UPDATE: Due to the playoff schedule of Red Bank Regional’s undefeated football team, the school announced today a change to the published performance schedule for AMADEUS. New dates are Saturday November 21 at 7 pm, Sunday November 22 at 3 pm, and Monday November 23 at 7 pm.
As its Fall 2015 dramatic production, the Red Bank Regional High School Theatre Company will present an 18th century period piece that became a Tony winning 20th century hit on Broadway. Written by Peter Shaffer, Amadeus freely sketches a portrait of the young, brilliantly talented and boorishly behaving Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart — as seen through the eyes and actions of his insanely jealous, revenge-obsessed fellow composer Antonio Salieri. The lead roles of Mozart and Salieri are played by Davis Bush of Millstone and Patrick Monaghan of Little Silver (left and right in photo), with the production marking the debut of RBR’s new drama director Reuben Jackson. The play goes up for three performances in the school’s auditorium, beginning Friday, November 20.
Jackson — who took over the reins of RBR’s drama program for the 2015-2016 academic year, following the retirement of longtime faculty member Joe Russo — describes the play as “one man’s search (Salieri) for the meaning of life through music and his act of revenge against God when he is confronted with the true absolute genius of Mozart. It is a character study in the nature of evil, court politics, love and musical genius.”
A 2015 winner of the prestigious Basie Award for his stage work, Patrick Monaghan heads a cast that also boasts Hannah Wallis as Mozart’s lover Constanze Weber, with Little Silver’s Shea Grant as Emperor Joseph II of Austria; Maximum Portman, Victoria Aumack and Alanah Ramos as members of the composer-commissioning aristocracy, plus the supporting skills of Gillian Andresen, Eric Banal, Griffin Cole, Jonah Cuozzo, Claire Taylor, and Tori Taylor.
Performances of Amadeus will take place on Friday, November 20 and Saturday, November 21 at 7 pm, with a Sunday matinee performance at 3 pm on November 22 (see above for schedule change). Tickets, available at the door, are $10 for adults and $5 for students and senior citizens (RBR students are admitted free.) Red Bank Regional is located at 101 Ridge Road in Little Silver.
