BIG NEWS! Scranton’s own Lorenzo Pugliese is returning to his hometown the first
weekend of March portraying Sonny Bono in “The Cher Show.” A 2015 graduate of
Scranton High School, Lorenzo credits many, many Scranton area mentors for his
success in theatre, including SSF artistic director Michael Bradshaw Flynn, who
offered Lorenzo his first professional jobs in the industry. The multi-talented actor
returned with Scranton Shakes last summer as Roger in our sell-out production of
“Rent.” Tickets are available for this musical at the Scranton Cultural Center.
BROADWAY NOTICE: Luke Antony Neville, a Scranton Shakes alum, writes: “In a
total twist of events, I’ll be joining the incredible Broadway company of “Back to the
Future -The Musical” at the Winter Garden for the next few weeks, standing by for
Strickland! Thankful to the team at Tara Rubin and to others for keeping me sane
throughout the absolutely joyful, surreal, insane, wonderful madness!” Neville most
recently appeared in the Off-Broadway musical “Titanique.” Coincidentally, Luke also
appeared with Lorenzo several years ago in the SSF production of “Footloose.”

ALL OVER THE MAP: Jason Nadal, who played the title role in last season’s “Othello”
at the Scranton Shakespeare Festival, just received notice that he has been chosen for
an ESPN ad which is being produced in Washington, DC as this is being written. Jason
also tells us that the advertising campaign for Olly is officially live!. He says, “This was
such a cool experience! Had to fly out to Warsaw, Poland, to shoot for this commercial.
It is now airing on all streaming services, internet, print, and TV. I want to thank the cast
and crew for trusting me to stay in the pocket with only two hours of sleep and jet
lagged on the day of the shoot after flying in from Aruba!”
LOCAL PLAYS: Two of our stalwart performers for Scranton Shakes are appearing this
month in a production of “Pippin” for Ovation Playhouse at its new black box space in
Plains. Kelly Jean Graham, who starred as “Sweet Charity” with SSF is The Leading
Player while Camille Reinecke portrays Catherine. The show runs February 9-18. And
tickets are available by calling 570-846-0707 or at ovation.ticketleap.com.
Isabella Snyder, last seen with SSF in our holiday Panto production of “Jack and the
Beanstalk,” is now appearing as Hodel in the Music Box Dinner Playhouse production of
“Fiddler on the Roof,” which will run Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays from February 9
thru 25. To grab your seats, email reservations@musicbox.org or call 570-283-2195.

HAMLET STARS: Two other SSF favorites, Gianna Porfano (as Ophelia) and Darin F.
Earl II (as Claudius/Ghost) are performing in “Hamlet” with a touring company of the
Utah Shakespeare Festival featuring nine professional theatre artists and educators
visiting schools to bring one of the world’s most recognized plays to K-12 students
across the Intermountain West. Darin appeared with Scranton Shakes in “Love’s
Labour’s Lost” as Ferdinand and in ‘Sweet Charity,” while Gianna has been featured as
Scaramouche in “We Will Rock You”, Costard in “Love’s Labour’s Lost”, The Narrator
in “Into The Woods”, and Mustardseed in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Hamlet will
tour February 1st - April 20. Visit www.bard.org to learn more.
AND STILL MORE: Congratulations to Michele Conaboy McGrath who welcomed her
second daughter, Faye Elizabeth, on January 8. Baby’s older sister is Posie….The
Maggie Allessee Department of Theatre and Dance will present “Drowning Ophelia" by Rachel Luann Strayer. As its Winter 2024 Student Stage production, The show will be
March 1, at 2 p.m. and March 2 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. A synopsis says "Jane doesn’t
know what to do with the literary character who has taken up residence in her bathtub.
Ophelia delights in singing songs about death and valentines...” Rachel and her
husband Jonathan formerly ran the Shakespeare in the Park in the Abingtons for years.
YOUTH PROGRAM REGISTRATION: Scranton Shakespeare Festival has announced
its Youth Education programs for the Summer 2024 season---which has greatly
expanded due to volume of interest! Join us this summer for our first-ever middle school
introductory drama program: Youth Ensemble Foundations for students ages 11-13.
For designers and technicians, we have established our Youth Designers program,
meant to immerse students in production processes with professional mentors.
An additional new facet is our Youth Orchestra, a program for intermediate student
instrumentalists to play in the orchestra pits of our season musicals alongside
professional pit musicians.
And our high school Youth Ensemble acting program returns this year to produce our
student-collaborated cabaret, the Player’s Piece. We’re delighted to announce two full
productions available to students as well: Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Stephen
Sondheim and James Lapine’s Into the Woods.
Applications are now open through March 17. Link in our bio to apply and learn more!

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