GREAT EXPECTATIONS
Saturday, April 12th, 2008RECOMMENDED
Transforming Charles Dickens’ 350-page/2 dozen-character novel Great Expectations into a musical is an ambitious task, but this is the challenge that book writers Brian VenDer Wilt and Steve Lozier, composer Richard Winzeler, and lyricist Steve Lane have dared to undertake. Even more challenging is staging it in a 99-seat venue like the Hudson Backstage Theatre.
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SNAKE IN THE GRASS
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
Alan Ayckbourn’s Snake In The Grass is a real change of pace for the “British Neil Simon.” Famed for his clever comedies (Absurd Person Singular, The Norman Conquests, Bedroom Farce), the prolific (at nearly 70 he still averages 2 to 3 plays a year) writer tries his hand at a dark comedy/thriller here and succeeds admirably at darkness, comedy, and thrills.
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INVASION OF THE MINNESOTA NORMALS
Saturday, March 15th, 2008
The L.A. based Minnesota expatriates who brought us the over-the-top
craziness of Maxwell Anderson’s Bad Seed are back, with a quite different yet
equally laugh-inducing original, Jen Ellison’s Invasion Of The Minnesota
Normals. Set in the “innocent” Eisenhower-era 1950s, Invasion makes it clear
that the sometimes idealized golden years before Viet Nam and women’s lib
and school shootings and gay marriage were not so perfect after all.
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1776
Saturday, February 16th, 2008
It’s always exciting for me to discover a new play or musical, and that’s exactly
how I felt experiencing 1776 at Actors Co-op. True, 1776 has been around for
nearly 30 years, and I believe that I just might have seen the first national tour
(though if so, obviously in my infancy). I think also that I may have rented the
movie version at some time or other since the advent of the VCR. Still,
whatever memories I have of any previous 1776s are vague to say the least.
That’s why seeing 1776 at last, especially in such a polished and class-act
production, filled me with a sense of discovery.
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STUPID KIDS
Friday, February 15th, 2008
Gay teens are once again center stage at the Celebration Theatre in John C.
Russell’s comedy Stupid Kids. Michael Matthews, nominated for the Ovation
Award for his direction of the Celebration’s previous teen play Beautiful Thing,
once again proves himself a director extraordinaire in this energetic, dance
and music filled, laugh out loud funny yet poignant exploration of
contemporary American teendom.
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DICKIE AND BABE: THE TRUTH ABOUT LEOPOLD & LOEB
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
Having recently attended opening night of Nick DeGruccio’s outstanding
production of the Thrill Me: The Leopold and Loeb Story, I found Daniel Henning’s
superb Dickie & Babe: The Truth About Leopold & Loeb of special fascination.
Thrill Me is an 80-minute romantic musical, told entirely through the eyes of the
two Chicago teenagers who gained fame, and infamy, from the 1924 “thrill
killing” of 14-year-old Bobby Franks, and features an entirely fictional twist at its
conclusion. Dickie & Babe runs twice as long, introduces over two dozen
additional characters including family members, friends, trial witnesses, and the
greatest attorney of his time, Clarence Darrow, and is scrupulously based on fact.
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JAMES JOYCE’S THE DEAD
Saturday, February 9th, 2008RECOMMENDED
Open Fist Theatre Company is nothing if not versatile. Following The Idiot Box, its
clever dark comedy about reality intruding on sitcom perfect lives, and The
Room, a fascinating look back at American history and politics in the 1930s,
Open Fist now presents a musical, or more aptly put, a play with music, James
Joyce’s The Dead.
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WHAT THE BUTLER SAW
Thursday, January 31st, 2008<
“Doctor, help me! I keep seeing naked men!”
“From now on, we shall never have sex except in a linen cupboard.”
(Two of my favorite lines from What The Butler Saw.)
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