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For Jed Bernstein, the Aspen Theater’s production director, what’s so special about celebrating an anniversary is whether you can look back and look forward at the same time, he said. For the 40th anniversary of the Theater Aspen, Bernstein wants to do just that.
Kicking off the 40th season at the Aspen Theater is the annual Holiday Cabaret Show. Returning to the Jerome Hotel Grand Ballroom this December 19-23, the Cabaret Series brings together a talented cast of Aspen Theater alumni – from professional Broadway stars to local youth performers. They have all performed in past main stage shows.
“It’s very easy to look back on the past part,” Bernstein said. “We’re going to do this by playing some of our favorite songs from our favorite shows and including actors who have been with us before and want to be with us again.”
Looking ahead, the production director continued, the Aspen Theater has announced its lineup for this year. He said the organization has never announced a full season at this time of year, and the holiday song and dance event will also serve as a platform to discuss the upcoming season, as well as announce some special anniversary events.
It’s a fitting event to celebrate the theater company’s past and future. While this is the fourth year of the cabaret series and the second with the Jerome Hotel, the legacy of this cabaret experience goes back to the beginning, Bernstein explained.
Bernstein noted that the Aspen Theater was actually born 40 years ago in the basement of the Jerome Hotel, and he went on to discuss the history of song and dance culture as it relates to resorts like Jerome.
“In the past, people would go to these resorts, whether it was a ski resort or a sun resort, and there would always be a show in the hotel, usually a nightclub show, and at least one night during your visit, you and your family would go to the hotel to see a show,” Bernstein said. “So it’s also a call to the era, when the social heart of the town – in our case, Main Street and Jerome – had entertainment every night of the week.”
On five show nights, patrons will enjoy a sit-down chef dinner beginning at 6:30 p.m., followed by an hour-long Broadway musical and holiday classics performed by Aspen Theater cast members.
While last year’s show was more festival-oriented, this year marks the cabaret’s first anniversary, and the entertainment will lean more toward Broadway shows, Bernstein said.
He highlighted multiple Aspen Theater main-stage appearances in this year’s cast. For the cabaret show, the alumni performers will recreate some of the numbers they’ve performed in past shows with Theater Aspen.
The cast includes Jayke Workman, who starred in Aspen Theater’s “Gypsy” and “Jersey Boys” last summer and Mary Sunshine in “Chicago” the summer before — which led the actor to played the role in her Broadway debut in New York.
Workman said he was thrilled when the Aspen Theater asked him to be a part of the company for this year’s cabaret, and said being able to revisit some of the pieces he’s performed with other cabaret performers over the past two summers is how special.
“Since we’ve both done multiple shows at the Aspen Theatre, we have a wider repertoire to choose from,” Workman said. “Audiences will recognize songs from past productions—it’s like the greatest hits in Aspen music history, with some fun new surprises.”
Workman said he will be singing some of his Mary Sunshine material, explaining that due to the intimate nature of cabaret, it will look and feel very different from what he does on stage.
“It’s definitely going to be different—there’s going to be less of a wall between me and the audience, both physically and because I’m not going to be fully in the character,” Workman said. “It becomes more intimate.”
Actor Galyana Castillo also spoke about the intimacy surrounding cabaret. Castillo worked with Workman on the Aspen Theater’s “Chicago,” and has also appeared on the company’s main stage productions: “Guys and Dolls,” “Little Shop of Horrors,” and “Rock of Ages.”
“The fact that the Aspen Theater production is very intimate, the cabaret setup allows for more human-to-human eye contact with the audience,” Castillo said. “Compared to working with the Aspen Theater in the summer, it feels more personal.”
For Castillo and Workman, working with the Aspen Theater over the summer had a huge impact on their careers, they said.
Castillo expresses how a sense of camaraderie and community develops among cast and crew during each Aspen Theater production she’s been a part of. Workman can attest to it — the actor says he made many important relationships through the Aspen Theater that continue to flourish in his New York City home.
“It has had a huge impact on my career, working with some of the best creatives in the industry,” Workman said. “Especially it’s in Aspen — Aspen is its own bubble, but when you come back to the city, you have a wealth of connections and friends.”
It is this family atmosphere that Workman describes that the Aspen Theater has been cultivating from the beginning. And for Bernstein, he hopes this year’s holiday cabaret will embody that philosophy even more.
“The Aspen Theater should be a place where you always feel connected, you always feel like you can go back there — we tried to create that,” Bernstein said. “Plus the holiday cabaret — you Knowing that, of course the holidays are family time—we want these actors to feel a double sense of family.”
Kimberly Doreen Burns (“Ragtime” and “Our Town”) joins Workman and Castillo as part of the Cabaret family; Trevor James (“Jersey Boys”), Isaiah Reynolds (“Hairspray”) and Beth Malone (“Miserable World,” “Spelling Bee,” and “The Marvelous Wonderettes”).
A Tony Award nominee and local resident, Malone has been involved in numerous productions throughout the Valley and has been part of the Aspen theater family since 1999.
This year’s Holiday Cabaret is directed by stalwart Aspen theater director Mark Martino, with Eric Alsford as musical director. New this year, young local alumni of Aspen Theater Productions will perform nightly alongside professional actors.
Holiday Cabaret will be held at the Hotel Jerome from December 19th to 23rd.Tickets are available at www.theatreaspen.org.
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