Alley’s New Season Boasts a Housemade Broadway Hit, a World Premiere Based on Ella Fitzgerald, and More
Mar. 24, 2023
Alley resident actors (photo by Lynn Lane)
OKAY, THAT COUCH is comfy, and streaming is convenient, but nothing compares to the experience of live, in-the-flesh theater, especially as it is staged and performed at Houston’s Alley Theatre and its resident company of supremely talented actors.
For Alley Theatre Artistic Director Rob Melrose, who just announced the Alley’s 2023-24 season, there’s never been a better time for folks to take a collective break from the screen and get out of the house. “We are missing out on the human interactions that you only get in a theatre with other people,” says Melrose. “Our 2023-24 is designed to welcome people to the theatre.”
With that in mind, the Alley kicks off its 77th season on July 21 with the world premiere of Agatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, adapted for the stage and directed by Mark Shanahan, featuring members of Alley’s resident company and special guest David Sinaiko as the refined, though somewhat obsessive-compulsive Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot.
Sept. 22 begins the run of José Cruz González’s American Mariachi, which tells the story of two girls growing up in the 1970s who aspire to form a mariachi band and features plenty of live mariachi music.
Little Comedies, a collection of five one-act comedies by Anton Chekov directed by Tony® Award-winning playwright and legendary director Richard Nelson, runs Oct. 6-29. And come November, it’s the return of the audience-favorite, A Christmas Carol, a Victorian-styled production with plenty of special effects and David Rainey reprising his role as Scrooge.
The year 2024 begins with Sharr White’s Pictures From Home, an intimate family portrait that was part of the 2020 Alley All New Festival and is currently a hit running on Broadway.
On Feb. 23, 2024, the Alley’s resident company gets to show off its formidable ensemble and comedic acting chops in Larry Shue’s The Nerd. The World Is Not Silent, written by Don X. Nguyen and directed by Marya Mazor, has its world premiere on March 22, 2024. The play tells the moving story of a son trying to reestablish a relationship with his father who has suffered a hearing loss. On April 12, 2024, the company brings Charlotte Brontë’s groundbreaking novel Jane Eyre to life with a stage adaptation by Elizabeth Williamson. Melissa Molano takes on the role of one of Brontë’s most enduring characters.
Finally, Thornton Wilder’s unfinished, full-length play The Emporium has its world premiere at the Alley on May 10, and the season closes with the world premiere of Ella, a musical by Anna Deavere Smith celebrating the life, legacy, and songs of jazz singer Ella Fitzgerald. “To say Ella had humble beginnings is a profound understatement,” says Smith. “She sang America through some of its most discordant times. She was America’s love song. She was an American miracle.” Ella runs May 31-June 23, 2024.
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McKinley and Murrah
GEORGE FRIDERIC HANDEL’S comedic cantata Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno, subtitled Cor fedele in vano speri (“A faithful heart hopes in vain”), tells the story of two shepherds in love with a beautiful nymph. For Ars Lyrica Houston’s Mar. 26 performance of this Baroque “mini-opera,” audiences may be surprised by what is a very contemporary yet historically accurate casting decision: The nymph’s role (Clori) will be sung by countertenor Key’mon Murrah, and soprano Lauren Snouffer and contralto Cecelia McKinley will sing the roles of the love-struck shepherds.
But gender-bending in Italy during the Baroque period (1600 to 1750) was not unusual; male singers frequently performed female roles and vice versa. “We don’t know who sang in the premiere of this work in 1707,” says Ars Lyrica Founder and Artistic Director Matthew Dirst. “But it was common for castrati to sing either male hero or female parts, and for contraltos to sing male or ‘trouser’ roles.”
For McKinley, 27, who graduated last spring from Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music with a master’s in vocal performance, and is making her Ars Lyrica debut as Fileno, the story of Clori, Tirsi, e Fileno is at least as old as the music Handel composed. “We’ve been talking about how men and women try to understand each other for centuries,” says McKinley. “As a woman looking at the score and the libretto, to me, it reads as how the genders see each other, and the difference between how we present ourselves to each other and what we really feel.”
For the uninitiated, the sound of the contralto voice, the lowest voice type for the female voice, can be startling, although, as it is upon first hearing a countertenor (a male soprano), its beauty becomes quickly apparent. McKinely notes that the music Handel composed for Fileno sits very comfortably in her range, and Ars Lyrica will perform the cantata tuned to Baroque pitch, which sounds about a half step lower what is known as 20th-century concert pitch, giving the music a rich, sensuous, and joyful timbre.
So are listeners surprised when they first hear the sound of McKinely’s singing voice?
“Very often, yes,” laughs McKinley. “People come up to me after a performance and say, ‘I expected something different to come out of you!’”
Born and raised in Virginia, McKinley sang the popular music of the day around the house as a child, but classical music didn’t come into her life until she decided to seriously study voice. Early on, she tried singing rock, jazz, and musical theater (“I always just kind of sounded like an old woman!” says McKinley.) before discovering at age 17 the beauty of Italian art songs, songs that felt good to sing and suited the unique quality of her voice.
While McKinley says the contralto voice fell out of fashion in classical music performance during the 20th century, it’s now making a comeback, which bodes well for this rising star.
“As a younger singer, I used to find it troubling to be such a low voice, because it does defy certain gender expectations,” says McKinley. “But now I find it very empowering. It’s a rare voice type, and you have to dig a little more to find the repertoire, but I like the chase. I like deep diving.”
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