Rolland Llewellyn, left, of Redding, who plays Merlin and Pellinore, with Sean Hannon of Weston, King Arthur
“Camelot,” an enchanting family musical opening July 18 in the intimacy of a new open-air all-weather theater in New Canaan’s Waveny Park, features a cast of more than 30 headed by a professional cadre of Connecticut performers with highly credentialed theatrical backgrounds.
The two-hour production—winding up the sixth season of Summer Theatre of New Canaan—is based on Lerner and Loewe’s 1960 Broadway extravaganza that won four Tonys and starred Richard Burton, Julie Andrews and Robert Goulet. In 1967, Richard Harris and Vanessa Redgrave played lead roles in the movie.
Such songs as “Camelot,” “If Ever I Should Leave You” and “The Lusty Month of May” enrich the score.
King Arthur’s legendary realm and the Knights of the Round Table, surrounded by a kaleidoscope of enchanting characters, wizards and fairies are recreated by director Melody Libonati under the dramatic sweeping arc of an all-weather tent in Waveny Park.
A 2 p.m. preview opens the play Saturday, July 18 with the official opening that same night at 7:30 p.m. followed by a 3 p.m. Sunday presentation. The production then runs through Aug. 2 Wednesdays Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. with matinees Wednesdays and Saturdays at 2 p.m. and Sundays at 3 p.m. July 26 and 2 p.m. Aug. 2, the final performance.
Saturday’s opening preview is a Pay-What-You-Can matinee sponsored by the New Canaan Community Foundation and the Jeniam Foundation.
Reserved seating is priced at $35 and $50 with hillside accommodation at $20 for lawn chairs and blankets, sold the day of the performance. Tickets and additional information are available online at www.stonc.org or by calling the box office at (203) 966-4634. Ample parking is conveniently located at New Canaan High School accessible from Farm Road.
Redding’s veteran actor Rolland Llewellyn, as Merlin and Pellinore, with Emilie Roberts of Weston, as Morgan LeFey
Libonati, the director, says “the theater experience is like no other.” Tucked into a convenient corner of the grass knolls and woodsy ambiance of the park, the production offers captivating outdoor summer theatrical entertainment combined with the family-oriented fun of a setting conducive to picnic baskets crammed with cuisine of all kinds, plus beverages.
Picnic lunch and dinner boxes can be ordered and picked up at the theater box office one hour before show time.
Onstage, the production showcases the husband-and-wife team of Sean Hannon and Emile Roberts from Weston, Alison Gray and Christian Libonati of New Canaan, Richard Hartley of Cos Cob and Rolland Llewellyn of Redding. All have appeared in previous productions in the park and bring regional and national theatrical credits to the presentation.
The orchestra leader is Scott Cranston of Trumbull, the principal trombonist with the symphony orchestras of New Haven, Waterbury and Bridgeport and the director of bands at New Canaan High School.
Hannon and his wife met 22 years ago while appearing together in a play called “Knightly Pursuits” in Santa Monica. CA. In “Camelot” Hannon plays King Arthur and lends his baritone to three solos and a duet. His wife is the mysterious Morgan LeFey, the queen of the fairies and Arthur’s half-sister.
In the 1983 movie “Fire and Ice,” Hannon portrayed the evil overlord Nekron.
And he appears periodically in small roles in “All My Children.” The core of Arthur’s character is described by Hannon as “a quest to find the meaning and purpose of his life. His strengths, insecurities and drive are filtered through extraordinary circumstances. He has a little of Harry Potter in him.”
Allison Gray of New Canaan as Guenevere with Sean Hannon’s King Arthur. Among knights in background, second from left, Richard Hartley of Cos Cob who plays Lancelot.
His view of acting is that “things can get a little static. The best thing you can do is to be open and listen to the other actors in the moment. If you do that, the audience picks up on it and sees you as believable.”
His wife Emilie Roberts adds that it’s critical “to keep the character in a sense of absolute truth or it isn’t exciting for the audience or even convincing. In other words I have to believe it or the audience won’t either”
Lancelot is played by Richard Hartley who was Harold Hill last season in “The Music Man,” nominated for best musical and best choreography in the Connecticut Critics Circle awards. He has performed with the symphonies of St. Louis, Seattle, Tucson, Oregon and the Buffalo, NY Philharmonic. His background in musical theater across the U.S. extends, most recently, to the riverboat gambler Gaylord Ravenal in “Show Boat” at Naples, FL Dinner Theater as to Ko-Ko in Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Mikado” at the Portland, OR Music Theater in his hometown. The actor he most admires is Johnny Depp because of “the chances he takes.”
His perspective on Lancelot”?
“One side of him is the warrior and a figure of strength, courage and commitment to see tasks through to the end. His love of Guenevere puts him in touch with his feelings for the first time and, of course, there is one problem: She is married. So he has to deal with this incredible pull towards her and away from her.
Hartley’s key to acting?
“Find the commonalities with the character that I can cull from myself and highlight for the audience, allowing the words to take on their own life”
Guenevere is Allison Gray. She once appeared in the same role in Virginia when she was working off-Broadway and touring nationally. In “Camelot” she has five solos plus a duet with Hannon.
Rolland Llewellyn, left, of Redding, who plays Merlin and Pellinore, with Sean Hannon of Weston, King Arthur
Gray says she tries “to make the character real by thinking of my own experiences that I can draw on that are comparable to the character’s.”
Like Roberts, her favorite performer is, appropriately, Julie Andrews.
The other New Canaan principal is Christian Libonati, the scion of the Libonati Summer Theatre family. He plays Mordred, King Arthur’s illegitimate son and, as Libonati sees him, “an Iago-type character from Shakespeare’s ‘Othello,’ out for revenge and obsessed with destruction.”
Working out of Chicago, Libonati recently performed in “The Bowery Boys,” a new musical directed by David Bell, and “Joseph and His Amazing Multicolored Dreamcoat.” He returns to Chicago in September to appear in “Hair Spray.”
As both Merlin and Pellinore-who is searching for a mythical beast and embodies the play’s comic element--the longtime professional actor Rolland Llewellyn, 70, rounds the central circle of performers.
For Llewellyn, the play is based on “decency and destiny.” He sees Marlin as a character “gifted with hindsight, insight and foresight but he can’t remember at the moment where he is in time. So he is simply confused.”
“Camelot” follows Shakespeare’s classic comedy “Taming of the Shrew” that ran June 18-July 11 to extraordinary critical acclaim. Excerpts from the Connecticut Critics Circle member reviews:
Irene Backalenick: “This ‘Taming of the Shrew’ offers a jolt, a fresh way of viewing the familiar, a daring version of a classic tale . . . the production is dynamite. Highly entertaining . . . cleverly interpreted . . .think the Three Stooges, the Age of Aquarius, punk rock, street theater, TV sit-com.”
Marlene S. Gaylinn: “In my long years as a theatre critic I have seen many versions of ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ but never have I witnessed such an entertaining and imaginative production.”
June S. April: “An evening of high-power entertainment . . . It’s The Bard, injected with ‘Saturday Night Fever’ . . . and just plain fun to watch . . . traditional Shakespeare this is not, but it is well conceived and well performed.”
Directions to the theater, show times, schedules and additional information is available online at wwww.stonc.org
