ELIZABETH ASPENLIEDER WINS ELLIOT NORTON « Merrimack Repertory Theatre Blog

Posted in Uncategorized on September 19th, 2009 by Elizabeth – Comments Off
via merrimackrep.wordpress.com

Actress Elizabeth Aspenlieder, star of the one-woman hit comedy, Bad Dates, which ran at Merrimack Repertory Theatre from March 19 to April 12, 2009, took home the award for Outstanding Solo Performance at the 27th Annual Elliot Norton Awards last night, May 11, at Harvard University’s Sanders Theatre in Cambridge.  Originally produced by Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, MA earlier this year,Bad Dates transferred to Merrimack Rep in March, where it ran for four very successful weeks and played to packed houses.  Bad Dates became Merrimack Rep’s 11th highest grossing production in its 30-year history.  When combined with the Company’s recent IRNE Awards, Ms. Aspenlieder’s Elliot Norton marks the fifth time in the past year that local reviewers have recognized a Merrimack Rep actor for an outstanding performance on the Liberty Hall stage.

The Elliot Norton Awards, now in their 27th year, recognize excellence in Greater Boston Theatre.  The awards, which are presented by the Boston Theater Critics Association, were founded in honor of Elliot Norton, who served as drama critic for Boston newspapers for forty-eight years and as moderator of Elliot Norton Reviews on WGBH-TV from 1958-1982.  At the event, actor Al Pacino accepted a Special Elliot Norton Award honoring the late Paul Benedict.  A complete list of winners can be foundhere.

Bad Dates was originally sponsored by Lowell Five Cent Savings Bank. Merrimack Repertory Theatre is funded in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.

Visit Merrimack Repertory Theatre Online

 

Posted via web from aspenlieder’s posterous

Theater Review: Theresa Rebeck’s ‘Bad Dates’

Posted in Uncategorized on September 19th, 2009 by Elizabeth – Comments Off

via online.wsj.com

Posted via web from aspenlieder’s posterous

LENOX, Mass. — How good can a fair play be? Pretty wonderful, actually — if you cast it right. Theresa Rebeck’s “Bad Dates,” which opened Off Broadway in 2003 and has since become a regional-theater staple, is the story of a ditsy Texas waitress with 600 pairs of shoes who moves to Manhattan, goes on a string of increasingly unsatisfactory dates, falls in with a bunch of Romanian gangsters and finds love without doing hard time. On paper it’s a cleverly written, overly cute one-woman romcom — and so it remained on stage when I saw Julie White perform it at Playwrights Horizons six years ago. But Elizabeth Aspenlieder, a splendid stage comedienne whose zany acting is part of what makes Shakespeare & Company the best theater troupe in the Berkshires, has miraculously contrived to turn Ms. Rebeck’s modest little show into a poignant slice of urban life that also happens to be drop-dead funny.