The Making of Saint-Ex with Composer Jenny Giering:
WORLD PREMIERE
August 25 - September 10 Saint-Ex
Music by Jenny Giering, book & lyrics by Sean Barry Directed by Kent Nicholson Music Director: Matt Castle Musical Staging: Jennifer Turey Orchestrations: Mary-Mitchell Campbell Copyist: Frank Galgano Set Design: Timothy Mackabee Costume Design: Kirche Zeile Lighting Design: Stuart Duke Sound Design: Ed Chapman Dialect Coach: Patricia Norcia Production Stage Manager: Jess Johnston*
You know him as the author of the classic children's book The Little Prince. But this dazzling new musical by a fast-rising composing team shows you a whole other side of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, taking you inside his world, his imagination, his dreams. Exploring his relationship with his brother, his tempestuous marriage and the conflict between his career as an aviator and his success as an author, Saint-Ex will open you up to a whole new horizon.
A soaring musical premiere
And following the final curtain most evenings in our intimate downstairs lounge! Act IV Cabaret - An original music and comedy revue.
Cast:
Saint-Ex… Alexander Gemignani*
Guillaumet… Charlie Brady*
Mermoz… Omar Lopez-Cepero*
Francois… Carl Kimbrough*
Etienne/ Wroblewski… Price Waldman*
Reine… Miguel Jarquin-Moreland*
Benjamin/ Gavoille… Stanley Bahorek*
Consuelo... Krysta Rodriguez*
Maman… Cass Morgan*
Ensemble… Amy Justman*, Haley Bond Petersen*
History Feature for August 21
The Disappearance of Saint-Ex
(photo:Wikimedia.org)
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry disappeared while on a reconnaissance mission during the Second World War. In 1998, a fisherman named Jean-Claude Bianco found (east of Riou Island, south of Marseille) a silver identity bracelet bearing the names of Saint-Exupéry and of his wife Consuelo and his publishers, Reynal & Hitchcock, hooked to a piece of fabric, presumably from his flight suit.
In 2000, a diver named Luc Vanrell found a P-38 Lightning crashed in the seabed off the coast of Marseille, near where the bracelet was found. The wreckage of his plane, identified by its serial number, was pulled from the waters near the coast of Marseilles, France and on 7 April 2004, investigators from the French Underwater Archaeological Department confirmed that the plane was, indeed, Saint-Exupéry's F-5B reconnaissance variant. No marks or holes attributable to gunfire were found, and, what happened to Saint-Exupéry has never been determined and investigators said they could not determine whether the P-38 was shot down or crashed because of mechanical problems. In June 2004, the fragments were given to the Museum of Air and Space in Le Bourget. The location of the crash site and the bracelet are less than 80 km by sea from where an unidentified French soldier was found in Carqueiranne, and it remains plausible, but has not been confirmed, that the body was carried there by sea currents after the crash over the course of several days.
In March 2008, 85-year-old Horst Rippert, a former Luftwaffe pilot, claimed he was on a reconnaissance mission over the Mediterranean sea, when he saw and engaged a P-38 with a French emblem near Toulon. Rippert said the P-38 crashed into the sea and he believes he downed Saint-Ex, but he could not prove it conclusively since he did not see the pilot. In an interview with Le Figaro magazine, the German pilot also said he hoped he hadn't shot down Saint-Exupéry. "In our youth, at school, we had all read him. We loved his books," he said. "If I had known, I would not have opened fire. Not on him!"
However, contemporary archival sources, including intercepted Luftwaffe signals, strongly suggest that Saint-Exupéry was not shot down by a German aircraft.
Thus, the mystery of how Saint-Ex met his fate is yet unsolved.
