Olean Community Theatre, Inc.
presents a major theatrical event
Tony Award BEST BROADWAY MUSICAL
Tony Award BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Tony Award BEST BOOK OF A MUSICAL
TITANIC
- The Musical -
Directed by MINNA BADANES
Story & Book by PETER STONE
Music & Lyrics by MAURY YESTON
January 27 - 28 - 29, 2006
Olean High School Auditorium
THE CAST
Thomas Andrews - Todd Wagner
J. Bruce Ismay - Jeff Maris
Captain E. J. Smith - Steve Spry
Officer Murdoch - Lucas Yerpe
Officer Lightoller - Jacob Carll
Officer Pitman & the Major - Rodney Stebbins
Officer Boxhall - Tim Hollamby
Harold Bride - Bill Steffen
Frederick Barrett - Jacque Austin
Frederick Fleet - Zach Cole
Joseph Bell - Jamieson Riling
Henry Etches - Steve Riley
Bellboys - Alexa Campbell, Erin Coatney,
Stephanie Spry
Isador Straus - John Zinzi
Ida Straus - Elaine Stephan
John J. Astor - Daryl Johnson
Madeleine Astor - Laura Giberson
Benjamin Guggenheim - Bob Sader
Mme. Aubert - Patricia Howden
John B. Thayer - David Coatney
Marion Thayer - Claudia Flood
Jack Thayer - Julian Ziaggi
George Widener - Michael Schott
Eleanor. Widener - Sarah Martin
Charlotte Cardoza - Brenna Horowitz
Edith Evans - Lori Lee
Alice Beane - Joni Jackson
Edgar Beane - Moses Mark Howden
Charles Clarke - Troy Wing
Caroline Neville - Katie Ward
J. H. Rogers - Jerry Mottern
Jim Farrell - Jarret Clarke
Kate McGowan - Danielle Campbell
Kate Mullins - Kierstin Coatney
Kate Murphey - McKenzie Forrest
Stewardesses - Kaitlin Harvey, Alyssa McCutcheon, Mattie Cole, Lisa Malmgren, Liz Myers
Annabelle Blank - Aubrie Johnson
and
Gus Napoleon as Mr. Henry Blank
THE PRODUCTION TEAM
Producer - Fior Zinzi
Director - Minna Badanes
Vocal Director - Rick Snyder
Orchestra Conductor - Ruth Fuller
Technical Director - Jim Hunter
Choreographer - Heidi Giberson
Rehearsal Accompanist - Mark Lungershausen
Costumes - Bill Steffen
Hair Styles - Exclusively Yours / Sheila Morgan
SYNOPSIS of TITANIC THE MUSICAL by Peter Stone
TITANIC begins -Prologue as Thomas Andrews, the architect of the great ship, pores over the blueprints of his design -In Every Age. The curtain then rises to reveal the Ocean Dock in Southampton, England, where people are gathering to wonder at and to board the ship on sailing day: first a stoker - How Did They Build Titanic?, then additional crewmen -There She Is, officers and stevedores -Loading Inventory, the owner, the architect and the captain -The Largest Moving Object, the Third and Second Class passengers -I Must Get On That Ship, and finally the First Class passengers -The 1st Class Roster. Now fully boarded, the ship pulls out as the company sings a prayerful farewell -Godspeed Titanic.
One by one, the dreams and aspirations of key characters are presented: Barrett, the stoker who wanted to get away from the coal mines -Barrett's Song; Murdoch, the ship's officer contemplating the responsibility of command -To Be a Captain; Kate McGowan and the Third Class passengers who yearn for a better life in America -Lady's Maid; Chief Steward Etches and the millionaires he serves who exult in the wonders of their world -What a Remarkable Age This Is!
Barrett finds his way to the Telegraph Room where he dictates a proposal of marriage to his sweetheart back home -The Proposal in a telegram transmitted by Harold Bride, a young telegraph operator smitten with the possibilities of the new radio technology -The Night Was Alive.
The next day, April 14, after Sunday morning church service, the First Class attends the shipboard band's spirited out-of-doors dance-concert -Hymn / Doing the Latest Rag, an exclusive event crashed by Second Class passenger Alice Beane, a hardware store owner's wife who wants more out of life -I Have Danced. That evening, as Fleet the lookout scans the horizon -No Moon and bandsman Hartley regales the First Class Smoking Room with a new song -Autumn, the ship sails inexorably towards her collision, which ends Act One.
Act Two opens as the suddenly awakened First and Second Class passengers are assembled in the Grand Salon -Dressed In Your Pyjamas In The Grand Salon for life-belt instruction by Chief Steward Etches, before being sent up to the Boat Deck to board the lifeboats. In the Telegraph Room, Captain Smith, Mr. Andrews and Mr. Ismay, the owner, argue over who is responsible for the disaster -The Blame while Mr. Bride tirelessly sends out the S.O.S. Up on the Boat Deck, the male passengers are separated from their families -To the Lifeboats, and all express hopes of being reunited -We'll Meet Tomorrow as the final boat is lowered. Isidor Straus (the owner of Macy's) and his wife Ida remain behind together, as she refuses to leave his side after 40 years of marriage -Still and Mr. Etches utters a prayer -To Be a Captain (reprise). In the abandoned Smoking Room, Thomas Andrews desperately redesigns his ship to correct its fatal flaws until the futility of his actions leads him to predict, in horrifying detail, the end of TITANIC just as she begins her now-inevitable descent -Mr. Andrews' Vision.
In an Epilogue, the survivors picked up by the CARPATHIA numbly retell what had once been Mr. Andrews' dream -In Every Age (reprise). The living are joined by their lost loved-ones in a tableau recapturing the optimistic spirit of the Ocean Dock on sailing day -Finale.
ABOUT THE STORY by Peter Stone
The sinking of the TITANIC in the early hours of April 15, 1912, remains the quintessential disaster of the 20th century. A total of 1,517 souls-men, women and children-lost their lives (only 711 survived). The fact that the finest, largest, strongest ship in the world-called, in fact, the "unsinkable" ship-should have been lost during its maiden voyage is so incredible that, had it not actually happened, no author would have dared to contrive it.
But the catastrophe had social ramifications that went far beyond that night's events. For the first time since the beginning of the industrial revolution early in the 19th Century, bigger, faster and stronger did not prove automatically to be better. Suddenly the very essence of "progress" had to be questioned; might the advancement of technology not always be progress?
Nor was this the only question arising from the disaster. The accommodations of the ship, divided into 1st, 2nd and 3rd Classes, mirrored almost exactly the class structure (upper, middle and lower) of the English-speaking world. But when the wide discrepancy between the number of survivors from each of the ship's classes was revealed-all but two of the women in 1st Class were saved while 155 women and children from 2nd and 3rd (mostly 3rd) drowned-there was a new, long-overdue scrutiny of the prevailing social system and its values.
It is not an exaggeration to state that the 19th Century, with its social stricture, its extravagant codes of honor and sacrifice, and its unswerving belief that God favored the rich, ended that night.
The musical play TITANIC examines the causes, the conditions and the characters involved in this ever-fascinating drama. This is the factual story of that ship-of her officers, crew and passengers, to be sure-but she will not, as has happened so many times before, serve as merely the background against which fictional, melodramatic narratives are recounted. The central character of our TITANIC is the TITANIC herself.
TANYS
Award
Winner
