Soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and the Inner Sanctums
of The Third Reich Collide in
Der Kanarienvogel
(The Canary)
A Play with Music Featuring Arias by
Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Strauss
Written and Directed By Steven Carl McCasland
Part of the Festival of Plays by Steven Carl McCasland
Featuring 5 Plays in Repertory at New York City’s Clarion Theatre
NEW YORK, NY, May 8, 2015 – DER KANARIENVOGEL (THE CANARY), a new play by Steven Carl McCasland, will be presented this May at New York City’s Clarion Theatre.
Soprano Anna Kirkland stars as soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf in DER KANARIENVOGEL (THE CANARY). This play with music explores the life and career of Schwarzkopf, long believed to have been a Nazi sympathizer, and her connections to the inner sanctums of The Third Reich. Featuring arias by Giuseppe Verdi, Richard Strauss and more, the play takes an inside look at one of Nazi Germany’s untold stories.
THE CANARY is part of the month-long festival of five plays by Steven Carl McCasland running in repertory from May 7 through May 31 at The Clarion Theatre. Each play focuses on a different real-life story, with a cast of 25 portraying some of history’s most intriguing characters. View the trailer atwww.tinyurl.com/InRepertory.
The cast of THE CANARY features Anna Kirkland as Elisabeth Schwarzkoph, Brian Piehl as Mike Hamilton, Levi Morger as Joseph Goebbels, Ellyn Stein as Maria Ivogun, Mathew Martin as Karl Bohm,David Gautschy as Adolf Hitler, Kim Rogers as Kirsten Flagstad, Rick Grossman as Richard Strauss,Orlando Iriarte as Hermann Wilhelm Goring and Rachel Adams as Eva Braun.
The performance schedule for THE CANARY is as follows:
Saturday, May 9 at 1pm
Saturday, May 16 at 8pm
Sunday, May 17 at 8pm
Tuesday, May 19 at 7pm
Sunday, May 24 at 7pm
Saturday, May 30 at 1pm
THE CANARY is directed by Steven Carl McCasland. Lighting design is by Jessica Creager. Costume design is by Somie Pak. Hailli Ridsdale is the production stage manager.
Tickets can be purchased at http://BeautifulSoup.Showclix.com.
The Clarion Theatre is located at 309 East 26th Street in New York City.
About The Author
Steven Carl McCasland is the founder and Artistic Director of The Beautiful Soup Theater Collective, for which he has directed Lift, Rags, Moose Murders, Yentl, A Doll’s Life, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles, Twelfth Night, Crossing Brooklyn and more. He also directed the world premieres of his plays neat & tidy, BLACK [Billy Learns About Captain Kirk] and BLUE: a fable. Beautiful Soup was founded in the summer of 2010. Steven received his Bachelor in Arts for Directing from Pace University.
McCasland’s revivals of Rags and A Doll’s Life featured heavily revised librettos, painstakingly put together using many lost drafts. The end results were comprehensive looks at long-troubled musicals in rare New York revivals.
In the spring of 2006, he founded Group Therapy Productions, the first student-run production company on campus. He produced and directed ten theatrical productions during his four years at Pace University, including an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the school’s courtyard. Other productions include A Streetcar Named Desire, Dog Sees God, Death of a Salesman, Antigone, Medea, Falsettos, Proof, The Laramie Project and The Diary of Anne Frank.
In 2009, Steven was commissioned to adapt poet Jack Wiler’s anthologies into a solo performance about Wiler’s struggle with HIV. That play, Fun Being Me, was workshopped with Jack in the title role before his passing in 2009. His other plays, When I’m 64, Hope & Glory, The Tip, Opheliacs Anonymous, Fifth Position, Blue, Pulchritudinous (Huntington Award in Playwriting – First Place), neat & tidy and Billy Learns About Captain Kirk have all received productions regionally and in Manhattan.
A classically trained pianist, Steven’s musical direction and conducting credits include Falsettos, The Wizard of Oz, Aida, Godspell, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Thoroughly Modern Millie, Imagine That, The Secret Garden and You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
In June of 2011, Steven premiered his original adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Setting Wonderland in the heart of Paris, he also directed. After its one week workshop, Alice Au Pays Des Merveilles was picked up for an extended run at The SoHo Playhouse through September. His play neat & tidy made a splash on the Bowery in May of 2012, with critics hailing the play as one of the Top Dramatic Plays of the year.
While not at the theater, Steven maintains life as a private vocal and acting coaching, prepping New York actors on new material and for upcoming auditions. In addition, he runs a blog of free, public domain monologues, all written by him.
In Repertory
THE CANARY is being presented in repertory with Little Wars, 28 Marchant Avenue, What Was Lost and neat & tidy.
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