I met this morning with 2 of my top sales people to review your performance.. We enjoyed your
program. We found your looks awesome. You really do look like "the man." Your humorous
stories such as, "no teeth, my mother was happy for that" is VERY funny, and we all laughed. The motivation
you gave the salespeople was, witty, humorous and above all useful
Thanks, Mobile Ed. Productions.
Last Saturday
night, we felt like we'd been visited by a ghost from the past, Mark Twain. Your show is just the perfect show for the
Lincoln Square historic theatre. Since word of mouth is the best advertising, next year we will fill all 1200 seats.
Executive Director Lincoln Square Theatre, Decatur, IL
SRO at The Cumming Playhouse
"An Evening with Mark Twain".
What a delightful occasion. It was a heart lifting experience with humor, so tastefully displayed and music so entertaining
to encourage sing-a-long from the audience. The laughter through-out the performance was gratifying as we promise
our patrons the very best entertainment. To top it off it was a SRO show. A fitting tribute to the great humorist.
You will be on our schedule again next season! Thank you Mr. Sutton for such a lovely evening.
Executive Director, Cumming Playhouse
Your show was fantastic, to see how you could address an eleven year old boy and a man of eighty in the same
audience was AMAZING! Watching everyone singing and tapping toes....yes! The night of that first show I went home
wishing I could have heard every word more clearly ( I am deaf in one ear and have some loss in the other). Vanity keeps me
from wearing hearing aids and times like Friday night make me realize just how much I am missing. Saturday night I was
front and center I was blessed and heard EVERY word. I was so glad you performed again I enjoyed it SO much and appreciated
it more than I can say.
Manager, Velocity International Marketing
It was a great show, everyone enjoyed your protrayal of one of America's favorite humorist. The business stories
were spell binding and hit the mark. The staff was totally engrossed in you speech/performance. We look forward
to a return appearance.
Thanks, President DRA, Knoxville, TN
Thank you so much for your help in raising over $3000.00 for the benefit of Grace to the Nations. The
money will be well spent and the show was just right for our audience.
Thanks, Executive Director, Grace to the Nations
kurtsutton@mindspring.com
| Becky Thatcher on Stage with Mark Twain |
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Serving the Montgomery Alabama community by posting reviews of professional, university, and community
theatre productions.
Monday, November 14, 2011
"An Evening With Mark Twain"
Brought in for just one short weekend, Kurt H. Sutton's interpreter of Samuel Clemens as Mark Twain in “An
Evening With Mark Twain “graced the stage with the wit and wisdom, and frequent spot-on criticisms of American culture,
society, and politics.
Mark Twain is revered as America's greatest humorist, and was known later in his life for remarkable
speaking engagements across the land where he entertained the crowds by giving excerpts from his books and stories, and reminiscing
on his life.
So it is here: the setting is his "parlor" -- a carpet, a wing-back armchair, a lectern, a couple of instruments,
and some other props -- from which he recites, sings songs, passes judgment on several sacred cows, and entertains us with
his quick wit, sly grin, and frequent forays into folk and "spiritual" music that Clemens loved to sing and play to entertain
his friends.
Originally devised as Mark Twain Tonight by Hal Holbrook many decades ago, an entire cottage industry
has emerged with actors portraying Twain. Mr. Sutton has been on the circuit for over six years, and clearly has a comfort
in the role, a command of a wealth of material, selections of which vary from performance to performance, and a demeanor that
gets an audience to respond as to a long-time friend [though it took a story or two for the audience to respond appreciatively
to the old-fashioned style of storytelling as the audiences today are used to
a quick “punchline”].
We have to listen carefully to sometimes get the joke -- a turn of phrase, a clever
pun, or a sly off-hand remark delivered with a shrug of the shoulder or a double-take or a well-timed delayed comment.
If
we listen , there is no doubt why Mark Twain's works have continued to captivate readers in three centuries; not only are
his subjects timeless or at least as relevant today as when they were first penned, but Twain's prose descriptions of rivers
and nature and human foibles are rendered precisely to create vivid and lasting pictures.
And his humor always hits
its target. For example, he once told someone that he came across "the ugliest woman I ever saw", but the next day when her
sister was around, he "now withdraws the statement". Or that "I can cut out bad habits, but not moderate them", concluding
that a person with no bad habits is a "moral pauper". Or calling Congress the "Grand old national asylum for the helpless",
stating further that we have "the best Congress money can buy" -- sentiments which met with approving laughter from the audience.
-- And his rambling story of "Grandfather and the Ram" told by Sutton as the town drunk who falls asleep in a drunken stupor
before finishing the tale, gets funnier with each section as the storyteller gets distracted by the details of the story.
Which keeps him from “walking a straight line”
In Act II, Sutton spends much of the time with selections
from Huckleberry Finn, and plays all the roles, stating further that this book particularly has been banned by some
group or another ever since its first printing, and wisely noting that "nothing sells as well as a banned book". -- Huck's
moral dilemma is, of course, that he doesn't turn in the runaway slave, Jim, and thinks he will go to hell for it, but that
he can't quite figure out why anyone could enslave another; the choice of going to "the good place" where he would be always
in the presence of do-gooders & hypocrites is unbearable for Huck, so he prefers "the other place" for his eternity.
This
Mark Twain gave us a lot to think about at a time when slogans and moralizing have little substance; we could well take notice
from the master.
Posted by Michael P. Howley at 10:17 PM
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The
Lincoln Square Theatre Seat
This was an interesting and moving award surprise.
After my performance at the Lincoln Square Theatre I I was presented
with a permanent seat in the theatre with a plaque commemorating "An Evening with Mark Twain".
The Lincoln Square Theatre is one of the oldest theatres in the country and
is being beautifully restored to its former glory, which was enhanced by live performance by Bob Hope, Glen Miller Orchestra,
the great magician Houdini and many other great performers.
But perhaps the greatest distinction is that it was on this site that Abraham
Lincoln announced his candidacy for the Presidency.
To have a permanent seat in such company and in this classic theatre is a
tribute to Mark Twain and a gracious recognition of my work.
Last night's performance of "An Evening with Mark Twain" a one man show, featuring Kurt H. Sutton
was an exercise in theatre art. Mr. Sutton was outstanding playing the part of Mark Twain and several of his characters
including Huckleberry Finn, Miss Watson and Jim.
Mr. Sutton moved through the characters with ease and the humorous stories and music flowed
smoothly as the evening flew by. It was a thoroughly enjoyable night of good theatre.
Town Lake Arts Center, Marietta, GA
By Barbara P. Jacoby Cherokee Tribune, Managing Editor Cherokee Tribue
The 1876 novel by Mark Twain tells the
tale of a boy growing up in a small town along the Mississippi River in the years following the Civil War.
Arts Center Artistic Director Gay Grooms
said she decided to apply after seeing "Tom Sawyer" had been added to the NEA's list of choices for the project.
"Part of the focus of The Big Read is
to encourage reluctant or lapsed readers, many of whom, statistically speaking, are adolescent boys, to pick up a great novel
and read again. What better book than 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer' to give to a young fellow to get excited about reading?"
she said, noting the arts center also has produced a play based on the book, most recently in 2006.
Through a partnership with the Sequoyah
Regional Library System, the arts center will present six weeks of activities kicking off in February.
Plans include local performances by
Canton native Kurt "Mr. Twain" Sutton, who brings the famed author to life in a one-man show. Sutton was in character to entertain
guests during the arts center's recent "Tom Sawyer" shows.
As part of The Big Read, Sutton will
visit local libraries and middle and high schools, where as Twain he will distribute free copies of "his book," as well as
tell stories and sing songs of the period andplay banjo and guitar. .
Community events in the works include
mini-raft building contests, treasure hunts and a Becky Thatcher Tea Party at Tea Leaves and Thyme in Woodstock, Mrs. Grooms
said.
The culminating event will be
performances of the "Tom Sawyer" play at the arts center. For Carson Ray, regional supervisor of
youth services for the library system, "It seemed so natural that the library be a part of this
literacy initiative. I imagine us bringing Cherokee County alive with literacy," she said, noting "Tom Sawyer" is among her
favorite novels. "We'll be dragging literacy out of the mud, cleaning it up and putting a shine on it."
bjacoby@cherokeetribune.com
www.twainquotes.com
| Award Winning Actor Kurt H. Sutton |
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Some of the Organization for which Mr. Sutton has performed for fundraising purposes:
Grace to the Nations
Cheshire County YMCA
Friends of the Library, Newton,NC
Shelton House Museum
NEA Big Read Project and TLAC Theatre
Georgia Kidney Transplant Foundation
Retirement and Assisted Living Performances
Sahib Temple, Sarasota, Fl
The Glenridge, Sarasota, Fl
Royal Palms, Sarasota, Fl
Arbor Acres - Winston-Salem, NC
Well Springs - Greensboro, NC
Friendly Homes - Greensboro, NC
Friendly Homes West - Greensboro, NC
Friendship Heights, Washington DC
Oak Springs - Buford, GA
The Sandy Ridge Home - High Point,NC
Bermuda Village-High Point,NC
Dirigo Pines, Orono, ME
The Woods at Canco, Portland, ME
Pennybryn, High Point, NC
Calusa Harbor, Ft. Myers, Fl
Schooner Cove, Damariscott, ME Freedom Valley, Brandywine,
PA
Wellington Retirement, Wellington, PA
Brookdale Living, National Org.
Belleair Towers \, Clearwater, Fl.
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