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Stage
Hot Tickets: A season before change
By JOHN FLEMING
Published November 10, 2005
The 2005-06 season winds up Howard Millman's 11 years as producing artistic director of the Asolo Theatre Festival. Millman also had been managing director of the Sarasota company for 12 years in an earlier tenure. Michael Donald Edwards, now associate artistic director of Syracuse Stage, will take over for Millman next summer. The Asolo will present eight productions this season in its jewel box of a space, the Mertz Theatre, opening Friday with Laughing Stock, a backstage comedy about the goings-on of a summer stock theater, written and directed by Charles Morey. Also on the immediate agenda are Enchanted April by Matthew Barber, opening Nov. 18; and Dickens' A Christmas Carol, opening Nov. 25.
The Asolo once had a national reputation for Restoration comedy and other creative programming, but under Millman, the theater has played it very safe in appealing to its conservative audience. When he arrived, the theater was on the verge of closing, and he has had to pay close attention to the bottom line. Buttressed by the long run (extended eight times) of Menopause the Musical, last season was the most financially successful of Millman's directorship.
Laughing Stock features, from left, David Breitbarth, Brit Whittle and Douglas Jones. The play runs in rotating repertory through Feb. 2. Tickets are $16-$46. (941) 351-8000 or toll-free 1-800-361-8388.
- JOHN FLEMING, Times performing arts critic
[Last modified November 9, 2005, 10:39:08]
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