Murphys Creek Theatre

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas

Murphys Creek Theatre — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 17:42:25 +0000

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas perform at the Black Bart Playhouse on Friday, March 2, 2012, 7:30pm

Ticket info: $22 advance, available from Brown Paper Tickets

(www.brownpapertickets.com or 24/7 Ticket Hotline: 800/ 838-3006) or

$25 day of show

Fiddle Workshop with Alasdair Fraser, In cooperation with Murphys Creek TheatreSaturday, March 3, 10am – 12:30pm at the Black Bart Playhouse, Murphys.

$35 per student (minimum enrollment of 30 students)

To register, please send email to mcbooking@gmail.com

Contact: Maria Camillo, mcbooking@gmail.com

Alasdair Fraser & Natalie Haas

Scottish fiddle and cello music of unrivaled beauty, eloquence, and passion

“ … you would think they’d been playing together for centuries. While his fiddle dances, her cello throbs darkly or plucks puckishly. Then [Haas] opens her cello’s throat, joining Fraser in soaring sustains, windswept refrains, and sudden, jazzy explosions. Their sound is as urbane as a Manhattan midnight, and as wild as a Clakmannan [Scotland] winter.”

— Boston Globe

“Fraser, one of the most respected of all exponents of the Scots fiddle, would look long and hard to find a more appropriate cellist as a partner. Haas can switch just as effortlessly as Fraser from a gentle singing tone to driving, dancing melody. A positive joy.”

—The Scotsman

The musical partnership between Alasdair Fraser, long regarded as Scotland’s premier fiddle ambassador, and the sizzlingly-talented young California cellist Natalie Haas may not seem an obvious one. Fraser, acclaimed by the San Francisco Examiner as “the Michael Jordan of Scottish fiddling,” has a concert and recording career spanning 30 years, with a long list of awards, accolades, television credits, and feature performances on top movie soundtracks (Last of the Mohicans, Titanic). Fraser has been sponsored by the British Council to represent Scotland’s music internationally, and received the Scottish Heritage Center Service Award for outstanding contributions to Scottish culture and traditions.

The 25-year-old Haas, a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music, wasn’t even born when Alasdair was winning national fiddle competitions on the other side of the Atlantic. But this seemingly unlikely pairing is the fulfillment of a long-standing musical dream for Fraser, whose cutting-edge musical explorations took him full circle to find a cellist who could help him return the cello to its historical role at the rhythmic heart of Scottish dance music. Natalie Haas was just 11 when she first attended Fraser’s Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School in California. She responded to Fraser’s challenge to find and release the cello’s rhythmic soul, and four years later, when Natalie was just 15, Fraser and Haas played their first gig together. Now regularly touring with Fraser and creating a buzz at festivals and in concert halls throughout Europe and North America, Natalie is in the vanguard of young cellists who are re-defining the role of the cello in traditional music. “Cellists are coming out of the woodwork to study with Natalie, to learn how she creates a groove and a whole chunky rhythm section,” says Fraser. “It’s inspiring to hear the cello unleashed from its orchestral shackles!”

One of the inspirations is the duo’s debut recording, Fire & Grace, which displays dazzling teamwork, driving, dancing rhythms, and the duo’s shared passion for improvising on the melody and the groove of Scottish tunes. The two instruments duck and dive around each other, swapping melodic and harmonic lines, and trading rhythmic riffs. The recording won not only critical acclaim, but also the coveted the Scots Trad Music “Album of the Year” award, the Scottish equivalent of a Grammy. Fire & Grace, and the duo’s other CDs In the Moment, Highlander’s Farewell, and Fraser’s many other recordings are on his own Culburnie Records label.

Workshops, Master Classes, and Residency Activities

Through two summer programs that he founded nearly two decades ago, the Valley of the Moon Scottish Fiddling School in California and a week-long course on the Isle of Skye, Alasdair has inspired hundreds of aspiring and accomplished musicians.

Alasdair is available for master classes and workshops for performers of all ages, with an emphasis on the tradition and techniques of Scottish fiddle music. The classes can be for fiddlers only, or can include musicians playing any stringed instrument, with special focus on playing by ear, improvising, and learning to play as part of an ensemble.

Lend Me a Tenor – 2011

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:57:14 +0000

Ken Ludwig’s

Lend Me a Tenor

March 18 – April 10
(At the Black Bart Playhouse)

“…A comedy Triumph!” - Time Out New York
“The most howlingly funny laugh machine to hit Broadway in Years! …
One, two, three, four, five. Yes, that’s five doors on the set for Ken Ludwig’s “Lend Me a Tenor” . Five doors, primed for slamming, in a single hotel suite. All but incontrovertible physical evidence that farce is on the bill.” - The New York Times
Rated PG

WE RECEIVED RAVE REVIEWS! Click here for the Union Democrat review

Romeo & Juliet – 2011

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:55:54 +0000

Romeo and Juliet
By William Shakespeare

June 24 – July 30
at the Cornelia B. Stevenot Amphitheatre, Munari Winery
Murphys, CA

Read the review from the Union Democrat here!

Moliére’s “Scapin!” – 2011

admin — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:55:02 +0000

Directed by Misty Amber Day
August 12 -September 4, Fridays and Saturdays 8:00pm
with one Sunday performance, September 4 at 8:00pm

An energetic, nutty reversal-of-fortune farce! Strongly influenced by the Italian commedia dell’arte, Moliere’s Scapin tells the tale of two young men foiled in love when their respective fathers arrive determined to marry them off…but not to the women they’re in love with. The sons appeal to the servant Scapin for help, but with disastrous consequences. Scapin’s antics create more confusion, mistaken identity, rancor…and hilarity. Read our rave Review in the Copper Gazette here!

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The Turn of the Screw
by Jeffrey Hatcher
“A dazzling act of the imagination. Mr. Hatcher has pushed Henry James’
clever turn to its furthest degree.” —NY Times.

September 30 – October 30
Fridays and Saturdays 8pm
Two Sunday Matinees, Oct ober 23/30, 2pm
At the Black Bart Playhouse

Sylvia By A.R. Gurney – March 30 to May 6

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:07:02 +0000

A modern romantic comedy about a marriage and a dog by AR Gurney. Greg and Kate have moved toManhattan after twenty-two years of child-raising in the suburbs. Greg’s career as a financial trader is winding down, while Kate’s career as a public-school English teacher is beginning to offer her more opportunities. Greg brings home a dog he found in the park—or that has found him— bearing only the name “Sylvia” on her name tag. A street-smart mixture of Lab and Poodle, Sylvia becomes a major bone of contention between husband and wife. She offers Greg an escape from the frustrations of his job and the unknowns of middle age. To Kate, Sylvia becomes a rival for affection. And Sylvia thinks Kate just doesn’t understand the relationship between man and dog. The marriage is put in serious jeopardy, and a series of hilarious and touching complications leads us to the conclusion… Rated “PG”

SYLVIA

By A.R. Gurney

March 30-May 6

Shakespeare’s The Tempest – June 22 to July 28

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 17:05:15 +0000

Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest is a striking fantasy/ romance rich with magic and humor. The play opens on a ship in the middle of a storm. Fearing the ship will split in two, the sailors and nobles aboard abandon ship and make for a nearby island. When the storm subsides, the exiled Duke Prospero and his daughter Miranda appear on the island they have inhabited for 12 years. Using his rescued sprite, Ariel, and an enslaved spirit, Calaban, Prospero leads the shipwrecked nobles thorough a series of mishaps in an atttempt at revenge. Rated “G”

Murphys Historic Hotel: Dinner and Theatre Packages – $35 !!

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:35:05 +0000

Murphys Historic Hotel and Murphys Creek Theatre are now offering Dinner and Theatre Packages – $35 !!

Enjoy a delicious meal at the Hotel and walk on over to the Black Bart Theater for a hilarious performance of Lend Me a Tenor. Lend Me a Tenor was called the funniest show on Broadway, and director Terri Wilson’s show is sure to make you smile.

Hotel Petite Fare Dinner Menu

Choose One Starter
Small Caesar Salad or Soup du Jour

Choose One Main Course served with mashed potatoes or rice and seasonal vegetables
Pork Loin Chop – topped with apple onion chutney

Chicken Marsala – sautéed with mushrooms in a Marsala wine with demi glace

Prawn Scampi – sautéed in a lemon garlic beurre blanc

Dessert – Brownie Sundae

Call the Murphys Hotel ONLY to make Dinner/Show reservations. 209-728-3444 or 1-800-532-7684
For show only, click on the “Buy Tickets Now!” button above – thank you!

Visit the Hotel online at www.murphyshotel.org

The Imaginary Invalid – August 17-September 23

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:24:50 +0000

In Molière’s outrageous satire of medicine and its practitioners, the wealthy Argan, to put it mildly, enjoys poor health. Laxatives, suppositories, bloodlettings, and second and third opinions from the leading quacks are the order of his day—and hell on his wily, back-talking servant Toinette. His daughter Angélique is in love with the impoverished Cléante, but Argan wants to marry her to Thomas Diafoirus, a medical dunce who can assure his father-in-law a lifetime of health care. Cléante disguises himself as a music teacher to gain access to his love, but Béline, Argan’s mercenary second wife, threatens to expose them. A disguised Toinette, sage advice from his brother Béralde, and a faked death scene finally teach Argan where to place his trust. Rated “PG”

Almost Maine – November 16 to December 23

admin — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 16:21:17 +0000

On a cold, clear, moonless night in the middle of winter, all is not quite what it seems in the remote, mythical town of Almost, Maine. As the northern lights hover in the star-filled sky above, Almost’s residents find themselves falling in and out of love in unexpected and often hilarious ways. Knees are bruised. Hearts are broken. But the bruises heal, and the hearts mend—almost—in this delightful midwinter night’s dream. Rated “PG”