Shadowland: “A Hilarious Tale of Passion” Shadowland Stages will anchor its summer with the American premiere of a new play, Bang Bang!, by comic actor John Cleese of Monty Python fame. Saucy secrets unravel in this Jane Blass R. A. Jones hilarious tale of passion among the Julia Register Ed Rosini French upper class, an adaptation of the Georges Feydeau farce Monsieur Chasse! The opportunity to help develop this new work represents a major landmark for Shadowland, confirming their Sean Astin K. McAfferty S. Shepherd Paul Murphy position as one of the country’s upand-coming theatre-makers and a place for sitcom Fawlty Towers, with Cleese receiving the BAFTA artists to share and refine new plays. Best Entertainment Georges Feydeau (1862-1921) was a French for playwright of the era known as the Belle Performance. Cleese also The Secret Époque. Though critics at his time dismissed co-founded Feydeau’s works as light entertainment, he is Policeman’s Ball benefit to Dakota Rose now recognized as one of the great French raise funds for human rights playwrights of his era. His plays are seen organization, Amnesty International. Directed by James Glossman, the cast today as precursors of Surrealist and Dada theatre, and the Theatre of the Absurd. They includes Julia Register, Ed Rosini, Jane have been revived and are still performed Blass, Robert Anthony Jones, Sean Astin, today, 17 of them having been performed on Kathy McCafferty, Scott Shepherd, Paul Murphy and Dakota Rose. Broadway between 1895 and 1992. The play runs August 10-September 9 In the late 60s, John Cleese co-founded Monty Python, the comedy troupe responsible at Shadowland Stages, 157 Canal Street for Monty Python’s Flying Circus and the Ellenville. Box office: 845-647-5511. P.S.: There’s still some time to catch Honky famous films. Cleese and his first wife, Connie Booth, co-wrote and starred in the British Tonk Laundry, running through August 5.
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Delaware & Hudson CANVAS
August 2018
Mokotoff Plucks at Pacem Classical guitarist and former Middletown resident Charles Mokotoff holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in guitar performance from Syracuse University and Ithaca College, respectively. He has served on the faculties of numerous colleges and universities in the New York and New England area as a lecturer in classical guitar and lute. Prior to settling in the Washington, DC area in 1991, Mokotoff made his home in New England where he was widely recognized as an active guitarist and Renaissance lute player during the 1980s. During that period his career culminated with two Far East tours and a well-received NYC debut in Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall in 1987, featuring the premiere of Autumn Elegy by William Coble, written and dedicated to him. In May, 2009 he performed a solo concert for the Grand Montgomery Chamber Music Series and this is his first “reappearance” in the area since that full-house concert. Mokotoff has been hard of hearing for a good deal of his life and is an outspoken proponent of “making music with hearing loss”. He is a member of the Association of Adult Musicians with Hearing Loss. Growing up in Middletown, his mother, Gertrude Mokotoff, is a former mayor of the city. “I started like everyone else, playing
guitar in a rock band at around 13 or 14.” He began to experience hearing loss at 15, but says, “I just put some blinders on, and ignored the apparent futility of it and kept at it.” He kept playing right up through college and at 17 when he met someone playing classical guitar, it changed his whole focus. “I was totally awed by it. I picked up a classical guitar somewhere, and just kept on plugging,” said Charles. “One of the good things about getting older is the ability to interpret music naturally.” Mokotoff also serves on the board of Chester-based Music for Humanity and is essential to the yearly selecting of the group’s scholarship winners. Get strung up on Mokotoff when he strums, plucks and entertains at Pacem in Terris, 96 Covered Bridge Road, Warwick, on August 26 at 5:00pm. Arrive early and visit the museum. Visit: www.frederickfranck.org