SU Drama closes 2005-06 season with Sondheim’s ‘A Little Night Music’ beginning April 28

Thursday, April 20, 2006, By News Staff

SU Drama closes 2005-06 season with Sondheim’s ‘A Little Night Music’ beginning April 28April 20, 2006SU News ServicesSUnews@syr.edu

The Syracuse University Drama Department will close its 2005-06 season with composer/lyricist Stephen Sondheim’s “A Little Night Music,” a tale of love triangles, beginning April 28. The show runs through May 13 in the Storch Theatre, located at the SU Drama/Syracuse Stage complex, 820 East Genesee St., Syracuse. Drama professor Anthony Salatino directs, with John Pike as musical director.

Everything seems to come in threes in “A Little Night Music,” inspired by the Ingmar Bergman film “Smiles of a Summer Night.” The show opens in turn-of-the-century Sweden with family matriarch Madame Armfeldt explaining the “three smiles of summer” to 13 year-old granddaughter, Fredrika. While Fredrika is still too young to comprehend her grandmother’s wistful remembrances of the liaisons of her youth, Fredrika’s mother, Desiree, certainly understands.

Desiree, a traveling actress, is involved in one of the show’s three love triangles. Tiring of her buffoon of a lover, Count Carl-Magnus Magnum, Desiree becomes re-acquainted with old flame Fredrik Egerman, a lawyer. Now married, Fredrik is frustrated because his 18-year-old wife, Anne, is still a virgin after 11 months of marriage. Seeking comfort with his old lover Desiree, Fredrik is disturbed by the feelings he still has for her.

Although Desiree and Fredrik’s romance would provide more than enough passion for most musicals, author Hugh Wheeler takes this story through many more twists and turns. While Fredrik is off with Desiree, his bride entertains herself by endlessly teasing her stepson, Fredrik’s adult son Henrik. Henrik, though studying to enter the ministry, is madly in love with his new stepmother. He tries to take out his frustrations on the family maid, the flirtatious Petra, but she only teases him.

In the third triangle, Count Carl-Magnus, enraged when he suspects Desiree has taken another lover, enlists the most unlikely of assistants–his wife, Charlotte–to help him win Desiree back. Tired of her husband’s philandering, Charlotte devises her own plan to steal back his attention. When the entire cast of characters converges on the Armfeldt estate for a charming weekend in the country, passions quickly spin out of control, often with hilarious results. Senior Victoria Huston-Elem is Madame Armfeldt. Senior Evelyn Gaynor is Desiree. Portraying the role of Fredrika is sophomore Kirstin Dahmer. Junior Brendan Mack is Fredrik Egerman. Alternating performances in the role of Anne are seniors Lani Corson and Kelsey Crouch-Pinter. Sophomore Benjamin G. Coleman is Henrik. Senior Rachel Moulton will play Petra.

Rounding out the cast is senior Maximilian Osinski as Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm, and junior Sydney Ransom as Charlotte.

Tickets for “A Little Night Music” are $18 for adults and $16 for students and senior citizens. “Pay what you can night” for valid S.U. ID holders is May 10. For tickets and more information, contact the SU Drama Department Box Office at 443-3275 or visit http://vpa.syr.edu/drama.