The Semmering

Malcolm on 06 28, 2010

Have you ever heard of The Semmering?  It’s an area of the Alps that covers parts of both Italy and Austria.  It is an impossibly steep, very high part of the mountains.  And as those places generally are, it’s a beautiful part of the world.  The vistas, valleys and the clean fresh air are like nowhere else.  Even the water tastes incredible.

The only way to see The Semmering at ground level is by train – The Semmering Railroad.  There just aren’t roads in this area, you have to sit back, relax and see it the same way everyone did when it first opened to travel.  The people who designed and built these train tracks back in 1848 were incredibly smart people.  They knew there needed to be a train that took people from Vienna, Austria to Venice, Italy.  It would be great for the economies of both cities and everywhere in between.  Most importantly, it would be good for the people themselves. People work hard all the time, all year long and their souls need to relax, they need to be transported to a magical place.  And this railroad would take them someplace people had never been.

Since this would be the world’s first true mountain railway, there was not a train in existence that was able to make the trip.  But they built the tracks anyway. They built them because they knew, someday, the train would come.

You could say that The Group Rep is a lot like the people who built those train tracks in the Alps. In the past year, we’ve been doing some incredible work, and it’s getting us noticed. Like last July, with the Murray Shisgal Plays. Those plays were not only crowd pleasers, but they were critically acclaimed as well!

Then we followed that with our Rep-A-Trois, which “put the Rep back into The Group Rep!” We performed Boston Marriage by David Mamet, Heroes by Tom Stoppard and Painting Churches by Tina Howe – all in repertory with each other! Quite a feat for any theater, and especially for a ninety-nine seat house in Los Angeles.

For the holidays, we featured the Los Angeles premiere of a new musical version of A Christmas Carol, for the entire family.  It was tremendously well received, it had a sold out run and the critics loved it. It also featured a backstage blog by yours truly!

This winter, we featured a new adaptation of The City by Clyde Fitch.  This play was written over a century ago, and the adaptation showed how much is still the same about life in the present.  Incredible things were said by critics about our production.

This spring we featured Sweet Sue by A.R. Gurney.  It was a demanding play about going through transitions in life.  It’s not the normal fare for Los Angeles theater, and audiences were thrilled by it.

As you already know, BABY and Priscilla’s Perfect Day just opened to rave reviews and are currently running now! Tickets can be reserved right here on our site.

All in all, this season has been an embarrassment of riches.  But that’s our job.  We’re here for the Southland. We’re here to put on shows that transport audiences, to put on shows that have them leaving our theatre thinking a little differently about life. We’re here to move and inspire our audiences. That’s exactly what the theatre is for.  And as you can see, audiences and critics alike feel and believe we’re doing our job well.

We’re here for you, yet we’re not satisfied. We will continue to make excellent theater for all of you, and push ourselves to create experiences even we couldn’t previously imagine.  Some pieces will be appropriate for the entire family, while other pieces will be more challenging material. But they will always be incredibly well done.

Excellence is our standard.

You could say we’re just like those architects and construction workers in 1850 Italy and Austria. They built those train tracks over the Alps even before there was a train that could make the trip.  They built them anyway.  They built them because they knew one day the train would come.

Here we are, ready for you.  The only question is: Are you ready to see excellence in the theatre?

I already know the answer.

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