Contact: Olwen
O’Herlihy Phone: 413-667-3906
olwenoherlihy@hotmail.com
Where: The Academy of Music, Northampton
Massachusetts
Date and Time: Sunday, October 30th, 2011 at
2:30pm
In
February 1989, A. R. Gurney’s play LOVE
LETTERS had been presented in New York for limited performances with a
different actress and actor alternating in the roles of Andrew Makepeace Ladd
III and Melissa Gardner, both Waspish, high society and wealthy Americans. Those
who, nowadays, are blind to the needs of the world around them. We see Andrew
Makepeace Ladd III and Melissa Gardner over a period of 50 years, as the author
carries them from second grade through the trauma of adulthood, marriage, divorce
and middle age. For a fleeting one and a half hours, he takes us with humor,
understanding, and love of all stages of youth and age at love in letter
writing – reading and sometimes not receiving!
Vincent Dowling and Mary Linda Rapelye will be recreating these roles at
The Academy of Music in Northampton Massachusetts, on October 30th,
2011 Sunday 2:30pm.
A.R. Gurney, is one of the most prolific and
produced playwrights in America. His work focuses primarily on the issues and
realities of middle-class American life.
His breakthrough success came in 1982 with The Dining Room. Gurney
is the recipient of many awards, notably a Drama Desk Award in 1971, a
Rockefeller Award in 1977 and two Lucille Lortel Awards in 1989 and 1994.
He has also received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts, the
Rockefeller Foundation, and the New England Theatre Conference.
Vincent Dowling is a Lifetime Associate Director of
The Abbey Theatre, The National Theatre of Ireland and former Artistic
Director, later Producing Director in North America. He led the company on its
first visits to the Soviet Union, Hong Kong, Brighton, Florence International
Festivals, and, in 1990 the Abbey Theatre’s first national tour of America in fifty-
five years. Earlier, he served The Abbey Theatre from 1953 to 1976 as an
actor, director, Deputy Artistic Director, and Director of the Experimental
Theatre. From 1976 through 1984, he was Artistic and Producing Director
of The Great Lakes Shakespeare Festival in Ohio where he directed, produced, acted
in Shakespeare, and other
classical works. In 1977, he discovered Tom Hanks, brought him to GLSF, and
gave him his Equity card. Tom returned for two more seasons, and credits
Dowling with “teaching him everything he needed to know about the
theatre”. Vincent has, also, directed
at a number of America’s leading professional resident theatres, Off
Broadway, and in London’s West
End. Vincent has performed on three State occasions at The White House,
as well as, in New York, Dublin, and on National tours in which he has
performed THE GIN GAME with Kim Hunter,
and his own One- Man Shows . Dowling presented the first ever 8 ½ hour
production by an American company of
The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby in Chicago and
Cleveland. He won an Emmy for his PBS TV production and direction
of THE PLAYBOY OF THE WESTERN WORLD By John Millington Synge Recently, Dr.
Dowling directed a very successful production of THE RIVALRY by Norman Corwin
for a three month Off Broadway run. He is the Founder and President of The
Miniature Theatre of Chester, an Equity company in the Berkshires and for a
decade he served on The International Artistic Directorate of London’s
Shakespeare Globe Theatre.
MARY LINDA RAPELYE film, stage and television star, has most recently played Adele Douglas to
superb reviews in New York and on tour in The
Rivalry and worked in the feature films The Box
starring Cameron Diaz, The Proposal starring Sandra Bullock, and This
Side Of The Truth starring Jennifer
Garner . She appeared in the original version of STAR TREK as Chekhov’s
girlfriend “Irina” in the episode “The Way to Eden”. She has also performed the
role of Maggie Crawford for six years
on As
The World Turns, Faith Kipling on One
Life To Live, as well as roles on
Ironsides, and Medical Center and
as Senator Baker’s wife in the made- for -T.V.-movie Blind Ambition about John
Dean and Richard Nixon. Her other movie
credits include In Cold Blood (Susan
Kidwell) directed by Richard Brooks and Marooned
(Gregory Peck’s daughter) directed by John Sturges, Manchurian Candidate
with Meryl Streep.
Western
Massachusetts theatergoers have only one opportunity to see the Vincent Dowling
Theatre Company’s presentation at the Academy of Music in Northampton.
Order your ticket
now! Tickets: $15 students and seniors, $20 general admission and $25 for VIP
seating. Please contact boxoffice@academyofmusictheatre.com
or by calling 413-584-9032 ext: 105
More Information
Box Office Phone 413-209-2164
 Vincent Dowling, Director |
| Links |
| Contact Information |
The Vincent Dowling Theatre Company
Post Office Box 519
Huntington MA. 01050