Anne's Arts & Activities Blog

Both actors and technical crew are being sought for the next Bradford Little Theatre production, the comedy dinner theater show "Stay As Dead As You Are" by Lee Mueller. Directed by Kristin Asinger, the show will be presented April 20-22 at the Masonic Hall on South Avenue, Bradford. For the production team, Asinger is looking for anyone interested in helping with publicity, set, props, sound, costumes, servers or stage crew. People can contact Kristin at kristin_asinger@yahoo.com or can come to auditions. Auditions will be on Sunday, Feb. 26th from 3-5pm and Tuesday, Feb. 28th from 6:30-8pm at Bradford Little Theatre's new 79 Main St. offices. Perusal scripts are available at Bradford Public Library to be signed out for one day. Rehearsals will begin March 11. In this play, Haldeman High School class of 1982 is having a class reunion and it goes bad, really bad! With the same playwright and director as last year’s “I'm Getting Murdered in the Morning," the show...

The fourth annual “Beyond Funny” improvisational comedy show by the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford’s Pitt Improvers will raise money to benefit the Tuna Valley Trail Association and CARE for Children. The family-friendly show will take place at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 10 in the Bromeley Family Theater in Blaisdell Hall at Pitt-Bradford. Adult tickets are $5, and students and children are free. Tickets will be available at the door. Performers in the student improv troupe will create scenes on the spot based on suggestions from the audience. Last year’s show raised more than $1,000 for three Bradford-area nonprofit organizations. Kristin Asinger, Improvers advisor and visiting instructor of sports medicine, said that each year, the Improvers choose one to three organizations to be involved in the show. “The Tuna Valley Trail Association has made such an impact on our community for hikers, cross-country skiers and cyclists,” Asinger said of ch...

A children’s classic, a drama and a mystery dinner theater make up Bradford Little Theatre’s “Fun, Furious 15” season. The season kicks off in October with “Charlotte’s Web” and then moves on to the tension-filled “Twelve Angry Men” in February with the comic “Stay as Dead as You Are” in April. “It’s going to be great to offer another production featuring young people, a drama about jury deliberations in a murder case that touches on current events, and, by popular demand, our second dinner theater” said Nanci K. Garris, BLT president. “Charlotte’s Web” will offer both adults and students in grades 6 and up the opportunity to perform in the auditorium at Otto-Eldred Junior-Senior High School in Duke Center. Garris, who has directed young people in BLT’s “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever” and “A Christmas Story,” returns to direct the full-length play by Joseph Robinette. Story author E.B. White wrote to Robinette that “You have kept its spirit and my intent. Congratulations an...

Tryouts for the murder mystery dinner theater “I’m Getting Murdered in the Morning” will be held Monday and Tuesday (Jan. 10 and 11) from 7 to 9 p.m. at Bradford Area Public Library. Kristin Asinger will direct and produce the second show in Bradford Little Theatre’s “Out of the Box” season. Assistant directors will be Tim Asinger for improvisation work and Kathy Bryant, performance. Performances will be Feb. 25-27 at St. Bernard Educational and Social Hall on East Corydon Street. The performance includes audience participation and some improvisation, though Asinger stressed that no experience with improvisation is necessary. “We are looking for 14 people who can play together, as well as work together. There are roles for both men and women from late teens to their 70s, and both experienced performers and first-timers,” said the BLT board member. Also, Asinger is looking for cast members to play a wedding photographer, disc jockey and people who would help serve the buffet dinn...

Bradford Little Theatre has gone “Outside the Box” for its 14th season with new types of productions at all-new venues, including improvisation, fantasy and script “near hand.” “We are excited to be stretching our wings, reaching new audiences, and offering a full-scale production outside Bradford” said Nanci K. Garris, BLT president. “We will have new faces in new places.” The funny and poignant “Grace and Glorie” by Tom Zeigler opens the season with performances Oct. 8-10 at the auditorium of the First Presbyterian Church, 54 E. Corydon St. The two-woman show portrays the friendship between a feisty, illiterate, 90-year-old mountain woman and a transplanted New York City resident with a Harvard MBA. As part of Bradford Improv Month in February, BLT board member and Pitt Improvers advisor Kristin Asinger will direct the dinner theater “I’m Getting Married in the Morning.” That production will be held at St. Bernard Educational and Social Center on Feb. 25-27, with two evening shows an...

The Pitt Improvers, a student improvisational group at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, will perform its first free monthly show of the academic year tonight. The all-ages show will take place from 8 to 9:30 p.m. in the Mukaiyama University Room of the Frame-Westerberg Commons. Performers will be students from last year’s improv team, including Morgan Back, a sports medicine major from Auburn; Manny Diamant, a psychology major from New Hope; Nick Jones, a writing major from Ardmore; Chris Hooks, a health and physical education major from Elmira, N.Y.; Kyle Renwick of Mount Vernon, N.Y.; Brian Roberts, an athletic training major from New Albany; Brandon Tully, an interdisciplinary arts major from Bradford; Kate Yeagle, a broadcast communications major from Newville; and club advisers Tim and Kristin Asinger. The 2010-11 team will be formed after auditions in mid-September. The monthly shows are full of favorite games containing scenes that are made up o...

The Pitt Improvers, a student improvisational comedy club at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford, have planned several shows and workshops over the next few weeks. On Tuesday, Jan. 26, members of the Improvers will visit St. Bernard Elementary School to play improv games with the students. The visit is a return engagement for the improvers, who performed a similar show at St. Bernard last year. On Feb. 5, the group will take its show to St. Bonaventure University in Allegany, N.Y., where it will perform an 8 p.m. show in the Rathskeller, located in the basement of Hickey Dining Hall. On Feb. 6, the Improvers will be offering an all-ages one-day improv workshop for the public from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Blaisdell Hall. The $20 fee will include the cost of lunch on campus and a ticket to the group’s show Feb. 12, “A Night with the Pitt Improvers.” The workshop fee is $5 for students on the Pitt-Bradford meal plan and $15 for Pitt-Bradford students not on the meal plan. The day will b...