Around Town

Town Players of New Canaan Present ‘The Effect’ Sept. 4 to 14

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[The NewCanaanite.com Summer Internship Program is sponsored by Karp Associates.]

For two weeks in September, the Town Players of New Canaan will present “The Effect” – a production that Patricia Spugani, co-president of TPNC, calls “intellectually and emotionally challenging.”

“The Effect” centers on two volunteers, Tristan and Connie, who fall in love during a clinical trial for a dopamine-based antidepressant. Their romance disrupts the trial, leaving their doctors, Dr. James and Dr. Toby, to grapple with ethical questions about their work. The play explores questions about sanity, love, and the limits of medicine. “It blends ethics, romance, and neuroscience into one play,” Spugani said. 

The play’s director, Tyler Small—who some may recognize as Andy Dufresne in the TPNC production of “The Shawshank Redemption”—said, “It’s a really important story living in today’s age. He added: “I think it’s really important.

Powerhouse Theater

Dracula: A feminist Revenge Fantasy, Really.

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Town Players of New Canaan present a new approach to Dracula:
Kate Hamill’s new adaptation, “Dracula, a Feminist Fantasy, Really”
Will be performed at New Canaan’s Powerhouse Theatre in October, the spooky season. Come see Dracula and his household ‘play with their food, pursued by ‘lady doctor’ Van Helsing. Will the hunter become the hunted? It’s bloody good fun, for ages 14 and up. Buy your tickets Now!

Around Town

Theater Festival Opens Thursday at Powerhouse with ‘What’s Done Is Done’ [Q&A]

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This week, the Broadway Bound Theater Festival (background here) launches at the Powerhouse Theatre in Waveny, presented by the Town Players of New Canaan. We put some questions to Alan Richards, a contributing playwright whose work, “What’s Done Is Done,” opens the festival at 7 p.m. Thursday (tickets here). Here’s our exchange. ***

New Canaanite: Give our readers some of your own background. When did you start playwriting?

Around Town

Podcast: ‘Alice In Wonderland’ Opens April 26 at Powerhouse Theatre

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This week on 0684-Radi0, our free podcast (subscribe here in the iTunes Store), we talk to Peter Green, director of “Alice In Wonderland”—and a different version than many are familiar with—which opens April 26 at the Powerhouse Theatre in Waveny (tickets here). Presented by the Town Players of New Canaan, the show runs weekends through May 12. 

Here are recent episodes of 0684-Radi0:

Around Town

Q&A: ‘Words from the Front’ Coming March 9-10 to Powerhouse Theatre

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The Town Players of New Canaan this weekend presents a new multimedia production that organizers say “captures the effect of the war on real people—Russians, living in fear and moral outrage; a Ukrainian soldier, fighting for the life of his country and his family; a Ukrainian couple, shedding light on the war and on their immigration to the United States.” Using real correspondence (texts, emails, social media posts) that followed the invasion, “Words from the Front” so far has raised about $7,000 for the UNICEF Foundation’s Relief Fund for Ukrainian Children, and all proceeds from Saturday (8 p.m.) and Sunday’s (2 p.m., with a talkback after) performances will be donated to the same charity. (Tickets here.)

We put some questions to co-writers Nancy Herman and Lynda Sorensen. Here’s our exchange. ***
New Canaanite: What is “Words from the Front”? Nancy Herman: Words from the Front is a multi-media performance which began to take shape at the very beginning of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in March 2022. It is composed of actual text messages, Facebook posts, IMs and emails that have been exchanged in real time between my Russian friends and me, and my daughter Olivia and a Ukrainian soldier who is fighting in the war.