AFD Theatre Waltz Workshop Celebrates May Production of "A Little Night Music"

One of Stephen Sondheim’s most beautiful works waltzes onto the stage when AFD Theatre presents “A Little Night Music,” opening May 2 at 22 Academy Street in Arlington. Performances are Friday May 2, 9, and 16 at 8 PM, Saturday May 3, 10, and 17 at 8 PM, and Sunday May 4, 11, and 18 at 4 PM. A talk-back with cast and production crew will follow the May 4 matinee performance.

On March 23, AFD Theatre sponsored a waltz workshop in support of the upcoming show. Dubbed “A Little Waltz Workshop,” the event drew an enthusiastic group of area residents who waltzed alongside cast members on the AFD stage and learned about the show.

Based on the Ingmar Bergman film “Smiles of a Summer Night” and with music by Sondheim and book by Hugh Wheeler, “A Little Night Music” centers on the tangled trios of relationships formed by actress Desiree Armfeldt and the men who love her: a lawyer by the name of Fredrik Egerman and the fiery Count Carl-Magnus. When the two men join Desiree and her family at a weekend in the country at Desiree’s mother’s estate, mysterious possibilities bring new romances and second chances.

Director Joe Stallone, an Arlington resident, inspired the idea for the workshop, which included ticket drawings for the May 2 opening night performance.

Noting that most of the score for “A Little Night Music” is written in ¾ or waltz time, Stallone said, “Stephen Sondheim and Hugh Wheeler have constructed an elegantly intricate pattern of ‘threes’ not only in the music, but also in the plot, the relationships, the changes in relationships, and in nearly every aspect of this play. It is all about ‘three.’”

“Besides the music being nearly entirely in waltz time or various permutations of triple time, so too is the plot written with ‘three’ as a central theme with variations,” Stallone said. “Like the music, the plot and the characters are performing a waltz.”

And that’s just what more than 35 people did at “A Little Waltz Workshop” as they performed a waltz taught by show choreographer Dan Marshall. A lifelong performer, teacher, and choreographer of dance styles including ballroom, ballet, modern, folk, and jazz, Marshall got everyone moving as he demonstrated, explained, and cheered each couple twirling around on the stage.

Tickets for AFD’s production of “A Little Night Music” are $25 and may be purchased online at www.afdtheatre.org or by calling the box office at 781-646-5922.

“A Little Night Music” features a cast from area towns and includes three Arlington residents. They are Karen Fanale, Emily Earle, and Anna Catherine Muench.

“A Little Night Music” is AFD Theatre’s final production of the season. The theatre’s 2014-2015 season begins in October with “Avenue Q,” winner of the Tony for best musical, best score, and best book. In January 2015, AFD Theatre will present “Good People,” a drama by David Lindsay-Abaire about  the class divide between those who make it out of the blue-collar Irish neighborhood of South Boston and those who find themselves left behind. In April, the theatre will present “Nine,” a Tony-award-winning musical about a celebrated film director and his attempts to come up with a plot for his next film. The 2014-2015 season will close in June with “Quartet,” a play about retired opera singers caught up in plans for the annual gala at the retirement home to celebrate Verdi’s birthday.

AFD Theatre is online at www.afdtheatre.org and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/AFDTheatre. AFD Theatre is handicapped accessible. Assisted-listening devices are available. Arlington Friends of the Drama, now known as AFD Theatre, was founded in 1923 and is one of the 10 oldest continually operating community theater groups in the country.