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June 2012 Role Players Ensemble Takes on Theatrical Masterpieces By Jody Morgan Role Players Ensemble (RPE) has an encore offering for audiences that rated their rollicking rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan’s Mikado worthy of standing ovations. Theater lovers who missed any or all of the RPE 2011-2012 season have the opportunity to enjoy three short, site-specific selections on June 23rd and 24th during a happening at Forest Home Farms enticingly entitled Tennessee on the Farm. RPE Artistic Director Eric Fraisher Hayes read 30 Tennessee Williams short plays before finding the three best suited to the San Ramon location. “By performing the works of Tennessee Williams, one of America’s greatest playwrights, on the farm we will be illuminating the relationship between our local heritage and our broader American heritage,” Hayes remarks. “The right play set in the right location can be magical.” Following appetizer and beverage service on the veranda of the Boone House, participants will move to the first seating area. Plays staged throughout the property will alternate with refreshment breaks. The Pretty Trap, a light-hearted piece eventually expanded by Tennessee Williams into The Glass Menagerie, opens the event. Meeting the characters before they evolved into their more familiar and more ominous roles is enlightening. Twenty Seven Wagons Full of Cotton, a tough, gritty drama about feuding farmers, follows. In the finale, The Case of the Crushed Petunias, a small-town New England woman gets the chance to escape from her mundane existence. RPE and the Rehearsing for Tennessee on the Farm (left to right) Eden San Ramon Historic Foundation Neuendorf and Craig Eychner. Photo courtesy of Role will share proceeds. Players Ensemble. Role Players opened in Danville as a community theatre company in 1983. In 1991 RPE formed a partnership with the Town of Danville allowing the group to move from storefront space to the Village Theatre. Today the more apt designation for this professional troupe would be theatre in the community. RPE has expanded its offerings to include lectures highlighting the historical setting and playwright’s vision for each upcoming production as well as casual cabaret evenings celebrating the musical genre of the era appropriate to the play currently on stage. “The Role Players mission is to provide high-quality professional theatre to Danville,” Florence McCauley, President of the RPE Board of Directors, explains. “Theatre is a very important part of a community’s culture. Role Players’ contribution of live theatre performances offers a cultural component that enriches everyone’s life.” Selection of the material to be mounted falls to the Artistic Director Eric Hayes who has held the post the past two seasons. Although his career took him to Chicago where he earned an MFA in Acting at De Paul University, Hayes is happy to be back in Danville, the town in which he grew up. Raising the expectations of local patrons was his first concern. “Role Players Ensemble has worked hard over the past two seasons to establish that we continually produce high-quality productions of a wide range of plays. For instance, this season we started with the rarely produced tragedy Mourning Becomes Electra and
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Serving Danville Wardrobe for Opportunity
By Fran Miller
Take a good look at the contents of your closet. Do you actually wear everything you own? Do some items still bear the original tags? The rule of thumb in the closet-organizer world is: if you haven’t worn an item in the past year, then consider getting rid of it. In doing so, you could be helping to change someone’s life for Wardrobe for Opportunity program the better. graduate Sara Aboei before (left) Donations to and after (right) her WFO interview Wardrobe for wardrobe consultation. Opportunity (WFO), of new and gently worn business clothing, accessories and shoes, help to empower low-income women and men to achieve economic viability and self-sufficiency. The successful and growing Bay Area nonprofit organization offers professional clothing, interview skills, and career support to those in need. WFO’s mission is to
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211
By Fran Miller Most people know to call 411 for phone information. Nearly everyone knows to call 911 to register a life-threatening emergency. Not so commonly known is the purpose of a 211 call – to receive information about emergencies declared in one’s town and outlying area. Taking it one step further is the Contra Costa County Community Warning System, which allows Contra Costa residents to register and, in turn, personally receive emergency information for their area. The Contra Costa County Community Warning System (CWS) allows residents to receive alerts on cell phones, via email or via Twitter. CWS is recognized as one of the nation’s most modern and effective all-hazard public warning systems and is a partnership of the Office of the Sheriff, the Health Services Department, other government agencies, industry, news media, and the non-profit Commu- Volume III - Number 8 nity Awareness & Emergency Response 3000F Danville Blvd. #117, Alamo, CA 94507 (CAER) organization – all of whom strive (925) 405-6397 to deliver time-sensitive and potentially life Fax (925) 406-0547 saving information to the people of Contra Alisa Corstorphine ~ Publisher Costa County. editor@ CWS alerts come in various forms: through yourmonthlypaper.com a Countywide telephone notification system, via sirens near major industrial facilities, and The opinions expressed herein belong to the writers, and do not necessarily in other special safety zones, through a cell reflect that of Danville Today News. Danville Today News is not phone voice notification service, via NOAA responsible for the content of any of weather radios, via radio, TV and cable, via the advertising herein, nor does
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publication imply endorsement.