Please download and review the mlbscholarship_application with this link. The following qualifications guide the selection of recipients as follows:

1. The student can be a graduating high school senior or currently in college.
2. The student’s GPA should be 2.5 or higher.
3. The student must have participated in at least one production at BLT.
4. The student must be a current member of BLT
5. Preference may be given to a student that has participated in at least one theater production  in the past year.
6. Preference may be given to a student who intends to major or minor in a Theater Arts program in an accredited  junior college, college, or university.
7. The student must submit a completed scholarship form to the Scholarship Committee by May 1. See link above. Applications should be mailed to:  Baytown Little Theater, ATTN: Scholarships, PO Box 2022, Baytown, TX 77522.

The production opens Friday, April 13, at 8:00 PM, and continues with performances Fridays, Saturdays, and Sunday afternoons at 2:30 PM through April 29. Get tickets online, or call the box office at 281-424-7617. Tickets are $15.00.

The membership meeting is held in compliance with the theater’s bylaws, which call for a gathering in April every year to conduct the theater’s normal business, including electing members to the Board of Directors, considering any changes to the bylaws, and hearing reports from the Board, officers, and committees regarding the operations of the theater and plans for the future. All members are urged to come be a part of the meeting.

If your membership is not up-to-date, (new memberships were due with the beginning of the 2012 season with our recent production A Chorus Line) you can renew your membership on-line or at the meeting April 28. Only those with current memberships are eligible to vote on any matters such as Board of Directors or changes to the bylaws, if any.

This is a great opportunity to put your talents on the display. Even if you have never participated in a BLT play or workshop, come out and join the fun on this production. If you would like any more information regarding the auditions please e-mail John at BLTeens@baytown.littletheatre.org

Written in 1601 or 1602, the play was a favorite during the Renaissance. The title itself prepares the audience for a time of merrymaking and general foolery involving unrequited love, mistaken identities, and mischievous pranks. Twelfth Night refers to the twelfth night after Christmas Day, called the Eve of the Feast of Epiphany, a day of revelry in which servants dressed up as royalty, women as men, and men as women. In Shakespeare’s play, class and gender are major issues.

The main plot concerns mistaken identity.  Viola, the leading character, disguises herself as a young man after a shipwreck separates her from her twin brother, Sebastian, and lands her on the shores of Illyria, ruled by Orsino, a noble duke.  Viola’s dressing exactly as Sebastian creates considerable confusion toward the end of the play when Sebastian unexpectedly appears.

In order to assess her situation in an unknown land, Viola offers her services to the duke and takes the name of Cesario.  Impressed with the young “man,” Orsino offers Cesario the position of messenger to the noblewoman Olivia, whom he loves.  Actually, Orsino seems to be in love with the idea of love, for he has seen Olivia only once.  The plot thickens when Olivia, impressed with Viola/Cesario’s looks and beautiful speeches, falls in the love with her/him.  Ironically, Viola/Cesario falls in love with Orsino when he takes her/him into his confidence and reveals his deep affection for Olivia. This mix-up, which includes gender confusion and unrequited love, is the major conflict in the story.

A subplot, providing several comic interludes, involves a clever, conniving gentlewoman, Maria, and a jolly, rowdy drunkard, Sir Toby Belch, Olivia’s uncle.  They contrive to trick Malvolio, a straitlaced, self-righteous steward in Olivia’s household, in believing that Olivia is in love with him.  Malvolio’s ambition to marry Olivia and become Count Malvolio is revealed when he acts, dresses, and speaks in a manner that he thinks will win Olivia’s love.  Instead, his behavior repels her and she proclaims that he must be a victim of “midsummer madness.”

One of the most interesting characters in the comedy is Feste, Olivia’s fool or clown.  As in most of Shakespeare’s plays, the fool usually has the best lines—lines that seem silly on the surface but underneath reveal deeper, even profound, truths.  Feste’s beautiful songs also are revealing comments on love’s pains and sufferings as well as love’s joys.  Appropriately, the play begins with one of the most famous lines in Shakespeare’s canon:  “If music be the food of love, play on.”

The BLT production opens April 13 with subsequent performances April 14, 15, 20, 21, 22, 27, 28, and 29. Tickets will be available online at this website on March 12, or reservations can be made by calling the theatre at 281.424.7617.

Notes provided by Julia Jay.

Under the leadership of John Morales, the BLTeens have had a great year, with classes beginning in August and continuing to now, but the classes are coming to an end for this school year to make way for the upcoming youth show: Starmites Lite. Starmites is an 80s themed broadway musical wherein a girl enters her comic book and becomes a super heroine. Auditions for Starmites Lite will be held at the Baytown Little Theater on March 17th at 11 A M. The BLTeens will preview the show at the BLT and will perform it at the Texas Nonprofit Theatres Youth Conference, June 6-10, in Lewisville, Texas.
For more information contact John Morales via e-mail, BLTeens@baytown.littletheater.org

This activity is open to all youth who are in grades 6 through 12 (parents of younger kids should inquire about the possibility of their participation). Show up at the BLT March 17 to get all of the information.

Sometimes community theater offers rewards in ways that we do not expect. We love to hear the applause and laughter coming from our audiences, and a handshake, a hug, or a pat on the back after a performance is welcomed, but every once in a while, a special delight is offered us that goes beyond the ego boost of that recognition.

Our recent World Premiere, in our May production of The Lost Tribe by Jeff Stolzer, offered several such moments. We were delighted to share our performance with the author, who traveled from his Manhattan home in New York City to join us for the opening weekend. Jeff was generous in his assessment of how we brought his play to life, and we were happy that the show fulfilled his hopes and expectations for a premiere production.

The Lost Tribe also found connections in unexpected places, from BLT patron Dr. Jim Bernick, who grew up in the neighborhood of Los Angeles represented by the barbershop setting, and who offered a wise recommendation that a photo of LA Dodger and Hall of Famer Sandy Koufax would undoubtedly be hanging on the wall of THIS barbershop (that suggestion was immediately incorporated into the set decoration), to the many patrons who approached us after the performance, relating how this production has really made them think, not only about the historical aspects of the Holocaust that are a part of the events of the twentieth century, but about the implications of the play for tolerance in twenty-first century current world affairs.

Perhaps the most inspiring experience came on the Friday night of the final weekend when our performance was witnessed by several folks from the Holocaust Museum of Houston. Among the representatives was Houston resident Zoly Zimir, himself, like the character of Ruth in the play, a survivor of the Rumanian persecution by the Nazis and their puppet dictator, Ian Antonescu. He stayed for a while after the performance and generously shared his own experiences of doing “whatever it takes to survive”, one of the central themes of the play. Perhaps he, more than any of the rest of us, understood what it means to dwell in the grace we offer each other as we struggle together through the pains and sufferings of life.

And now, in our summer offering, BLT highlights its Fiftieth Anniversary Season with a musical that pleases the eyes and ears, delights the sense of humor, and challenges us again to think. You will enjoy Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd on so many levels, with the ever-popular songs, the energizing urchins’ chorus, the hysterical comic performances, but don’t neglect to look beyond the obvious at the deeper eloquence of this congenial and stimulating allegory. You may take away some ideas that you did not enter the theater with. Please come join us for some inspiration.

It is our honor and blessing as members of a theater community to share in this opportunity to make our community richer.

I Do, I Do!

The NYE Celebration begins at 8:00 pm. with preshow appetizers and champagne. Curtain time for I Do, I Do!  will be at 9:00 p.m. After the performance, the celebration will continue with a cocktail buffet catered by Louis Cressy with Cardinal Culinary. More champagne and party favors will be passed out to guests for a New Year’s toast to 2012 at midnight. Make your plans now to ring in the 2012 New Year in a family friendly environment at the Baytown Little Theater. Tickets for the New Year’s Eve Celebration are priced at $50. each for regular tickets and $40. each for season ticket subscribers. The ticket price for the remaining performance dates are $15. each.

To reserve your tickets online for I Do, I Do! simply click here. Or you can call the theater to leave your request and a phone number for a return call. For season ticket subscribers, your ticket exchange requests can be made by leaving a message at 281-424-7617 or send an email to boxoffice@baytown.littletheater.org. A box office volunteer will call you back as soon as possible.

PRODUCTION DATES for I Do, I Do!
December 31, 2011 @9:00 p.m., January 6, 7, 13, 14, @8:00 p.m., January 8, 15 @2:30 p.m.

Harry Monday is a down and out private eye and talks like one. Even the police are tired of coming out to the Peaceful Pines Sanitarium because of all the murders stacking up. “They said we should just phone them in from now on,” the head doctor explains. You won’t want to miss this hilarious who-done-it!

Cast members include: John Morales (Captain Mandrake., Larramore Mandrake, Thunder O’Brien), Mackey Skinner (Danny O’Donnall, Hans), Will Myers (Harry Monday), Douglas Taylor (Dr. Morrissey), Reanna Lynn Gautreaux (Beatrice Smith),  Julia Jay (Tara Dillaise), Julie Bailey (Lily Dramkean, Rhea Tetley), Missouri Wilkinson (Mary Tobias) & Ryan Martin (Tramp & Humphrey Hopkins).

Tickets can be reserved online at baytown.littletheater.org or calling 281-424-7617. Buy your tickets today for this sure to please show.