Troupers - Film Premiere
 They
appeared on Broadway, in film and on television;
The Pirates of Penzance
(Broadway – Kaye Ballard),
McHale-s Navy / Ed Sullivan
Show (TV – Carl Ballantine),
Get Smart, Turner & Hooch, Star Trek The Next Generation (TV – Ivy
Bethune), All In The Family,
Laverne & Shirley (TV – Betty Garrett),
Rhoda / The Mary Tyler Moore Show
/ The Golden Girls (Harold Gould),
Alice (TV – Marvin Kaplin),
Love American Style / The Phil Silvers Show / The Lucy Show / Dallas
(TV – Jane Kean), Bonanza / I
Dream of Jeannie / Matlock / Murphy Brown (TV – Bruce Kirby),
Serpico (Film - Allan Rich),
Seinfeld / Follies (TV and
Broadway – Justine Johnston), ER
(TV – Connie Sawyer) and without them those shows would not have
been the same. These actors and actresses often never achieved the star
status of their contemporaries and yet they trudged on and had
entertainment careers that spanned decades and now they are starring in
the documentary film Troupers,
which has been seven years in the making. Producers / Directors Saratoga
Ballantine (yes she is Carl’s daughter) and Dea Lawrence, both of whom
have had lengthy acting careers on stage, in film and on television, set
out to tell the story of these entertainers who often overcame obstacles
and who performed into their seventies, eighties and nineties,
dispelling the notion that only young actors and actresses with firm
bodies, no wrinkles and unblemished skin can make it on the stage or in
front of the camera.
“I have so many friends in show business. I thought that people should
be profiled and that
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Interview: Producer Pat Addiss
 Even
though Pad Addiss is only in her seventh year as a theater producer, she
already has several high profile productions to her credit, including
Spring Awakening which
garnered eleven Tony Award nominations and won eight including Best
Musical. The show also won four Drama Desk Awards. Pat Addiss’ Broadway
credits as a producer also include,
Little Women,
Passing Strange,
The 39 Steps and the revivals
of Promises, Promises (2010)
and the revival of The
Fantasticks, starring Aaron Carter, which is currently enjoying a
run at New York City’s The Snapple Theater Center. She also produced
Chita
Rivera: The Dancer’s Life.
In 2010, Ms. Addiss was honored by Works By Women, which has a mandate
to honor women in theater and to elevate the number of plays and
musicals that appear on American stages and are written and directed by
women. The organization says that number now stands at less than 20%.
Pat Addiss received the Tru Spirit of Theater Award. We caught up with
Ms. Addiss in Hershey, Pennsylvania where her newest production,
A Christmas Story, based on
the stories of legendary radio personality Jean Shepherd, was being
staged.
When asked what she was doing in Hershey Pennsylvania, Pat Addiss, as
she did throughout our conversation, punctuated her words with laughter
and replied, “I
am eating a lot of chocolate and getting fat. The whole town smells of
candy. They have a museum and they have Chocolate World, which I have
already been to and I am staying away from. The show (A
Christmas Story) is glorious. There is a convention (in town) and
some women stopped me in the lobby (of the hotel) and said to me, ‘Thank
you so much for giving us the flyer about
A Christmas Story, because we
saw it last night and it was great.’ Another
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Actress Heather Parcells
 By
her own admission, actress Heather Parcells who revived the plum
role of Judy Turner in
A Chorus Line on Broadway in 2006 and who also appeared in
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang at the
Hilton Theatre on Broadway, relishes roles where she can portray strong
women, with strong opinions, who can really go after what they want out
of life.
I am really drawn to characters
that are so extreme, but you do not have any repercussions from that,
because it is fake,” she says.
Ms. Parcells ability to immerse
herself in roles such as Velma Kelly in the national tour of
Chicago is just one of the reasons why she is considered to be one
of the bright young stage actresses on the New York theatre scene. Her
role as Velma Kelly resulted in a nomination for Best Actress by the
National Broadway Theatre Awards.
he five foot seven inch brunette, with the soprano
vocals grew up in Newport News, Virginia, as the daughter of Patrick, a
neurologist and Cathie, a nurse, with one brother T.J., got her first
real taste for the stage, during her junior year of high school when she
auditioned for and landed the role of Audrey in the musical Little Shop of Horrors.
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