Philadelphia, PA-NJ (1888PressRelease)
June 11, 2008 - Todd Cardin of ETC Theater today announced the cast of Dramamine High 2008. Cardin has revamped the wildly popular musical for the 2008 Philadelphia Live Arts and Fringe Festival. Returning to their original roles will be ETC funnyman Mike Ridgeway, Esther Cardin, Elizabeth Cardin, Victoria Burdo, Paul Valente, Emily Deller and Emily Poche.
Joining the cast will be Anthony Morrione, Dan Donahue, Stephanie Albert, Jackie VanLoan, Kevin Kozeniewski, Philadelphia theatre great Denise Shubin and Cardin himself will also take the stage.
Assembling this years cast was more challenging than most of ETC plays. Cardin usually writes a script with a particuliar performer in mind. Yet, this years production was difficult because of scheduling conflicts. These conflicts are normal in any theatre company, but especially at ETC. A majority of the cast are area high school students.
After Cardin had assembled the cast, he ran into some serious competition, namely high school sports. Cardin then recruited Dan Donahue and Kevin Kozeniewski to join the cast. Both young actors were noticed as standouts in their high school productions. ETC is thrilled to have these two performers on board, an excited about bring eleven performers to their first Philly Fring Festival (Cardin and Shubin performed in past Fringe shows.)
The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe is the event to catch each September. As the Fringe’s reputation spreads, its 16 days of premieres and juried and non-juried works are like old home week, attracting artists from around the world.
Almost seven hundred dance, theater, visual arts, music and spoken-word presentations are performed in traditional venues, but also on street corners, cars, galleries, cabarets and restaurants. It’s offbeat, daring and avant-garde with lots of artistic cross-pollination.
Dramamine High will be directed by Emily Cardin. In fact ETC Theater is a family affair. Todd has written the book, lyrics and music for eight original plays, including the legendary One Man Busey. Wife Emily, as well as daughters Esther and Elizabeth act in many of these productions. In fact the ETC Players have become and extended family of sorts, providing a very different theater experience to their large fan base, comprised mostly of suburbanites.
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