fine Broadway musicals and a chance for college and university students to begin their careers in summertime musical theater; phone 508-548-0668. For your stage-struck son or daughter? …….Karen also reminds us that EMACT/The Eastern Massachusetts Association of Community Theatres will offer 2 half-day workshops this fall: The Care and Feeding of a Musical, on October 4, held at Bedford High School, and Connecting with the Lyrics of a Song, November 1, at Arlington Friends of the Drama. Cost is very moderate; contact Jean MacFarland, 183 Codman Road, Norwood MA 02063, jmacfar188@aol.com, or the website www.emact.org.

The town of Natick’s Council on Aging has a vibrant, committed group of actors at its Senior Center. They need a leader to provide direction, a wonderful opportunity to help out. Contact Susan Payes at the Center, 117 E. Central Street in Natick, ph. 508-647-6540, or at spayes@natickma.org. …..And: the term blackout appeared first not in connection with a power failure but in a quote from George Bernard Show: ‘there will have to be a blackout between scene.’
Keep sending your news to Claiborne Dawes, 978-368-5899, or to cwdolphin@aol.org. Next deadline is October 14th. And remember, tell me if you want to receive this the modern way, via e-mail; see paragraph #4 above. Many thanks!