The Liverpool International Theatre Festival committee has added to its roster of appealing international companies for this year’s event, the 9th Biennial, to be held at the remarkable Astor Theatre from May 14 to 18. The Festival is pleased to announce the addition of a musical performance from Germany.
Who better to tell you what to expect than Artistic Director, Chris Heide, who put it all together? “We have assembled an exciting playbill, says Heide. Joining the international contingent, which includes Syria, Israel, Wales, Slovakia and the US, will be Germany, the only theatre company that will be performing in the musical genre. Their show is more a cabaret than a traditional musical. I know it will be a crowd pleaser."
The Stuttgart, Germany company THAG-Theater Fellbach will present “‘Bluebird-Musical,’ Pity, that you are Jewess!” This piece, to be performed in English and German, is adapted after Lola Blau, with music from Georg Kreisler and John Kander. In this production Lili Vogel Bluebird is a sweet girl wanting nothing more than to dance, sing and entertain, but she is a Jewess in 1938 Vienna and this is becoming a problem. She flees to Switzerland and then the US. There she struggles for stardom but instead becomes only a sex star on a provincial stage. After the war she returns to Vienna but the meeting with her boyfriend does not end happily.
The show’s director Gustav Adolf Frank provides a little additional background: “The musical ‘Bluebird’ is a story about political and racist persecution. The Jewish actress, Lili Vogel successfully escapes the Germany of Hitler but when she returns from exile she has to learn that people don’t change.”
THAG-Theater Fellbach includes students from institutes in Fellback and Stuttgart. Since 1972 they have staged diverse plays - dramas, comedies, musicals and little operas. These have taken the company to theatre festivals around the world; the AACT Festival in Texas, the Apostof Festival in Prague and others in Canada, Lithuania, Venezuela, Australia, India and China.
This year’s festival promises to be even more exciting with this performance by Germany and 10 others from Nova Scotia and abroad. Reservations may be made at the Astor Theatre Box Office, 59 Gorham Street, Liverpool. Hours are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Phone for tickets at 902.354.5250 or shop online at
www.astortheatre.ns.ca. For additional information, visit our website at
www.litf.ca.The organizing committee of The Liverpool International Theatre Festival thanks you for your continued support and looks forward to your attendance at the festival.
