Published: November 13, 2008 11:38 pm      

THEATER: 'The Rink' rolls to NU

Roller skating on stage without careening into the front row seats is the current challenge for a group of student actors at Niagara University.

Stage manager Kurt Erb hopes for a visceral response from the audience when “The Rink,” opens tonight with a preview performance at the Leary Theatre.

“I hope the audience is both excited and in awe of the little tricks that they do. They go quite quickly and they get pretty close to the audience, so I hope they (the audience) lean back a little bit,” Erb said.

The play is a story about an estranged daughter, Angel, and her mother, Anna — played on Broadway by Liza Minnelli and Chita Rivera — who reunite after the mother has forged her daughter’s signature to have their skating rink demolished.

At the start of the second act, six men who come to demolish the rink find some skates and put them on for a big production number that ensues.

Skating, however, is not the only stretch the actors are asked to make. Each male has at least three other roles to play while the mother and daughter examine their lives in flashback.

“There’s a lot of costume changes,” Erb said about the backstage challenges of stage managing the fast paced tempo of the show and its quickly changing male actors. “It’s kind of fun to see them play little old ladies,” he said.

“The Rink,” is a lesser known musical from the acclaimed composer John Kander, who also wrote the music of such Broadway productions as “Cabaret,” “Fosse” and “Chicago,” with his partner, the now deceased lyricist Fred Ebb.

Kander is a long-time friend of Brother Augustine Towey, the director of the production, and will be visiting the school to attend rehearsals and mentor the students, as he has done for past Kander-Ebb musicals the school has produced.

“He’s always willing to come here and be with the students and talk with them,” said Towey. “He says that what he loves is the passion and the love we have for theater.”

While this Kander production is not as well known as the others, Towey said he enjoys “The Rink,” for what he calls its essential truth. “It’s about people who think they want something desperately and then discover it’s not what they want,” he said. “I think that’s kind of universal and that we all do that at times in our lives.”

And while “The Rink,” is not as dark as some of Kander’s other musicals, “it has a wonderful, solid script where these two women who have been at odds with each other for years come to a resolution,” Towey said.

There is also a parallel story line in the script, according to the stage manager. In the story, the rink is about to be demolished. In real life, the Leary Theatre is also about to undergo a demolition, of sorts. In May, the theater will receive a major renovation.

“This is the last year at Leary Theatre as we know it,” Erb said.



IF YOU GO

WHAT: “The Rink,” a musical performed by Niagara University’s Department of Theatre and Fine Arts

WHEN:Today through Nov. 23.

WHERE: Leary Theatre, Niagara University, Lewiston

MORE INFORMATION: For tickets call the box office at 286-8685 or visit www.niagara.edu/theatre.



American composer John Kander and his partner Fred Ebb, who wrote the music and lyric’s for Niagara University’s production of “The Rink,” which opens tonight, were one of Broadway's longest-running musical partnerships.

For about 50 years, before Ebb died in 2004, they created the music to some of the best known productions of the American musical stage including “Cabaret,” “Chicago,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman” and almost a dozen more.

Their body of work represents “some of the best writing ever to be produced in the genre,” according to Brother Augustine Towey, who is directing the production for the university.

Together Kander and Ebb have won Tonys on stage, Oscars in films and Emmys on television. They've written for the great musical performers of our day including: Liza Minnelli, Lauren Bacall, Joel Grey, Gwen Verdon, Frank Sinatra, Robert Goulet, Chita Rivera, and Barbra Streisand.

Some of their other works include:

“Flora the Red Menace,” “The Happy Time,” “Fosse,” “Curtains,” “New,” “Steel Pier,” “The Visit,” “Woman of the Year,” “Zorba,” “The Act,” “All About Us” and “A Family Affair.”