Geoffrey Tarson, as the painter Jean-François Millet (in disguise as his widowed twin sister) with Darrell James as the villain, Andre, in the Half Moon Theatre production of “Is He Dead?”

A starving artist fakes his own death and then pretends to be the deceased’s own sister. The latest cinematic yukfest by Judd Apatow or an episode of TV’s “Happy Endings”? Even better. Despite the modern plotline, the theater piece “Is He Dead?” was written more than a century ago and found among the papers of Mark Twain. The farce was staged on Broadway in 2007, adapted by David Ives, a playwright with a flair for the mordantly absurd. A local production, performed by the Half Moon Theatre company, arrives this month in Poughkeepsie.

The plot, which echoes Manhattan’s backbiting art scene, actually takes place in 1846 France. The epitome of the starving painter, Jean-François Millet is convinced by fellow bohemians that dead artists sell better to a fickle public. Faking one’s death and then returning secretly to witness the outcome? Twain utilized the same plot device in the funeral scene in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, indicating he was not above stealing from himself.

The drag twist, however, was not Twain’s prescient gender-politics invention; Ives grafted it onto the story, additionally crafting such piquant lines as “Ten yards of Belgian lace and a wedding dress never hurt a man.”Half Moon, a coterie of professional actors with New York and Los Angeles credentials, held a reading of the Twain-Ives play at last year’s Millbrook Book Festival. An exuberant audience response convinced Molly Renfroe Katz, Half Moon’s executive director, to mount the play this autumn.

“’Is He Dead?,’ because of its large cast size, opulent costume requirements and ample set, is ambitious for any company, but very ambitious for us: a small, five-year-old company, with no paid staff,” Katz says. “But we felt so strongly about the writing, the humor, and about the play’s ability to appeal to all ages, that we were compelled to rise to the challenge of producing it.

Already a celebrated man of letters, Twain wrote “Is He Dead?” by way of a personal challenge, says the show’s director, Paul Kassel, associate professor in SUNY New Paltz’s Department of Theatre Arts. “Apparently, Twain thought he could write a play and wanted to try. Like a lot of things Twain tried, he seemed to be at least partially inspired by the money he might make on it. It has a lot of the ingredients common to farces at the time (esp. Charley’s Aunt), which were vastly popular and huge moneymakers.” However, the text was “almost unproduceable” until Ives reworked it, Kassel says.
read the rest of the article at Chronogram.com

Click here to read the whole review by Jim Donick from Northern Dutchess News & Creative Living.

Half Moon Theatre Company is giving the Hudson Valley theatergoer a rare treat this month with their presentation of last season’s hot Off-Broadway hit, “Circle Mirror Transformation” by Annie Baker. We are told the script was named one of the Top 10 plays of 2009-10 by The New York Times, The New Yorker, and Time Out New York. That’s a reasonable recommendation, one might think, and good reason to see it. Beyond the script, the troupe also brings a marvelous and well credentialed cast to the production.

To read the entire review in PDF format:
Part 1
Part 2

Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker

Starring Obie-Award winner Kathryn Grody*

March 10-20, 2011 at Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center

Half Moon Theatre, Hudson Valley’s resident professional theatre company, is thrilled to present last season’s hot off-Broadway hit, Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker as its spring production. This hilarious and quirky comedy was named one of the top ten plays of 2009-10 by The New York Times, The New Yorker and Time Out New York.

Extended twice and brought back for a return engagement at Playwrights Horizons, Circle Mirror Transformation garnered great critical acclaim and audience response. Circle Mirror Transformation was honored at last year’s Obie Awards (off-Broadway’s equivalent of the Tony Awards) with awards for Best New American Play, Best Ensemble Performance and Best Direction.

Charles Isherwood raved in The New York Times, calling the play, “Rich, unforgettable theater. The kind of unheralded gem that sends people into the streets babbling and bright-eyed with the desire to spread the word. For lovers of real acting, Ms. Baker’s play is an absolute feast.”

Circle Mirror Transformation traces a summer community center acting class in Shirley, Vermont where five lost souls find themselves relating through a series of wacky acting exercises. The unexpected intimacy of the class creates an unlikely Petri dish where funny, surprising and poignant secrets are revealed.

Half Moon Theatre is delighted that two-time Obie Award-winning actress and playwright Kathryn Grody* will star as Marty, the teacher of Shirley’s community acting class. Last spring, Kathryn read her play, Falling Apart…Together in Millbrook as part of Half Moon Theatre’s New Play Reading Series. In December 2010 Ms. Grody* starred in the World Premiere of My Inner Sole, by Zuzka Kurtz and choreographed by Wendy Osserman.

Brendan Burke, Artistic Director of Shadowland Theatre in Ellenville, will portray Marty’s husband James. Off-Broadway actress Alexandra Napier, who starred in Half Moon’s production of 7 Stories, Michael Rhodes, Artistic Director of tangent theatre company in Tivoli, and nineteen year-old Annabel Barrett complete the cast.

Geoff Tarson, Artistic Director of Half Moon Theatre, says “Circle Mirror Transformation achieves what great theatrical pieces aim to do…it captures the human experience and is moving, inspiring and funny all at the same time.  Much like our last production, Almost, Maine, this piece is actor-driven and filled with real, flawed, recognizable characters that you root for.  It’s a play filled with contradictions: contemporary yet timeless, deep yet very funny, a simple premise with great complexity of emotions. And we have once again assembled a superbly talented group of actors from the Hudson Valley who, I know, will bring this amazing play to life.”

Circle Mirror Transformation is directed by Josh Hecht, an accomplished Off-Broadway director and theatre artist.  He teaches the 3rd year MFA candidates at the New School for Drama and has taught playwriting at New Dramatists, Berkshire Theatre Festival, The Field, and the Play Development Collective, which he helped found. Mr. Hecht is formerly the Director of Playwright Development at MCC Theater and the Director of New Play Development at WET.

This is Half Moon’s fourth season producing contemporary theatre, September through June, in Poughkeepsie and other Hudson Valley communities.  Half Moon Theatre was founded by Molly Renfroe Katz and four other Hudson Valley residents; all highly skilled actors, directors, singers, and educators with impressive professional and national credits. Half Moon is committed to access, affordability, adventurousness, inclusion, and artistic excellence.

What:       Circle Mirror Transformation, By Annie Baker

Where:     The Cunneen-Hackett Arts Center Theatre, 12 Vassar Street in Poughkeepsie

When:      Thursday, March 10, 8PM  Pay What You Can preview (tickets only at the door)
                 Friday, March 11, 8PM  Talk-back with director and cast
Saturday, March 12, 8PM  Press Opening Night
Sunday, March 13, 2PM
Thursday, March 17, 8PM  Talk-back with the cast
Friday, March 18, 8PM
Saturday, March 19, 8PM
Sunday, March 20, 2PM

Tickets: $25 general admission, $20 for students and seniors for 8 PM performances; $20 general admission, $18 for students and seniors for 2 PM matinees. A Pay What You Can preview performance will be offered Thursday, March 10 at 8:00pm.

To purchase tickets online, visit http://www.halfmoontheatre.org/ or call 888-71TICKETS (888-718-4253). For Group Sales, call 845-235-9885. Join us for a post-performance talk-back with the cast and director on March 11^th and March 17^th.

Contact Kristy Grimes, Managing Director of Half Moon Theatre, at 845-625-3047 for more information. See you at the theatre!