Tours: Cinderella (with Eartha Kitt), State Fair (with John Davidson), Cabaret (with Andrea McCardle), Kiss of the Spider Woman, Fiddler on the Roof (with Theodore Bikel). Off-Broadway: Between The Lines (York Theater), Pirates of Penzance (New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players).
GREAT COMET PROFESSIONAL
I’m also thrilled to have Travis Leland, who is returning to us after playingĬaptain Phoebus in our 2018 production of Hunchback of Notre Dame,Īndrew has worked Off-Broadway, Off West-End, regionally and on tour as a professional director, musical director, conductor, composer and Equity actor. Here’s to the Find Your Light-ers:Īshton Florence, Kolten Bell, Benji Heying, and Laetitia Hollard. Who have taken our CCT Conservatory intensive, “Find Your Light” and are now joining us What’s always an extra special moment for us at CCT is when we have cast members Gail Becker, Kolten Bell, Ashton Florence, Josh Hayes, Benji Heying, Laetitia Hollard,Īndrew Linden, Erin McConnell, and Sabra Michelle. We saw over 750 people for 18 roles over the course of three months.Īs always, we like to cast both locally and nationally,Īnd I’d like to do a special shout out to those local actors joining us for this production:
This casting process has been the longest and most intense one that we have ever embarked upon. I think we can all agree that no one writes comets like Tolstoy.“I couldn’t be more pleased with the cast we have chosen for Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812. It seemed to Pierre that this star was the complete reply to all that was in his soul as it blossomed into new life, filled with tenderness and love. On the contrary, rapturously, his eyes wet with tears, he contemplated this glorious star which seemed to him to have come flying with inconceivable swiftness through measureless space, straight toward the earth, there to strike like an enormous arrow, and remain in that one predestined spot upon the dark sky and, pausing, raise aloft with monstrous force its curling tail, flashing and sparkling with white light, amid the countless other twinkling stars. Almost in the zenith of this sky–above the Pretchistensky Boulevard–convoyed and surrounded on every side by stars, but distinguished from all the rest by its nearness to the earth, and by its white light, and by its long, curling tail, stood the tremendous brilliant comet of 1812–the very comet that men thought presaged all manner of woes and the end of the world.īut in Pierre, this brilliant luminary, with its long train of light, awoke no terror. As he drove out of Argat Square, the mighty expanse of the dark, starry sky spread out before his eyes. Only as Pierre gazed at the heavens above, he ceased to feel the humiliating pettiness of everything earthly in comparison with the height to which his soul aspired. Above the dirty, half-lighted streets, above the black roofs of the houses, stretched the dark, starry heavens.
“Home,” said Pierre, throwing back his bearskin cloak over his broad, joyfully throbbing chest, though the mercury marked ten degrees of frost. “Where can I go now? To the club, or to make some calls?”Īll men, at this moment, seemed to him so contemptible, so mean, in comparison with the feeling of emotion and love that overmastered him–in comparison with that softened glance of gratitude which she had given him just now through her tears. Pierre has just confessed his love to Natasha. It appears at the end of Book Eight (in my Kropoktin translation). The best thing about this comet is that it makes a cameo in Count Leo Tolstoy’s magnificent War and Peace, where it’s called, confusingly, the Comet of 1812. The comet was believed to have portended Napoleon’s invasion of Russia and the War of 1812. With a coma over a million miles across, it was visible in the sky for almost a year. 6 in our Comet a Week is The Great Comet of 1811, also known as Napoleon’s Comet.