Weston Playhouse to Perform “Master

Class” at Middlebury College Concert Hall on Oct. 19 —

Performance is a Regional Premiere

The Weston Playhouse Theatre Company

(WPTC) will perform a production of “Master Class,”

a Broadway hit written by Terrence McNally, in the Concert Hall

of the Middlebury College Center for the Arts at 7:30 p.m. on

Tuesday, Oct. 19. The play is loosely based

on a series of classes which the famed opera diva Maria Callas

offered at New York City’s Juilliard School in the early 1970s.

This performance is part of

the Weston Playhouse’s third New England tour and is a regional

premiere.

Praised by the critics as “rich, vivid, satisfying

theatre,” a “total triumph,” and “mesmerizing,”

“Master Class” swept the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer

Critics Circle Awards for best play in 1996.

A tour de force of acting and singing, the play shows

the semi-retired Callas after

a string of downfalls. She has lost her singing voice and is

teaching talented but nervous young singers before a live audience.

As she chides, cajoles, demonstrates and

inspires, she often lets her mind wander to experiences from her

own fantastic life and career. The

play opens with Callas, who died in 1977, at the end of her life

after Aristotle Onassis has left her to marry Jacqueline Kennedy.

Callas will be portrayed by actress

Patricia Norcia, who has appeared in plays on Broadway as well

as in off-Broadway productions in many of the nation’s top regional

theaters. She has been in other Weston performances, including

“Fiddler on the Roof” and “Lend Me A Tenor.”

Norcia is particularly suited to play the

role of Callas. She was born into a family of Italian opera singers,

has herself directed and performed in numerous operas, and has

taught her own master classes in voice and speech. Further, she

has played her acclaimed solo show, “The World of Ruth Draper,”

countless times at New York’s Carnegie Recital Hall, the inspiration

for the setting of the Broadway production of “Master Class.”

Norcia will be supported by performer and musical

director Michael Hicks in the role of Manny, the accompanist.

The three “victims,” as Callas half-jokingly calls

her students, will be played by newcomers Mardie Millit, Matthew

Nelson, and Melissa La France. The stagehand will be played by

Jerome Burke. The ensemble is under the direction of Weston Playhouse

Producing Director Steve Stettler, whose credits include the WPTC’s

first New England Tour, “Dancing at Lughnasa,” and its

recent triumphant revival of the opera house version of Bernstein’s

“Candide.” The set is by Russell Parkman, with lighting

by Stuart Duke, costumes by Martha Hally, and sound by Duncan

Edwards. Malcolm Ewen is production stage manager.

Based in Weston, the WPTC is Vermont’s

oldest professional theatre company. Honored by the New England

Theatre Conference with a 1998 Regional Achievement Award for

its contribution to the region’s theatrical life, the WPTC is

the first theatre company in its area to be given the rights to

perform “Master Class.”

Tickets for this Middlebury College

Concert Series performance are $9 general admission and $7 for

senior citizens. There is reserved seating for this event. To

order tickets, call the College box office at 802-443-6433.