Copious Notes

Alex Parker as Sweeney Todd and Brittny Congleton as Mrs. Lovett sing "A Little Priest," from "Sweeney Todd" at UKMOO rehearsal Wednesday night. Photos by Rich Copley.

Brittny Congleton loves Stephen Sondheim’s music but has always been told that college students are too young to sing it.

“They’ll say, ‘Until you’ve had two divorces and suffered through alcoholism, how can you ­possibly understand Sondheim?” says ­Congleton, 22, a Transylvania University graduate.

Lexington attorney Pamela Perlman is Joanne singing "The Ladies Who Lunch" from "Company."

But there she was in the ­rehearsal room at UK’s Schmidt ­Vocal Arts Center, devouring “A Little Priest,” the number from Sweeney Todd in which Congleton as murderous Mrs. Lovett and Alex Parker as the “Demon Barber from Fleet Street” joke about all the people they have cooked into their pies.

“‘Sweeney’ is wonderful because you are exposed to Sondheim’s manic genius,” Congleton says. “He wrote this terrifying music about a demon barber, but it’s still so ­honest - it’s really scary, but based on incredible truth.”

Congleton and Parker’s ­performance will be part of “An ­Evening With Stephen Sondheim,” on Thursday at UK’s Memorial Hall.

It is the second production of the UK Musical and Operetta ­Organization, or UKMOO, which debuted with a Valentine’s-themed show at Natasha’s Bistro & Bar on a snowy night in February 2008.

The group’s formation ­exemplified one of the ­beauties of college: students using their skills to make opportunities for themselves.

The two ­opportunities that ­UKMOO forged were presenting musical theater and operetta, something that neither UK Theatre nor UK Opera Theatre do on a regular basis, and giving ­undergraduates more opportunities to perform.

“The main focus of the group is undergraduates and people from the ­community,” says Patrick Joel Martin, 22, a senior from ­Louisville. “Most of the leads in the ­opera productions are ­graduate students.”

The original plan for UKMOO’s second act was a full production of “Company,” Sondheim’s Tony Award-­winning drama revolving around a man on his 35th birthday and his group of married friends and girlfriends.

Martin, who’s directing Thursday’s show, had studied “Company” through the ­summer and had some ideal casting lined up, ­including UK student Adam VonAlmen as commitment-phobic Bobby and ­Lexington attorney Pamela ­Perlman as acerbic, oft-married Joanne.

Clayton Burchell sings "Nothing's Gonna Harm You" from "Sweeney Todd" with pianist David Erem.

But it became clear, Martin says, that because of classes and other performance demands, some key players wouldn’t have enough time to devote to a full-fledged “Company.” So, on the advice of faculty advisers Everett ­McCorvey and Margo Buchanan, they changed the production to a Sondheim ­revue. The audience will get a taste “Company”: ­VonAlmen and ­Perlman will perform their ­characters’ big numbers - ­”Being Alive” and “The ­Ladies Who Lunch,” respectively - as part of the show.

“Sondheim isn’t performed much around here,” Martin says. “The thing I like about this is it gives people a look at the breadth of his work.

“Some composers, like Mozart, you hear something and immediately recognize that’s Mozart. But there are things people have heard in this show and said, ‘I didn’t know Sondheim wrote that.’”

Sondheim has his fans in the cast, but the show has been an introduction to the Broadway legend for a few cast members, including Parker, who plays Sweeney.

“He has interesting ­melodies that start in one place and then don’t go where you expect them to go,” he says. “It’s been a real growing experience.”

In addition to “Company” and “Sweeney,” Thursday’s show will include numbers from “Into the Woods,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music,” “Sunday in the Park With George” and “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.”

Next, Martin says, ­UKMOO will dip into the ­operetta pool with a Gilbert and Sullivan revue during the spring semester.

Tim Soulis taking a swing through the Lucille Caudill Little Theatre on the campus of Transylvania University when the theater was new, in 1999. Herald-Leader file photo by Sam Haverstick.

Tim Soulis has done this before.

In 2003, the Transylvania University theater professor staged a production of Hamlet with two casts: one all male and one all female. The idea was to show how different genders bring different nuances and perspectives to the same material, and overall, it did make for an interesting couple of nights of theater.

Well, Soulis is at it again. This time, it’s not exactly Shakespeare Soulis is gender bending, but one of the most successful plays based on the Bard’s work. Nov. 5-14, Transy is presenting Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, with male and female players alternating roles each night. This time, it won’t be ladies night and then a boys club. The casts will be mixed genders, but on one night men will present the Shakespearian portion of the play and women will play Stoppard’s lines, and then they’ll flip roles for the next performance.

Of course, if you want the full experience, that means you’ll have to go twice. Performances are 7:30 p.m. Nov. 5, 6 and 11-14 and 2 p.m. Nov. 7 and 8 in the Lucille Caudill Little Theatre. There will be post-show discussions following the matinees. Tickets are $10 and may be reserved by calling the box office at (859) 281-3621.

Brandon Moore reflects on selecting Eric Bogosian’s ­subUrbia for Apprentice Players’ third production.

“The main component of Apprentice Players is theater for young adults and theater that is edgy and ­contemporary,” Moore says during an early afternoon chat at Common Grounds ­Coffee House. “That’s exactly what subUrbia is. It sort of chronicles the lives of a group of ­twentysomethings who just don’t know what to do with ­themselves.”

Funny thing: The play is being presented by a group of teens and twentysomethings who know ­exactly what to do with ­themselves.

Apprentice Players is ­becoming something of a regular feature on the summer theater scene in ­Lexington.

The group was formed in 2007 as a collection of high school students to present Dog Sees God, a twisted take on the Peanuts gang that had ­Charlie Brown, Linus and company ­dealing with teen issues such as sex and drugs.

Last summer, the group ­re-formed — several members now coming home from college — to present Alan Bennett’s History Boys.

Now, Apprentice Players is ­riding again, and there are new members coming into the group as some of the founders age out.

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Walter Tunis as Falstaff, Jesse Hungerford as Edward (Ned) Poins and Trent Fucci as Prince Hal rehearse SummerFest's production of William Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part 1," being presented July 8-12 at the Arboretum on Alumni Drive. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Trent Fucci was doing what was normal for guys in his family.

His grandfather, Dominic Anthony Fucci, was an All-American in football and baseball at the University of Kentucky in the late 1940s, and he briefly played for the Detroit Lions in the National Football League.

His father, Sam Fucci, was a baseball and track standout at Tates Creek High School and played baseball for Auburn University. His uncle, Dominic Anthony Fucci Jr., was the 1975 Kentucky Mr. Basketball who also played baseball for Auburn and was drafted by the Chicago White Sox, making it to the teams’ Triple A affiliate.

Trent’s cousin, Ryan Fucci, is currently a baseball standout at Tates Creek.

As Trent was getting started in sports, playing T-Ball, his mom, Holly Fucci, noticed that whenever he wasn’t on the field, he was over at the stands, “entertaining the audience,” Fucci recalls, catching himself referring to sports fans as, “the audience.”

Fucci says, “My mom said, ‘We need to get you into a theater program.’”

And he did do some theater, in school at Tates Creek. But he also stayed with sports, all the way through his Freshman year at Transylvania University, where he played baseball.

“Finally, it became apparent that I needed to focus on theater,” Fucci says.

And his stage career since is another example why as much as we watch college sports programs to look for future sports stars, it’s also worth watching the stages for future marquee actors.

Fucci has gone on to graduate school at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he will spend his last year, the 2010-11 academic year, as an intern at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater.

And it was Orlando and the prestigious Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival that helped point Fucci toward his biggest role in his hometown.

Looking for a monologue to perform in the Festival, a couple of University of Central Florida professors pointed Fucci to Prince Hal from William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I. Fucci’s performance of the monologue that ends Act I earned him the classical acting award in the competition.

This week, Fucci will expand his performance of that role from a signature monologue to the entire show in SummerFest’s production of Henry IV, Part I.

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It seems we will get an early look at the new music director of the Lexington Philharmonic.

Scott Terrell. Photo by David Stephenson | LexGo.com.

According a release from Lexington’s Fourth of July Festival, Scott Terrell will have the baton for the Philharmonic’s annual patriotic concert at 8 p.m. July 3 on the steps of Transylvania University’s Old Morrison Hall. Terrell was named music director of the Philharmonic in April, after a more-than-two-year search for a successor to George Zack. Terrell will begin conducting his first season with the Philharmonic in September, but the patriotic concert will be his first appearance in one of the Philharmonic’s highest profile events.

The patriotic concert is one of the orchestra’s most popular public concerts, along with the annual Kentucky Christmas Chorus at Rupp Arena.

Patrons are encouraged to bring blankets and lawn chairs and arrive early to enjoy pre-concert entertainment including the Young at Heart Jazz Band, which will begin playing at 5:30 p.m. in Gratz Park, across from Old Morrison, and an instrument petting zoo for children.

Admission is free.

Kronos Quartet — L-R, violinists David Harrington, John Sherba, violist Hank Dutt and cellist Jeffrey Zeigler perform at Transylvania University Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2007. Copyrighted photo by Joseph Rey Au, courtesy of Transylvania University.

You have to love a string quartet that can create parking problems and traffic congestion on Broadway. Classical music in Lexington often takes place in relative quiet. But last night, there was unmistakable hubbub around Transylvania University’s Mitchell Fine Arts Building.

It was for Kronos Quartet, the new music pioneers brought in to inaugurate the Dorothy J. and Fred K. Smith Concert Series.

The stated goal of the endowed series is to “bring high-quality musical performances to Transylvania’s campus annually, reflecting a variety of musical styles that will include classical, jazz, American folk, world music, popular, musical theater, opera and multimedia.”

Save for the opera and musical theater, series really couldn’t have come up with a better ensemble to distill the breadth of that goal into one evening of music.

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