Thomas Dale High School to present "Threepenny Opera"

Thomas Dale High School’s theatre department will present Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera for a limited run. The production features a score best known for the classic Mack the Knife. The show runs January 14 and 16 at 7 p.m. and January 17 at 3 p.m. in Thomas Dale High School’s large auditorium. Thomas Dale is the home of Chesterfield County’s Specialty Center for the Visual and Performing Arts. It is located at 3626 W. Hundred Road in Chester.

Threepenny Opera is a true collaboration among the theatre, dance and music departments of Thomas Dale High School and the cast, sixty-strong, and an equally impressive crew, have been working on Brecht’s tale of greed, corruption, and homelessness since September. As with all of Brecht’s plays, the use of song, graphics, and cabaret-style numbers are meant to wake the audience up and make them want to go out and change the world. Threepenny is enjoying revivals nationwide as the U.S. economic crisis makes the play very timely indeed.

The play marks director Keri Wormald’s first musical at Thomas Dale. She is known locally for her work at the Barksdale Theatre on such productions as Doubt and Well. She is also currently working on a Irene Ziegler’s world-premiere play Full Plate Collection for “Minds Wide Open: Virginia Celebrates Women In The Arts.” Several Thomas Dale students are working as interns along side local professional designers and actresses for the “Minds Wide Open” project.

Student cast members include Nathaniel Rice as Mack the Knife, Lara Thrift, Courtney McCotter, Brandon Butts, Yasmin Thomas, Savannah Hatcher, Anthony Pullo, Marquis Hazelwood, Sebastian Deleon, Joey Gravins, and Bobby Brown.

Tickets are $10 for adults and $8 for students and can be purchased at the door thirty minutes prior to the show. For further information, call Keri Wormald at 768-6245, extension 502 or see www.SpecialtyCenterArts.com