Penny’s Family Tree - Person Sheet
Penny’s Family Tree - Person Sheet
NameLee Ann Hittenberger 
Birth4 Aug 1959, , San Mateo Co., CA1
FatherHerman C. Hittenberger (1916-)
MotherJaniece Adele Turner (1925-)
Misc. Notes
West Bay Opera Annals: http://www.wbopera.org/annals/chorus.html
Chorus Roster
This list includes all members of West Bay Opera choruses (*including children's choruses) beginning with the 1972-73 season. (Some of these chorus
members also appeared in earlier productions.)
Hittenberger, Lee Ann : Bartered Bride W79
"Not a 'Rags'-to-riches story but CLO finds silver threads in failed musical"
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER 11/24/98
by Joe Adcock, P-I Theater Critic
A good reason for producing the 1986 musical "Rags" is that it was created by pretty much the same team that devised the fabulously successful 1964 hit "Fiddler on the Roof."
A good reason for not producing "Rags" is that it was a fabulous flop. It ran on Broadway for exactly four days. It lost its investors $5.5 million.
Civic Light Opera has decided that the pros outweight the cons. And the company's current "Rags" production demonstrates that composer Charles Strouse and and lyricist Stephen
Schwartz really are pros. The tunes in "Rags" are intriguing, ranging from ragtime to Jewish folk dance to torchy ballard.
At times its tricky rhythms and arrangements are more than CLO music director Mark Rabe and his 19-member orchestra can master. Attacks and releases are sometimes ragged, and
singer/accompaniment coordination is occasionally loose.
The featured singer, Frances Leah King, is always a pleasure to hear, however. Her voice is warm and solid, big and expressive.
King plays Rebecca, a 1910 Russian Jewish immigrant to New York. Rebecca flees the medieval mentality (with its casual but at times violent anti-Semitism) of Czarist Russia. In New
York she finds the capitalist mentality (with its sweatshiop oppressions).
The "Rags" book by Joseph Stein, is a mess. Characters come and go without making much of an impression. Familiar stereotypes pop up in unsurprising forms: Immigration officials,
machine politicians, a sweatshop proprietor and a tyrannical father are bullying creeps. A union organizer is noble and intelligent. Young lovers are appealing. An innocent martyr is
troubling.
Rebecca has come to New York to find her husband, the father of her young son, David. Her search is not immediately successful, so she takes a job sewing in a sweatshop. She argues
with, and then falls for, a charismatic Ladies' Garment Workers union organizer. Just then, who should show up but her husband, Nathan Hershkowitz. Except that- opportunistic,
assimilationist no-goodnik that he is- now her husband is calling himself Nate Harris.
Rebecca is torn. Her conflict is not really resolved. It is one of many wisps and loose ends and holes in "Rags."
Director Scott Green marshals a 30-member cast in such a way that the ensemble does a fair job of representing a churning Lower East Side throng. A bland set by Jim Luther Jr.,
however, does nothing whatever to suggest the vitality of 1910 Manhattan. Making up a bit for the lack of picturesque detail are period costumes by Lee Ann Hittenberger.
Chorus Roster
This list includes all members of West Bay Opera choruses (*including children's choruses) beginning with the 1972-73 season. (Some of these chorus
members also appeared in earlier productions.)
Hittenberger, Lee Ann : Bartered Bride W79
"Not a 'Rags'-to-riches story but CLO finds silver threads in failed musical"
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER 11/24/98
by Joe Adcock, P-I Theater Critic
A good reason for producing the 1986 musical "Rags" is that it was created by pretty much the same team that devised the fabulously successful 1964 hit "Fiddler on the Roof."
A good reason for not producing "Rags" is that it was a fabulous flop. It ran on Broadway for exactly four days. It lost its investors $5.5 million.
Civic Light Opera has decided that the pros outweight the cons. And the company's current "Rags" production demonstrates that composer Charles Strouse and and lyricist Stephen
Schwartz really are pros. The tunes in "Rags" are intriguing, ranging from ragtime to Jewish folk dance to torchy ballard.
At times its tricky rhythms and arrangements are more than CLO music director Mark Rabe and his 19-member orchestra can master. Attacks and releases are sometimes ragged, and
singer/accompaniment coordination is occasionally loose.
The featured singer, Frances Leah King, is always a pleasure to hear, however. Her voice is warm and solid, big and expressive.
King plays Rebecca, a 1910 Russian Jewish immigrant to New York. Rebecca flees the medieval mentality (with its casual but at times violent anti-Semitism) of Czarist Russia. In New
York she finds the capitalist mentality (with its sweatshiop oppressions).
The "Rags" book by Joseph Stein, is a mess. Characters come and go without making much of an impression. Familiar stereotypes pop up in unsurprising forms: Immigration officials,
machine politicians, a sweatshop proprietor and a tyrannical father are bullying creeps. A union organizer is noble and intelligent. Young lovers are appealing. An innocent martyr is
troubling.
Rebecca has come to New York to find her husband, the father of her young son, David. Her search is not immediately successful, so she takes a job sewing in a sweatshop. She argues
with, and then falls for, a charismatic Ladies' Garment Workers union organizer. Just then, who should show up but her husband, Nathan Hershkowitz. Except that- opportunistic,
assimilationist no-goodnik that he is- now her husband is calling himself Nate Harris.
Rebecca is torn. Her conflict is not really resolved. It is one of many wisps and loose ends and holes in "Rags."
Director Scott Green marshals a 30-member cast in such a way that the ensemble does a fair job of representing a churning Lower East Side throng. A bland set by Jim Luther Jr.,
however, does nothing whatever to suggest the vitality of 1910 Manhattan. Making up a bit for the lack of picturesque detail are period costumes by Lee Ann Hittenberger.