Romance/Romance features UW Department of Music faculty Dr. Larry. L. Hensel and Dr. Nicole Lamartine as the leads in both acts. Dr. Larry Hensel is currently coordinator of the department’s Vocal Arts, Director of Opera Theater and founder of the touring Program for Young Audiences, Opera in a Gym. Dr. Lamartine is the Director of Choral Activities at the university.
Tony-nominated Romance/Romance pairs two distinctive one-act musicals to explore the roller coaster of love.
Produced by the University of Wyoming Department of Theater and Dance and directed by faculty member Lee Hodgson.
Written by Barry Harman and Keith Herrmann, Romance/Romance was an off-off Broadway sensation that moved to Broadway in 1988, going up against The Phantom of the Opera at the Tony’s that year.
The first act, set in late 19thcentury Vienna and based on Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler’s tale The Little Comedy, follows the whimsical affair between a well-off confirmed bachelor and a socialite who are each secretly slumming. Playboy Alfred has tired of endless rounds of inconsequential affairs. High-society player Josefine is weary of the lifestyle provided by her upper class male companion. Bored and cynical, the two pose as paupers in search of a true love and meet and fall for each other.
The second act, based on Jules Renard’s 1898 play To Have and To Hold and updated to the late-1980s, is a modern look at affection and disaffection between two married couples sharing a summer house in the Hamptons.
Best friends Sam and Monica practice a platonic relationship, but when their mates Barb and Lenny retire early one summer evening, the platonic friends find themselves gradually progressing from harmless flirtation to something more serious.
The last production of the 2012 Snowy Range Summer Theater season Romance/Romance runs July 11 to 14 at 7:30 p.m. in the UW Fine Arts Studio Theater.
