Invisible Theatre News

Claassen reviving one-woman show on Edith Head www.azstarnet.com ® Published: 02.27.2009 Claassen reviving one-woman show on Edith Head She portrays the Oscar-winning fashion designer By Kathleen Allen ARIZONA DAILY STAR Edith Head died in 1981. Yet, the great Oscar-winning costume designer, lives. Thank Invisible Theatre’s Susan Claassen for that. She remounts her one-woman show, “A Conversation with Edith Head,” for a limited run next week. Claassen first resurrected Head in 2002 with a script fashioned by Claassen; Paddy Calistro, co-author with the designer of “Edith Head’s Hollywood”; and Tucson director Carol Calkins. Since then, it’s taken on a life of its own, drawing crowds at Scotland’s Fringe Festival, packing them in at a small theater in London’s West End and bringing it to adoring fans around this country. Claassen was watching a television biography about Head when she realized her remarkable resemblance to the designer. A play was born. It takes place a few weeks before...

Claassen's play about Hollywood icon adapts to locale Claassen's play about Hollywood icon adapts to locale February 25, 2009, 5:08 p.m. CHUCK GRAHAM Tucson Citizen Just like an evolving work of art, Invisible Theatre's original production "A Conversation with Edith Head" has evolved. Back in 2002 when IT's artistic director Susan Claassen wrote and made her debut in this one-woman show - giving a much-praised portrayal of the iconic Hollywood costume designer - the story was set on the Universal City Studio Tour where she had a bungalow. Now Claassen makes adjustments to her intimate portrait so it is set in whatever city - or country - she happens to be in for the show. So when "A Conversation with Edith Head" returns to the Tucson stage March 5, the dialogue will be adjusted so there are direct references to the Old Pueblo. "Her husband loved Southwestern art, and they would come here looking for pieces to collect," Claassen says. "...

Tucson Weekly : Arts : Fraud and Fury PUBLISHED ON FEBRUARY 19, 2009: Fraud and Fury Power stands at the center of Arizona Rep's 'Medea,' Invisible Theatre's 'Camping' By JAMES REEL Power--how to wield it, how to abuse it. That's the subject of two plays, written nearly 2 1/2 millennia apart, that opened in Tucson last week. A witch-princess exacts revenge in Medea at the UA's Arizona Repertory Theatre, while an American president squares off against an ambitious industrialist in Camping With Henry and Tom at Invisible Theatre. Roberto Guajardo, Roger Owen and James Blair in "Camping With Henry and Tom. Warren G. Harding is the president in question in Mark St. Germain's Camping With Henry and Tom. Remember Harding? Probably not, unless you're an American-history enthusiast, and the Teapot Dome scandal rings a bell. Harding was initially, in the early 1920s, a popular president, but his administration was probably the most corrupt in America...

Strong performances abound in Invisible Theatre's latest production Strong performances abound in Invisible Theatre's latest production CHUCK GRAHAM Published: 02.19.2009 Extremely intelligent men do not have to be extremely intelligent all the time - just now and then. When it really counts. The rest of the time - say, 90 percent of the time - they can be just as boneheaded and shortsighted as the rest of us. Brian Wees (from left), Roger Owen and James Blair are in the Invisible Theatre's production of "Camping with Henry and Tom." Photo by Tim Fuller, courtesy of Invisible Theatre That is the message in "Camping With Henry and Tom," when playwright Mark St. Germain projects an imaginary night-in-the-woods conversation on July 24, 1921, among Henry Ford, Thomas Alva Edison and Warren G. Harding (early in his term as president of the United States). According to online accounts, it is historical fact that Ford and Edison regularly went on camping trips ...

On stage Famous trio flings zingers in 'Camping' www.azstarnet.com ® Published: 02.13.2009 On stage Famous trio flings zingers in 'Camping' By Gerald M. Gay ARIZONA DAILY STAR Had Thomas Edison been around to celebrate his birthday Wednesday night, he might have enjoyed watching himself in Invisible Theatre's production of "Camping with Henry and Tom." He would have totally been into Roberto Guajardo's curmudgeonly portrayal, complete with the slow-going movements of an elderly Edison and a no-nonsense mope. He might have even chuckled out loud along with the rest of the audience at the sarcastic zingers and one-liners Mark St. Germain wrote into the script for the prolific inventor. Brian Wees, bottom, is a secret service agent, Roger Owen is Warren Harding and James Blair plays Henry Ford in IT's production. Tim Fuller / Courtesy of Invisible Theatre The play finds Edison, carmaker Henry Ford (James Blair) and President Warren G. Harding (Roger O...

FASHIONABLY PERVERSE: HITCHCOCK’S REAR WINDOW introduced by Invisible Theater's Susan Claassen The Loft Cinema FASHIONABLY PERVERSE: HITCHCOCK’S REAR WINDOW introduced by Invisible Theater's Susan Claassen Sunday, March 1st at 1:00 p.m. Admission: $6.00 / Loft members: $4.75 Fear and fashion make a beautiful couple in Hitchcock's suspense classic REAR WINDOW, introduced by Invisible Theater's Susan Claassen, who will dish the dirt on legendary Hollywood costumer Edith Head's iconic designs for star Grace Kelly, Hitch's battles with the censors, and much more! **Enter our free raffle to win a copy of the new 25th Anniversary edition of the classic book Edith Head's Hollywood, by Edith Head and Paddy Calistro, with a foreward by Bette Davis!** The suspense. The binoculars. The Edith Head gowns! Few films in Hollywood history have so creatively combined fashion and fear as Hitchcock’s nail-biting 1954 thriller REAR WINDOW, starring James Stewart and Grace Kelly...

Play imagines trip by Edison, Ford and, curiously, Harding www.azstarnet.com ® Published: 02.06.2009 Play imagines trip by Edison, Ford and, curiously, Harding By Kathleen Allen ARIZONA DAILY STAR When Mark St. Germain has a question, he writes a play. That's what happened when he heard about a camping trip taken by President Warren G. Harding, Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. In the play, Thomas Edison (Roberto Guajardo, left), Warren Harding (Roger Owen) and Henry Ford (James Blair) go camping together. Photo by Tim Fuller / Courtesy of Invisible Theatre "I was curious why they (Ford and Edison) would invite Harding on a camping trip," St. Germain said in a phone interview from his New York City-area home. "Harding was this totally ineffectual president and human being. I couldn't understand why they would want his company." So he imagined why, and the comedy "Camping with Henry and Tom," which Invisible Theatre opens next week, was born. St. Germai...