Tom Stoppard's hilarious Rough Crossing as it kicks off Shakespeare & Company's 30th Anniversary Sea

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Batten the hatches, don your life vests and brace yourselves for Tom Stoppard's hilarious Rough Crossing as it kicks off Shakespeare & Company's 30th Anniversary Season in Founders' Theatre May 25-September 2. Director Kevin G. Coleman brings together a well-seasoned cast of characters for an abundance of laughter, zany antics, mishaps and music for Shakespeare & Company's season opener. Previews play May 25, 26, 27, and June 1. Press Opening Night is Saturday, June 2 at 8:00 pm. RSVP to aspenlieder@shakespeare.org. Rough Crossing features Company actors Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Jason Asprey, Bill Barclay, Jonathan Croy, Malcolm Ingram, and newcomer LeRoy McClain. For tickets, show times and further information please call the box office at (413) 637-3353 or visit www.shakespeare.org . Founders' Theatre is air-conditioned and wheelchair accessible with Group, Student and Senior ticket rates available. For Group discounts contact Margit Hotchkiss at: groupsales@shakespeare.org. "I have worked on Stoppard in the past but this is the first time our Company has produced any of his work," says Coleman. "Not only has he written a very funny piece that pokes fun at actors, playwrights and their sometimes inflated egos, which we, of course, know something about, this topsy-turvy voyage also includes great music that his friend Andre Previn wrote. Coming from the author of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Real Thing, Shakespeare In Love, and some of the Star Wars Trilogy, Stoppard weaves a wonderful story with singing, silly accents, a stuttering piano player and impossible situations. We are having a boatload of fun in rehearsal and hopefully this will be a laugh filled evening for audiences as well." Stoppard adapted Rough Crossing from Ferenc Molnar's Play at the Castle and P.G. Wodehouse's The Play's the Thing. Set in the 1930's, with lyrics by Stoppard and music by Andre Previn, the hilarious, repartee-filled farce gets underway aboard The SS Italian Castle, an ocean liner bound for New York from Southampton, and tells the story of a musical comedy team who must come up with an ending for their newest show before their ship docks. However, the aging and randy starlet, Natasha, "whose accent invokes the tradition of English speaking continental stars", gets caught by her 'love-struck' French piano player boyfriend, Adam, in a compromising position with her much, much, did we say 'much'? older co-star Ivor, a British actor who resembles the beach-baked American actor George Hamilton. Adam's heartbreak causes the sudden onset of an extremely comical speech impediment. The plot thickens when the playwrights/collaborators Turai and Gal have to concoct an elaborate scheme to keep Adam on the ship and finish the musical. Weaving (literally) in and out of the story is the cabin steward Dvornichek, who speaks surprisingly impeccable English even with his insatiable taste for cognac. Can this foundering cast survive a sea of mishaps, malaprops, pratfalls, zinging repartee and deliver a winning script to Broadway or are they sunk? Costume Design is by Govanne Lohbauer, Set Design by Carl Sprague, Lighting Design by Les Dickert, Sound Design by Richard Dionne, Music Coordinator Bill Barclay and the Assistant to the Director is Renée Speltz. Tom Stoppard (playwright Rough Crossing) was born Thomas Straussler in Zlín, Czechoslovakia into a Jewish family. His family fled Czechoslovakia to Singapore the day the Nazis invaded. In 1941 he, his bother and mother evacuated to India to avoid the Japanese invasion. His father, Eugene Straussler, remained behind and was killed. His mother Martha remarried a British officer, Kenneth Stoppard, who gave the boy his surname. The family returned to England in 1946. Dropping out of school as a teenager, Stoppard worked as a journalist and by 1960 completed his first play A Walk on the Water. From September 1962 until April 1963, he was a drama critic, often under the pseudonym William Boot (taken from Evelyn Waugh's Scoop). His play, Rosencratz and Guilderstern Are Dead propelled him onto the international stage. His plays have won four Tony Awards, seven London Evening Standard Awards and an Olivier. He has also written extensively for film and television, including adaptations of the work of his close friend Václav Havel. His screenplays include Brazil(with Terry Gilliam) Empire of the Sun, Shakespeare in Love(with Marc Norman which won an Academy Award in 1998, Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith, The Bourne Ultimatum. His newest play, Rock 'n' Roll recently opened in London. Rough Crossing marks Coleman's 30th year with S&Co as a trustee, director, actor and the Director of Education. The 2007 season will produce his short play Shakespeare and the Language that Shaped A World on the outdoor Rose Footprint stage. Coleman has acted with the Company in dozens of productions over the past three decades, as well as having directed in most of the Company's performance spaces. As part of Shakespeare & Company's faculty, Kevin teaches acting, text analysis, scene study, stage combat, and clown. He was instrumental in creating the Company's Education Program, one of the largest theatre-in-education ventures in New England and at a February 2007 White House ceremony, Kevin was given the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities 2006 National Coming Up Taller Award for the Shakespeare in the Courts Project. The Education Program is also the 2005 recipient of the Commonwealth Award - the state's highest honor for excellence in arts education. His work over the past 30 years has helped generate numerous special programs, including Shakespeare & Young Company, the Fall and Spring Festivals of Shakespeare, Shakespeare in the Courts, the New England Tour, and the national Weekend Workshops in Teaching Shakespeare. Kevin has been a Project Director for both the NEH and NEA. Outside Shakespeare & Company, he has directed and taught at many venues, including Harvard, MIT, LSU, Tulane, UMass/Boston, SUNY/Albany, SUNY/Oneonta, the Folger, Lincoln Center, and Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia. Kevin holds degrees from St. Louis University and N.Y.U. Elizabeth Aspenlieder eleventh season (Natasha in Rough Crossing); Director of Publicity. Other S&Co credits include The Merry Wives of Windsor (Mistress Ford), Ice Glen (Dulce), The Comedy of Errors (Adrianna), Much Ado About Nothing (Margaret), King Lear (Regan), Ethan Frome (Mattie), The Valley of Decision (Fulvia), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Hermia), A Tanglewood Tale (Sophia), Twelfth Night (Antonia), Richard III (Anne), All's Well That Ends Well (Helena), Wit (Susie), The Winter's Tale (Perdita), Mercy (Annie), Much Ado About Nothing (Ursula), and Pericles (Thaisa/Diana). Regional: Othello (Emelia) Boston Theatre Works; Mixed Company Play Festivals with Joan Ackerman. Canada: Eccentricities of a Nightingale (Alma), Brighton Beach Memoirs (Nora), Ludlow Fair (Rachel). Film: Seriously Twisted feature length Independent film; Trigger Finger (an Independent short which will be released at the 2007 Berkshire International Film Festival in May and the New Jersey Film Festival). She also provides the voices for numerous commercials and animation features. Originally from Toronto, Canada, Elizabeth lives in Lenox with her 9 year-old Harley (a Labrador retriever...not the motorcycle). Malcolm Ingram twelfth season (Ivor in Rough Crossing and Robert in Blue/Orange; Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor). S&Co: Enchanted April (Mellersh Wilton),The Merry Wives of Windsor (Falstaff), Much Ado About Nothing (Leonato) King Lear (Kent), Romeo and Juliet (Friar Lawrence), Private Eyes (Adrian), The Merchant of Venice (Antonio), Henry IV part 1 (King Henry), Virginia (Leonard), The Taming of the Shrew (Petruchio), Hamlet (Claudius), Twelfth Night (Toby Belch), and As You Like It (Touchstone). Broadway: Match, The Rivals. Berkshire Theater Festival: Rat in the Skull, Hay Fever. Actors Theater of Lousiville: All My Sons. StageWest: Someone To Watch Over Me. Syracuse Stage: My Fair Lady, The Crucible, Oliver. London: West End: Half Life, Dirty Linen, New Foundland, Popkiss. Royal Court: The Fool, Total Eclipse, Trixie and Baba. Joint Stock: Fourth Day Like Four Long Months of Absence. Riverside Studios: Julius Ceasar, As You Like It. The Roundhouse: The Glass Menagerie, Skyvers, Feast of Fools. Plus many other London fringe and regional theatre productions in the UK. London: Julian Mitchell's Half-Life, Stoppard's Dirty Linen and After Magritte, Bond's The Fool, and Hampton's Total Eclipse. Regional: Hay Fever at B.T.F.; Someone Who'll Watch Over Me at StageWest; and Romeo and Juliet (Prince), Oliver (Mr. Brownlow), The Crucible (Giles Corey), and Death and the King's Horseman at Syracuse Stage. TV: The Camerons, Beloved Enemy, Clapperclaw, The Story of Ruth. Most recently, Chappelle's Show on Comedy Central. Jason Asprey fourteenth season (Gal in Rough Crossing; Bruce in Blue/Orange). S&Co: Hamlet (title role), The Mission of Jane (Julian Lethbury), The Promise( Jean Le Fanois ), As You Like It (Oliver/Corin), Comedy of Errors (Angelo), King Lear (Edgar), Much Ado About Nothing (Don John/Sexton), Henry V (Fluellen), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Puck), Macbeth (Macduff), and Julius Caesar (Antony). Regional: Julius Caesar (Cassius) at Shakespeare Now, Betrayal (Robert) at Nora Theatre, Einstein's Dreams (Eduard Einstein) at Culture Project NYC, A Life in the Theatre (John) and The End of the Day (Grayden Massey) at Ensemble Theatre, Romeo and Juliet (Mercutio) at Swine Palace; also Kinghtbridge Theatre, Orpheum Theatre, Los Angeles Theatre Center, Mixed Company, and theatre in England, where he has also worked in TV and film. Bill Barclay fifth season (Adam in Rough Crossing/Musical Director Rough Crossing/Humanities Lecture Series). S&Co.: King John (Melun, Music Director 2005), Turn of the Screw (composer), King John (title role, Stables 2001), Bankside Humanities Lecture 2006, Romeo & Juliet on tour at the North Shore Music Theatre, and Othello directed in Chelsea for the Education program. As a composer and multi-instrumentalist, scores include work for PBS; The Vineyard Playhouse (Living in Exile); W.H.A.T. (The Captain's Doll); Hamlet, Julius Caesar, Richard III, and King Lear (Actor's Shakespeare Project), the last of which won acclaim Off-Broadway at La MaMa E.T.C. starring Alvin Epstein. His latest full-length musical, Call of the Wild currently begins a 10-month US tour with the National Players. Other acting credits: Achilles in War Music ("Aurea" at the Chicago Humanities Festival); The Rivals (The Huntington Theatre Co.); L'Histoire du Soldat (Narrator, ALEA III Orchestra); Titus Andronicus (A.S.P.); Ophelia (The 4th Street Theatre) and WGBH Boston. Training at S&Co., the National Theatre Institute (w/ study at the Royal Shakespeare Co.), the University of Siena, Italy, and the Tanglewood Institute. BA Vassar College in Music & Drama; MFA Boston University School of Theatre in Playmaking. Bill currently lives in New York City. Jonathan Croy twenty-first season (Turai in Rough Crossing; Director of Scapin). S&Co: more than 40 roles including The Merry Wives of Windsor (Dr. Caius), The Taming of the Shrew (Baptista), King John (Pembroke), Much Ado About Nothing (Don Pedro), Henry V (Pistol/French King), The Tempest (Caliban), Complete Works abridged (Jon), Twelfth Night (Orsino), Richard III (Buckingham), A Midsummer Night's Dream (Bottom), Merchant of Venice (Gratiano), Comedy of Errors (Dromio of Syracuse), Custom of the Country (Elmer Moffat), Twelfth Night (Aguecheek), Macbeth (title role), and Much Ado About Nothing (Benedick). Jon has directed many Schools Tours, Shakespeare in the Courts programs, Summer Institute productions, Young Company performances, and more than 30 others in Residencies. Regional acting credits: NY Shakespeare Festival, Missouri Rep, NC Shakespeare Festival, Orlando Shakespeare Festival and Virginia Shakespeare Festival. LeRoy McClain first season (Dvornichek in Rough Crossing, Christopher in Blue/Orange). Broadway: The History Boys. Other New York Credits include, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo (Lark Theatre); Huck & Holden (Cherry Lane); In Search of Stanley Hammer (New York Intl. Fringe). Regional: Trouble In Mind, Elmina's Kitchen (Baltimore Centerstage); The Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare Theatre of D.C.); Richard II (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey); The Taming of the Shrew, King Lear, Medea/Macbeth/Cinderella (Yale Repertory Theatre); Like Sun Fallin' In The Mouth (National Black Theatre Festival); Twelfth Night (Shakespeare Festival Los Angeles); Three Days of Rain, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Private Eyes (Ensemble Co. for the Performing Arts). Favorite Yale School of Drama Credits: Blue/Orange, Henry IV Part 1, Cyrano, Tape, And Jesus Moonwalks on the Mississippi, Dance of the Holy Ghosts. Film/Television: Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Breaking In, Guiding Light. Education: Yale School of Drama (MFA), Loyola Marymount University (BA), National Theatre Acting Studio (London). Box Office, Discounts, Subscriptions, Pricing Convenient e-ticketing is available anytime at www.shakespeare.org or contact the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or by fax (413) 637-4274 and by e-mail is boxoffice@shakespeare.org. *Tickets for all Founders' Performances: $10-$57 with reserved seating. Berkshire Night (50% off for full-time, year-round Berkshire residents in Founders' for all performances except Friday and Saturday nights), Family & Kids' Matinees (free admission for ages 5-18 in Founders' for all 10:30 am and 3:00 pm performances), Adult Groups (10-30% off groups of 15 or more) and School/Camp Groups (15-50% off groups of 15 or more), Seniors & Students under 19 ($4 off all shows, except Saturday nights). Also, $10 Rush Tix will once again be made available one hour prior to curtain (if seats are available) for patrons aged 30 and younger at both theatres for all performances.
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Possible Measles Exposure at Boston, Logan

BOSTON — The Massachusetts Department of Public Health confirmed Wednesday that an out-of-state adult visitor who spent time in Boston and Westborough earlier this month was diagnosed with measles and was present in a number of locations.
 
This could have resulted in other people being exposed to measles virus.
 
The visitor arrived at Logan International Airport on American Airlines flight 2384 from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas, on Dec. 11 at 2:39 p.m. They stayed at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Boston-Westborough in Westborough and departed the state on Dec. 12 via Logan at 9:19 p.m. on JetBlue flight 117 to Las Vegas.
 
DPH is working with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and local partners to identify and notify those who may have been exposed to measles from this individual.
 
"Measles is a highly contagious, airborne disease, which has increased significantly in the United States because of the unfortunate decrease in vaccination rates. It is also a preventable disease," said Public Health Commissioner Dr. Robbie Goldstein. "This current situation serves as an important reminder of the critical role vaccination plays in protecting our communities. While Massachusetts has not had a measles case this year, 2025 saw the highest number of nationwide cases in more than a decade — nearly 2,000 in 44 jurisdictions, and sadly, three deaths. 
 
"Fifteen years ago, measles had been considered eliminated in the United States, but that tremendous progress is at risk. Vaccines are one of the most important public health interventions ever — they are safe, effective, and lifesaving."
 
Measles is very contagious. However, the risk to most people in Massachusetts is low because the vaccination rate in the state is high. People who are not immune and visited any of the locations on the following dates and times may be at risk for developing measles.
 
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