Weston Playhouse ‘Metamorphoses’ Coming to Chandler October 28

The award-winning Weston Playhouse Theatre Company will bring Mary Zimmerman’s Tony Award-winning adaptation of "Metamorphoses" to Chandler Music Hall in Randolph Saturday, October 28 at 7:30 p.m.

Hailed by the critics as "deeply affecting" (Time magazine) and "a combination of agile storytelling and enthralling stagecraft" (Wall Street Journal), "Metamorphoses" brings a contemporary, often humorous, sensibility to the timeless myths of Ovid. The 90-minute show features 10 famous tales, from Midas and his golden touch to Phaeton and Apollo’s chariot.

Weston Playhouse Resident Producing Director Steve Stettler will direct Metamorphoses. Stettler, whose production of the musical "Floyd Collins" won the New England Theatre Conference’s Moss Hart Award for the Best Production in New England, has directed at major regional theatres in New York, across the country and internationally. The public is invited to a pre-performance talk with Steve Stettler in the Chandler Gallery starting at 6:45 p.m.

Weston’s "Metamorphoses" will be performed by a talented multi-racial ensemble, with each actor playing multiple roles. The cast includes Esther Barlow, Dan Colman, Susan Haefner, Will Pailen, Michelle Rios, Mark Thornton, and Amy Kim Waschke.

Director Stettler has given his production a Neverland-influenced framing device, having the stories told by a mother to her children. As the characters come to life around them, the children are drawn into the action, playing some roles themselves. While Zimmerman’s original production of "Metamorphoses" was staged in and around a large onstage swimming pool, the stage for Stettler’s production includes a large bed from which the Mother narrates the stories, a huge wall of windows that can reflect a variety of times and places, and a lower level that can be defined as a pool through physical business, billowing cloth, lighting and sound.

The only professional theatre in New England that tours its region annually, the non-profit Weston Playhouse is also the most recent theatre to have its touring program featured on the website of the National Endowment for the Arts. The WPTC Tour of "Metamorphoses" is block-booked in cooperation with the Arts Presenters of Northern New England and New England Presenters. The tour is supported in part by NEA funds with lead sponsorship from Lyman Orton and The Vermont Country Store and a generous contribution from Paul Newman. This Chandler presentation is sponsored locally by Gifford Medical Center and The Three Stallion Inn.

Reserved tickets may be purchased by calling the Chandler Box Office at 728-6464 or at tickets@chandler-arts.org.

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