Archive: Arts & Entertainment

Kitchen Theatre Company's stage fills with music with The Adventure in Apartment G#, playing at 1pm & 3pm on Saturdays October 29 and November 5. This musical features a story full of surprises coupled with everyone's favorite opera hits.

The Adventure in Apartment G# tells the story of 9-year-old Bernadette, who is excited to be spending the weekend with her Uncle Howard in his Manhattan loft apartment and looking forward to the wonderful desserts he creates especially for her. In fact, a weekend with Uncle Howard would be perfect except that he listens to opera constantly, and Bernadette is not an opera fan. Shortly after Uncle Howard sings her a lullaby, tucks her into bed and tiptoes away, some strange things begin to happen-an operatic dream, or a singing nightmare?

Bernadette is transported back in time to a faraway land where she is mistaken for a servant girl and finds herself sorting out the complicated lives of two sisters, two brothers, and a father who is determined to see at least one of his daughters married to one of those brothers! Lots of zaniness and lots of beautiful singing ensue.
 
Bernadette is played by 7th grader Raquel McGarry, who is making her debut on the Kitchen Theatre Company stage. Joining Raquel in the cast are Ithaca Opera apprentice artist Sarah Welden, Ithaca College musical theater majors Lydia Flock and Brendan Jacob Smith, local baritone (and Kitchen Theatre Company bar manager) Benno Ressa, and Ithaca High School senior Christian Henry (seen at Kitchen Theatre Company in Physics Fair and Winter Tales, as well as in many Running to Places productions).

 
The Adventure in Apartment G# is the product of an unusual and exciting collaboration-Kitchen Theatre Artistic Director Rachel Lampert co-wrote the play in 2007 with then-10th grader Nathan Hilgartner, now a film and television writer living in Los Angeles.
 
Playwright/lyricist Rachel Lampert, Kitchen Theatre Company's Artistic Director and co-Director of FitzandStartz Productions, has authored many original productions for family audiences (Winter Tales, The Mozart Mystery, I Have a Song to Sing O!, A December Suite, The Sisters Fitzenstarts Fall Recital, Emmett & Ella's Big Apple Escapade, and Fools! Schmools! among others) and adaptations (The Odyssey parts I & II, A Christmas Carol, Pirates of Penzance, HMS Pinafore and The Mikado). Lampert also serves as the director of this play. The Assistant Director is Ithaca Opera Apprentice Director Ellen Jackson. The music director is Rachel Lampert's longtime collaborator, Kitchen Theatre Company Associate Producer and FitzandStartz Productions Co-Director Lesley Greene. The musical is accompanied by pianist Travis Knapp.
 
The Adventure in Apartment G# is great for all ages.

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