2011 Summer Music Theatre Festival Featuring ‘The Bat’
Contact: Tom Mikotowicz, (207) 581-1965
The University of Maine School of Performing Arts is presenting its second annual Summer Music Theatre Festival with two exciting and gruesome tales to haunt summer nights.
Kicking off its 2011 festival June 17 in the Cyrus Pavilion Theatre on the UMaine campus is Mary Roberts Rinehart and James Avery Hopwood’s spine-tingling murder mystery “The Bat.” It is a story about a small village searching for a stolen fortune and the identity of the illusive “bat,” who murders women in the dead of night. No one knows who’s responsible for the theft or the murders, but anyone and everyone is a suspect in the heart-pounding thriller.
Fans of the long-running British mystery “The Mousetrap” will enjoy this “who done it” predecessor. Written originally in 1920, Rinehart’s play was produced as a silent film in 1926, and then revived again in a 1959 version starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead.
The Bat is directed by Angela Bonacasa. Performances are June 17, 18, 24, 25 at 7:30 p.m. and June 19 & 26 at 2 p.m. Cyrus Pavilion Theatre is located behind Fogler Library and Winslow Hall. General admission tickets are $10 and $7 for students, and are available at the School of Performing Arts website or at the door.
Discounts also are available when purchased at the same time with a ticket for “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” scheduled at Hauck Auditorium Aug. 5, 6, 12 and 13 at 7:30 p.m. and Aug. 7 & 14 at 2 p.m. Tickets for both shows are $20, or $10 for The Bat and $14 for Sweeney Todd.
The UMaine School of Performing Arts’ Summer Music Theatre Festival started in 2010, premiering “Hello, Dolly!” and Agatha Christie’s “The Mousetrap.” The festival is intended to foster outreach to local communities, offering a unique opportunity for people of all ages to work on professional theatrical productions, while giving university students a chance to further their experience and education, according to Tom Mikotowicz, chair of the SPA Theatre Division.