Bruno Giraldi’s show asks a number of questions — what does it mean to be “in love”? What happens when being in love crosses with self destructive behaviour? Is it okay to feel love when the person responsible for loving you was also your abuser? And even, what happens when that love you feel so strongly, is gone?
At its heart, this is a show about philosophy and vulnerability, with a satirical dash of humour, that intertwines the concepts of love and of death to show the complexity of emotions that both create — and even what happens when they overlap.
The show takes a comedic approach to some very serious topics and handles them in stride. Sexual abuse, the loss of a parent, the ending of relationships, and even the idea that love will always last (this last one being exemplified in a beautifully satirical up‐tempo version of “My Heart Will Go On” by Celine Dion).
Bruno Giraldi Waking Up
The show opens with Bruno waking up in the morning and searching for someone to love (shown by singing “Somebody To Love” by Queen — which must be a hard song to open with), but as the show progresses, the audience learns that Bruno falls hard when he loves someone which can often lead to some self‐destructive behaviours. This doesn’t need to be something extreme — perhaps just wanting to give your partner everything that you feel they deserve? But the thing is, it’s impossible to have love without pain even if your desire is to simply protect your partner. There is no way to completely separate pain and heartache from love and romance. Even with the best of childhoods, everyone has some sort of trauma and that will ultimately affect their love life. Even if the relationship is generally a good one — that innate urge to give your everything to your partner, to be perfect for your partner (and for your partner to do the same for you) is just simply not realistic; even if many philosophers through the ages put the concept of love on some unattainable pedestal.
So perhaps to love is to suffer? Perhaps love and suffering are just opposite sides of the same coin?
I really enjoyed this show. It was nice and refreshing even to have a show not attempt to sugar coat how difficult and painful love (and death) can be. But mostly, I loved Bruno’s willingness and ability to be so blunt and vulnerable with the audience. It is not an easy thing for a lot of people to speak openly about their own experiences and traumas. Let alone, write a show and perform songs, to inform the audience of these past events. I know that it is scary for people to drop their mask, to stop acting, and to let themselves be vulnerable. And that is exactly what Bruno did. He was vulnerable. And it was beautiful to see.
Bruno Channels His Inner Freddie Mercury
More Pictures From The Show
All images in this review are curtesy of Bruno Giraldi. Used by permission, their respective owner(s) reserve Copyright.
This show is very clever. It takes something as simple and universal as milk and turns it into a symbol of life, power, strength, consumerism, and even the never ending cycle created by life and consumerism.
The set is very simple — consisting of a few chairs, one table, and a half gallon carton of organic whole milk.
The show opens with one man coming out, opening the milk carton, and he just starts chugging it. And as he does this, the rest of the cast comes out and dances around him.
The next scene is an interpretive dance showing the very first time a cow was milked. This beautifully, and without actually saying anything out loud, showed the absurdity of what that very first time could have looked like.
From there, the audience is treated to a variety of very different scenes: a 21st birthday party in which everyone ends up taking shots of milk, a children’s karate class covering serious topics like divorce, a son and father talking about the recent passing of the son’s grandmother (and the way that the grandmother has died gets more and more absurd as this scene unfolds) resulting in bringing attention to the concept of toxic masculinity (“don’t cry over spilled milk” is a saying for a reason) and even the effects that trauma can have on a person. There is a scene about addiction which reflects heavily on what it means to be a man and how every generation has a new idea of what that is. A woman going on a terrible first date with a man who has serious mother issues. Even children growing up and seeing the horrors in the world — this is an especially silly because the kids being depicted are ages 4 and 5, with the 5 years old suddenly being knowledgeable and all knowing of what life has in store for them (and us all) in the future. There’s a scene of a couple trying to role play in the bedroom only for the role play to suddenly became very real, and then there are multiple scenes portraying a milk mogul named Percival as he creates more and more new types of milk; making himself filthy rich, but losing the main ingredient of what makes up milk along the way — resulting in a hilarious confrontation between Percival and the thing that he neglected when building his empire.
And despite all of these scenes (and some more) seemingly being disjointed, the overreaching message was the same: Milk brings life — we see this everyday whether it is a parent breastfeeding their child or animals giving milk to their young. Milk is the universal nutrients for babies because it is what makes a person or an animal big and strong (or at least that’s what marketing would have you believe). Being big and strong gives you power, but we are only being fooled by the concept of this power. Because realistically, we are all stuck in a cycle of working to get the things that will make us big and strong (whether it be milk, an opportunity, making more money, etc.) which can only result in a never ending cycle of constantly working to be bigger and stronger. Eventually, we will run out of whatever ingredient we are using to get that power and the next generation will come up with something new. And the cycle will continue. Because it’s life. Milk is life — but should it be?
The cast is small consisting of just eight actors: Jake Griffith, Hannah Eisendrath, Cameron Cai, Andrew Shipman, Izzy Valdés, Micah Mabey, Paige Mesina, and Elissa Bartkowski. And honestly, every single one of them carriers their weight and has excellent stage presence. Some of the scenes that are being depicted could definitely be a hard sell for the typical theatre audience, but this crew is dynamic enough that it absolutely works!
If you’re looking for a really good laugh, an absurd premise, and a rather deep overarching message — then this is definitely the show to see!
I am not sure what I expected from this show, honestly. I went into it knowing just the basics — a satirical comedy starring the characters of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin faking the moon landing.
What I got was something right out of Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s handbook and I cannot be more pleased about that!
This show was incredibly self aware, tongue‐in‐cheek, silly, ridiculous, over the top, and I loved every minute of it. It’s clever.
The basic premise of the show is simple: No man has ever walked on the moon, but the Space Race is well on its way and the United States government is desperate to win against Russia — even if it has no idea how. And that is why when two young aspiring actors, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin (played by Collins Dennis and Teddy Fischer, respectively), go into an audition for the roles of “Astronaut #1 and Astronaut #2″ for a new Hollywood movie. Only to be told once filming has wrapped that neither of them could continue their acting career because they both signed a contract (which neither of them had read) stating that they must take on the roles of astronaut for the rest of their lives. This leads Neil to fall into a life of depression, desperate to just be an actor — to explore new roles and characters, and into a life of drinking his worries away. Buzz, being more content with the lie, has leaned into his new “job” as an astronaut and has even begun a political career.
Flyer for the Show
The play itself begins at a press conference with the character, who is cleverly named “Mr. Redacted” (played by Christopher Hanks), telling the American public about NASA’s newest mission — the first “manned” mission to Mars! And by “manned”, he means, “Chimpanzeed” because that’s the pilot — a chimpanzee named Mr. Bananas.
Standing next to Mr. Redacted is Buzz Aldrin, who is standing tall, proud, just right for the part and Neil Armstrong… who is clearly drunk. In fact, he is so drunk that he gets into a drunken fight with Mr. Bananas (and loses) prompting the government to place him into a rehab facility — and that is where much of the show takes place.
Other settings that this show has include Buzz Aldrin and his caddy on the golf course and Mr. Redacted at his barbers’ shop — where he just wants his sideburns trimmed to exactly 8 cm.
But it’s really the other characters in this show that allows for all of the ridiculous hijinks to ensue.
There is the character called Nevada (played by Nicole Ponce) who is introduced to the audience as another client in the rehab facility that Neil is sent to. Nevada is a smart character — she’s witty, dynamic, believable, coy, mysterious. And her character, in this silly show, only gets more complex from there. Ponce did an absolutely wonderful job in portraying a character that is so layered and she did so with conviction. Not to mention that the chemistry between the characters of Nevada and Neil must be on point for this show to work and it very much was; it felt genuine. Two angry, smart people having no choice but to participate in childlike forms of therapy (an example of this being the characters forced to talk through sock puppets at the rehab facility).
The other actor that absolutely must mentioned is Patrick Walsh, who played the “Ensemble”. As in, he was Buzz’s golf caddy, he was Thomas — the guy who works at the rehab, he was Thomas’ mother, he was Mr. Bananas, he was a reporter, he was Sam the barber, and he was the literal moon! And he nailed it. Walsh even delivers a wonderfully meta monologue explaining what the character of “Ensemble” is and how it still an amazing acting gig!
While this show is about a conspiracy theory — it is also very much just about acting. And not just acting, but how easily an actor can be taken advantage of and the dangers of not reading the contracts you sign. It deals with putting on a role and living with it for so long that you find yourself believing you are that character. This show deals with what it takes to even make a film or put on a production. And this show deals with what it really means to be an actor, a writer, a creative person.
And this is all shown by essentially putting on a movie inside of the show. You see the character development as each character in the show evolves, you see the literal script writing process, you see the rehearsal, and you see the final product.
This show comes down to detail, detail, detail. From the second the audience starts to enter the theatre, they toss their ticket into an astronaut’s helmet. The music playing before the show and during scene changes included songs such as “Dancing In The Moonlight” by Toploader, “Fly Me To The Moon” by Frank Sinatra, and “Rocket Man” by Elton John.
An Attendant holds an astronaut helmet to collect tickets.
And of course, this show delves into what it means to blindly trust — whether that is a person, a contract, a situation, even the government. In a show about government conspiracy, you cannot ignore the parallels to our modern political policies and how much the American people not only have no choice but to just believe what we are told by the government, but even more so, how it is expected upon Americans that we know and accept that our government will lie to us. That knowledge and acceptance that our government will lie to us is just part of being an American citizen.
And this is beautifully shown in a very simple, yet effective way when one of the characters receives an injury to their ear resulting in them wearing a bandage over his ear for the rest of the show. It would be hard to watch a character wearing a bandage on an injured ear and not see the connection to a certain conspiracy theory making its rounds on social media regarding an injury that was allegedly received by the President back in Butler, Pennsylvania.
And what a beautiful, smart way to connect a show about conspiracy to our modern audiences.
Well done.
Theater For The New CityThis show was part of the Dream Up Festival
Theater For The New City Dream Up Festival 9 September 2025
In Search of “True Love” was a remarkably refreshing piece of theatre. It was bare. It was simple. No flashy lights, no soundtrack, no audio tricks, no set: just one woman in a black box theatre bravely standing centre stage and baring her soul. And it all felt so genuine that I had to ask the creator of this show if she was even working off of a script at all.
This show was written, directed, and performed by one person — Ayaka Yamamoto. And it could not have been easy to do because everything came down to her. With no lights changing, no scenery, no other actors to work off of — it was just her talking with the audience. She is a Japanese immigrant who is living in New York City because theatre is the dream. Like many of us, it’s not the path that her parents would have chosen for her — she even has a mother who would love for her to come back to Japan and enter into an arranged marriage. But that isn’t the type of “true love” that she wants.
What is true love? That is what this show asks the audience and that is what the one character (who is the actor) is asking herself. This show is an autobiographical tale about finding that magical thing that is referred to as “true love”. But it begins with the heartbreak.
As love often does, it ends with you hurt and depressed and feeling lonely. Sometimes you may find yourself spending days on end in bed because you just can’t bear to face the morning that day. It is easy for people to say for you to move on or that there is someone else out there — but to actually get back to dating after a break up is hard. You were just vulnerable and open with someone, only for it to end in heartbreak. And then society expects you to just do it all over again despite that fact that you’re now scared to be that vulnerable again.
So you take pleasure in the little things. For Ayaka Yamamoto that little thing was a specific type of Japanese stand up comedy called “Manzai” that she would watch on YouTube. This is a two person stand up routine and quite honestly, it reminded me of British sketch comedy — I could see Monty Python sketches that were very similar to this idea. You have one character asking for advice and the other giving them very normal advice, which the first person then takes very literally and to the extreme, resulting in a hilariously awkward situation. And this comedy was the simple small thing that made getting out of bed again each morning a possibility.
In the next moment, we are with Ayaka on the last day that she is working as a babysitter for a family. She has grown to love this little three year old boy that she has come to know over the past six months, but it’s now time for her to move on to a new job. And this is when she finally realises what “true love” is.
The thing with being a babysitter is that you know you’re going to build a bond with that child, but you don’t necessarily expect that child to grow the same bonds with you because you don’t expect them to necessarily remember things in the long term. You expect, as the adult, to walk away hurt from that job because you know going into it that you’re going to have to say goodbye to the kids one day. You rarely expect the kid to hurt when the babysitter says goodbye because you expect the child to forget you soon. Which in and of itself, hurts — but it only hurts you, not the child.
So imagine the surprise Ayaka felt when the child, a three year old child, expressed sadness at her leaving. She felt needed for the first time in a long time. But more importantly she felt happy. And that’s when the point of this show becomes painfully clear and unfortunately it is a lesson that can be hard to learn.
You simply cannot have “true love” and expect that to mean happiness. You need the happiness first. In fact, happiness, I would argue is “true love” because until you have happiness alone, you’ll never have “true love” because you won’t be happy. And unfortunately, I think people forget too frequently that life isn’t a Disney movie or a Broadway musical — you have to find happiness with yourself before you’ll ever have happiness in any sort of relationship. But it’s a lesson that we all must face eventually.
Breaking The Trust is a dark comedy revolving around four sisters, their recently deceased brother, and the many secrets that both hold this family together and rip it apart at the seams.
Jeff Prewitt on the Poster for Breaking The Trust
The show opens with three of the sisters already at their deceased brother’s home. There is Martha (played by Jane Seaman) who is, at least on the surface, the greediest of the sisters. From very early on all the way until the end of Act I — money and the potential inheritance seems to be what she cares about the most. She is also an entrepreneur and is currently making doggy clothing.
We also meet the character of Donna (played by Deborah Unger) — she is perhaps the wisest of the siblings, at least when it comes to being able to figure out if a person is truly a good human or not. And even more importantly, she is able to accept people for who they are, even if who they are isn’t good.
And in this scene, we also meet Lorna (played by Shauna Bloom) who is the youngest member of their immediate family. She is, as a person, lost and is constantly seeking something — anything — to help make life worth living. She desperately wants to see the good in everyone and struggles to understand not only “how” a person could be bad, but also cannot wrap her mind around the “why” — what could possibly cause a person, any person, to choose to repeatedly do bad things? Lorna also has an abusive husband named Jesse, who is never seen on stage, but who is referenced numerous times.
And finally, there is one more character in the opening scene — his name is Ronnie and he is their deceased brother. He was cremated after his death (a decision that causes an uproar among the sisters) and sits in an urn on the coffee table.
The first scene with the three sisters (who are waiting for the fourth one to arrive) sets the tone for rest of the show. In this scene we get the first inkling that Ronnie was not the stand up gentleman that Lorna so desperately wants him to be. In fact, it is revealed very early on that Ronnie was physically abusive to his ex girlfriend and even killed his ex’s prized horse. Of course, this was old news for Donna and Martha, but for Lorna — this was shocking new information about her brother… a brother that she says, over and over, made it clear that she was his favourite sister, that loved her.
It is also during this time that the audience, along with two out of the three sisters, learn just how wealthy their brother had become — though none are sure on exactly how he became so rich. It is revealed that he had a large number of Krugerrand — a gold coin produced in South Africa and the amount that Ronnie obtained comes to be estimated to be worth around 4 million American dollars.
The Show’s Program
And in true sibling fashion — they wonder how he got the money. Was he in a gang? Did he steal it? Was he murdered over the money? No, no, he got drunk and drove his truck into a telephone pole which killed him.
At this point in the show, the audience finds out that when the sister’s father died, he left every single penny and object to Ronnie and nothing was left for any of his daughters. This, of course means that any and all inheritance left over from their parents, is part of what would be passed along to each of the four sisters. Ronnie, however, has put everything he has into a trust and his lawyer, Jordan Gibbons will reveal who gets what after the funeral. It’s important to note that the only sister who starts the show with the knowledge of this trust is Donna, who is the trustee. She does not know the contents of the trust nor how much is in it, but she signed all of the papers to make her the trustee.
In fact, in a heartbreaking admission — Lorna admits to being in a lot of debt since her husband is unable to maintain a job and therefore she is the sole provider (while she is losing herself mentally and spiritually), so the inheritance money could not have come at a better time. And as children, Ronnie swore to her that he would take care of her. So to Lorna, this is perhaps Ronnie’s way of fulfilling that childhood promise.
Finally, the fourth sister enters the stage. Her name is Nora (played by Wynne Anders) and is the eldest of the sisters. She is a cancer survivor, and is married to a man who goes by the name Perez (played by Michael Gnat) — who has joined her for the funeral.
Perez is a bleeding heart retired college professor who feels forever indebted to the woman who died while saving his life while he was living in Africa — a woman whom he had an affair with and who he clearly loves even though she is gone. Nora is concerned that Perez has Alzheimer’s disease. A very notable aspect of the character of Perez is his insistence in stating the truth — regardless of it is stings or not.
The next character to enter is Byron (played by Jeff Prewitt) — he is Nora and Perez’s son, who was just released on parole from prison after stealing from the art museum that he used to work at. Both of the characters of Perez and Byron are very intelligent characters and both actors — Gnat and Prewitt, respectively, did an excellent job in overlaying the humour, with the wit, and with the subtle jabs that a character of that intelligence needs to be able to dish out.
Headshots of the cast; Shauna Bloom, Jane Seaman, Wynne Anders, Deborah Unger, Michael Gnat, and Jeff Prewitt
Now that all of the cast of character have arrived — the true hijinks begin. The sisters have a conversation about the fact that Donna had Ronnie cremated because apparently Ronnie wouldn’t have like that. In fact, Lorna points out that when they were growing up, Ronnie used to tell her about a nightmare he had about being cremating and his ashes thrown into a river.
As the show progresses, the audience (and the character of Lorna) learn the truth about Ronnie — SPOILERS WARNING:
It is revealed that Ronnie did more than kill his ex girlfriend’s horse — he also killed Lorna’s puppy when she was a child. And the entire family — the other three sisters, Ronnie himself, and even their parents all lied to Lorna and insisted that her dog was killed in a hit and run. It is also revealed that Ronnie had only left anything of value to two out of his four sisters. Donna and Nora are both set to receive 1/4th of the inheritance each, with the rest being donated to a church — Ronnie was far from a religious man and it is clear that him leaving money to a church was solely for the purpose of screwing over two of his sisters.
Learning all of this is something that Lorna simply cannot fathom or comprehend. By the plays end, Lorna announces that by coming to the home for the funeral, she has learned that her whole life has been a lie. The brother that she thought loved her really just liked to use her as a punching bag. She has learned that her beloved dog didn’t die in an accident, but was intentionally killed by her own brother. And perhaps worst of all, everyone but her has known this entire time.
This revelation of who Ronnie truly was, breaks Lorna, who leaves before the funeral can take place. But before she does, when only her and Perez are around to see it — she makes Ronnie’s dream come true — she flushes his ashes down the toilet.
It is also revealed, but only to the character of Perez that Byron ended up doing prison time because he had teamed up with Ronnie to steal an original Picasso painting and they were going to sell it. However, Ronnie told Byron that the buyers tricked him, showed up with guns and not money, and took the painting. However, Byron has figured out the truth — Ronnie did sell the painting and he lied to Byron about it so that Ronnie could keep all of the money for himself. By the shows end, Byron — being rather intelligent — figures out the combination to Ronnie’s secret safe, steals the gold Krugerrand, and drives away before the funeral takes place.
And the only other character who knows about it all is Perez who is now tasked with making a very hard decision. Should he tell the truth, the thing he believes in, even though he knows it will destroy any sense of family and trust in one other that the three remaining sister have or should he stay quiet, let the funeral proceed as normal, never reveal that the urn no longer has any ashes in it and never reveal that Byron ran away with all of the fortune — perhaps letting the blame fall on Ronnie (after all, none of the sisters actually know how the gold was acquired or even have actually seen the gold — maybe they’ll think there simply never was any gold), in hopes that the remaining sisters can salvage any sort of resemblance to a family again?
On the surface, this is a show about grief, family, and greed. But when you get into the more layered aspects, it’s really a show about trust, promises, the need to see people for what they are, the ability to let go, and even the importance of a little white lie at times versus the truth. After all, sometimes the truth doesn’t help anyone or it can cause great harm (while also not changing anything for the better in the long run). Sometimes the truth just makes no difference in the grand scheme of things.
I did find, negatively, that some actors had better control of the stage than others. The three stand out actors in this show were Deborah Unger (who played Donna), Michael Gnat (who played Perez), and Jeff Prewitt (who played Byron).
Unger had to portray a hard, yet very soft character. She needed to be able to be stern and level headed, but not just mean and unlikeable. In fact, her acting reminded me a lot of Kathy Bates, so naturally I am curious to see this actor play a villainous character — I think it would be fun for her to perform and for the audience to watch.
Gnat’s character has to be likeable even though he has stepped out on his marriage. The audience must even potentially pity him at some points. But then at other points, he’s the life of the party, purposefully pushing people’s buttons, and enjoying a good laugh. Perez, as a character, is hugely motivated by the necessity for the truth to be known — which is why it is such a treat to see this character being forced to make a decision: let things just be or ruin the happy facade by explaining the truths.
Prewitt may not have had the most emotionally deep character to portray, but he had command of the stage and was able to grab the eyes of the audience regardless of what else was happening. This was important because especially by Act II, Byron says a lot with body language and facial expressions and very little with actual words.
I must also commend Shauna Bloom (who played Lorna). Her character spent a lot of time being clueless, so when she finally breaks down, it’s quite nice to see the physical and emotional aspects of the character shift and turn into someone who can be dark and angry.
Speaking of Act II — there was no reason for it beyond perhaps the actors safety. Act I ends with a jar full of pennies being opened and the pennies flung about the stage. And then there is a five minute “Intermission”, which I suspect was really only there so that the pennies would be swept off of the stage. However, I found breaking for only five minutes did nothing but distract from the show and mess up the flow/pacing.
Outside of the pennies being a potential slipping hazard — there is no reason (that I can think of) not to just leave them on the stage, wherever they land, for the remainder of the show. The characters are only at this home due to the funeral. And while (most) of the characters can see Ronnie for the man he really was — they are still grieving. It’s still a loss, an unexpected one at that. And that still hurts. So I don’t think the characters would care enough to clean the pennies up. Conversely, if the pennies are being removed out of safety concerns, perhaps it would work better to have one of the sister (most likely Donna) sweep up the pennies, while berating her sister for throwing them.
This show has a lot of really good, really thought provoking sections, but outside of the three actors really spotlighted above, it just didn’t feel genuine. I just didn’t feel the chemistry between the sisters that I so desperately wanted too. The moments that felt like genuine family arguments or even genuine laughter at past memories felt fleeting and few and far between. And that’s a shame because with the right chemistry, this could be a wonderful deep dive on the inner workings of not just the human mind and what makes it change, but also on the human psyche and how far a person can be pushed before their morals and values are put into question, and furthermore, when is it okay to break our own morals and values. Is it okay to do be immoral for the greater good?
Theater For The New CityThis show was part of the Dream Up Festival
This show centres around The Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, also known as The Rogers Commission. The entire show takes place within the walls of one room and the audience becomes more than just spectators — we become the members of the gallery/members of the commission that is being appealed to as Dr. William R. Graham, the acting administration for NASA (played by Thomas M. Copeland) tries to convince Dr. Richard P. Feynman, a commission member (played by Chris Jaymes) that there was no way to see this accident coming. The head of this commission is Mr. William P. Rogers (played by Paul Albe).
I think the easiest way to explain this commission, in its simplest form, is to compare it to a criminal trial. Dr. Graham would be the defendant, Dr. Feynman the prosecutor, Mr. Rogers the judge, and the audience would be the members of the gallery.
The show opens with audio clips taking the audience through the entirety of the day that the shuttle exploded. The shuttle launches, the excitement in people’s voices, the news casters announcing the launch, then the panic, the screams of terror, the horror, the news stations reporting that the shuttle exploded, and finally President Ronald Reagan addressing the American public to assure everyone that we will find out what went wrong so that it never happens again.
And it is here that we meet the characters in the show. Dr. Graham is a physicist who is the current acting administrator of NASA. That means that he and his team are the people who do the mathematical equations needed to figure out the risk of catastrophic failure for the space launches. It is worth noting that while Dr. Graham is not the person who is directly doing these math equations, he is the person who signs off on the work and is ultimately responsible in making sure that all factors have been taken into account when putting together these equations and that the math is correct.
Mr. Rogers is the appointed chairman of the Rogers Commission. He was appointed by President Reagan and was a former Secretary of the State and a former Attorney General. He is the man that must give the results of this commission to the President (and therefore may face any wrath that Reagan may have if the results do not shine a positive light on NASA).
Dr. Feynman is a theoretical physicist and was assigned to be a member of the Rogers Commission. He is the voice of reason in this show (and historically) as he is the only one who can see beyond the mathematical equations that are supposed to guarantee safety and understand that lives aren’t promised by an equation because there are always outside factors that an equation cannot account for.
The staging of this show is simple, yet effective. The vast majority of the show consists of the three actors sitting behind desks. However, that is the only type of staging that would realistically make any sort of sense for the setting. There were two beautiful moments that broke from this: the first is when Dr. Feynman shows everyone at the Rogers Commission the risk factor report that breaks down what was used to determine if any components of the solid rocket boosters needed to be replaced (this is vital because a faulty O‐ring was found to be the cause of the explosion and with there being a massive oversight in how risk factors were calculated — mainly the effects of how cold weather changes the ability of the O‐ring to function properly — the whole disaster could have been avoided). The second time comes when Dr. Feynman performs a simple, elementary school level, science experiment to prove his point as the commission progresses. Dr. Feynman (as well as all of the characters on stage) has a glass of water in front of him, with a clear water pitcher next to it, full of ice water. So it makes for a stunning visual for Dr. Feynman to pull an actual O‐ring out of his pocket and show everyone how easily it can be bent and contorted into different shapes. He then fills his glass with water (critically, there was no ice in the pitcher in front of him), walks across the stage to Dr. Graham and very awkwardly, but also with conviction reaches his hand into Dr. Graham’s pitcher of ice water and grabs a handful of ice, which he places into his cup of water. Dr. Feynman then places the O‐ring into the cup of ice water for maybe 30 seconds before being able to show everyone at the commission how the O‐ring, in such a short period of time, became brittle, unable to change shape and now only able to snap if it were forced to try to expand. It was an unseasonably cold day in Florida the morning of the Challenger launch. The effects of cold temperature on the O‐rings was something that should have been and could have easily been tested. But it wasn’t.
Which brings us the point of this show — human error is inevitable. Even if humans create machines to do everything for us, it still is only as good as the person who programmed it. It also takes other humans to catch the errors of others. A machine simply cannot reliably take in all potential contributing factors that is needed for operations that can be life or death. So while it is impossible to remove human error altogether, it’s also impossible to exist without humans playing a part in everything. So who should take the blame when things go wrong? Whether it’s humans wrongly assuming they’ve covered all of their bases when putting together a program or a risk factor assessment or simply not checking the work of those below you and still allowing that work to make it through and into the hands of the bosses — it’s the fault of someone and people should be held accountable.
One thing that struck me throughout this show was just how little of a factor it was that there was a teacher on board of that shuttle. In fact, it is only briefly mentioned at all and that’s in one line spoken by Dr. Feynman in which he is admonishing the choice of President Reagan and NASA to even send a teacher to space because it was really done as a publicity stunt to improve relations with the general American public. And that’s horrible — but it isn’t the main point of this show. In the grand scheme of things, her being a teacher and not an astronaut is inconsequential because there were so many times that a human could have stepped in and stopped the launch if only someone had done more than just assume that what was already being done was correct.
The icing on the cake for this show is the press kit. The detail put into making “confidential files” from NASA showing the thought processes and ideas of the different characters (and from the characters’ own perspectives) was simply beautiful.
All in all, this show is deeply thought provoking. I did not expect to be enthralled by this story because honestly, it occurred three years before I was born. I know about it, I learned about it in school, I have even seen the video footage. But I never truly understood how big of a tragedy this was before seeing One In Twenty‐Five. And it is not because of the loss of life — it is because the loss of life could have so easily been avoided.
I find it interesting that this show comes down to the number “4%”. When something goes wrong once out of every twenty‐five times it is tried — that is something going wrong 4% of the time. And 4% sounds like a really low percentage. But once it is laid out as being once out of every 25 attempts that there is catastrophic failure… suddenly 4% is huge.
I knew going into this show that I was not very familiar with Carole King’s work. In fact, there were only a total of four songs in the entire show that I actually knew — the most notable, of course being the song “(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman”.
This show has all of the making for a wonderful show: a live band, an impactful story, overcoming trials and tribulations to make it out on top, catchy songs, amazing singing, and great actors.
Yet, I found it hard to get behind the story.
Carole King is an American singer‐songwriter who dreamt of writing songs, but it was not considered a job for a woman at the time. Carole (played by Jenna Parrilla Alvino) at the age of 16, had skipped two grades, landing her as a freshman in college. Her mother, Genie King (played by Joan Hoffman) discourages Carole from pursuing her dreams in favour of becoming a teacher. She is also still bitter about her divorce from Carole’s father — he had cheated on her.
And it is not long before we meet a Sophomore at the college in which Carole instantly has a crush on. His name is Gerry Goffin (played by Tristan Takacs) and much more importantly, he is a lyricist, which is something Carole needs because she can write the music, but not the lyrics. And Gerry can write the lyrics, but not the music.
Gerry and Carole team up in order to have success selling their music for bands to sing. But Gerry and Carole do not just become business partners — they begin dating and more than that, they begin a sexual relationship. Which is problematic when you remember that Carole has skipped two grades and is only 16 years old when she falls pregnant. The average college freshman is 18 years old. The average college sophomore is 19 years old. And if she were an average college freshman, this would be no problem. But she wasn’t. She was 16 and he was an adult. I understand that “times were different”, I understand that he “did the right thing” by marrying her once she became pregnant. But for not a single other character to even mention “hey, that’s not really okay” seemed odd. Even Carole’s mother was concerned over the fact that Gerry repeatedly stepped out on the marriage, but seemed to have not a care in the world that the relationship was predatory in nature. When you cannot ignore the power dynamic between Carole and Gerry nor the fact that she was a minor — it is really, really hard to root for that relationship to work out.
Carole and Gerry do in fact find success writing songs and even earn themselves an office working under the famed producer, Don Kirshner (played by Lynn Baskin). I did find this casting choice to be a bit of an odd one. Don Kirshner, the real life human, was a white man. Lynn Baskin, the actor portraying Don in this production, happens to be a black man. Normally colour blind casting is something I absolutely applaud. But there is a racial element to this show that simply is not delved into.
While some of the bands that Don Kirshner produced music for were bands that were not composed of white members, the music was still “white” music. Almost everything was turned into something traditionally white music — even when sung by bands like the Shirelles or The Drifters. In fact, there was only one scene in which race was a factor at all. Carole wrote a song that was given to the Shirelles to sing, but the Shirelles want the song changed. They wanted it to be “less twangy” and “more elegant”. In other words, the song needed to still be white, but not country, because that’s a white genre that black singers couldn’t get away with, especially during the shows time period.
Beyond that, race never really seems to be mentioned. And I think it was a missed opportunity. I understand that the script does not explicitly have scenes that go into depth about the racial tensions in both the time period and within the confines of the music industry. But having a historically white producer, who is likely not understanding why that song was “too twangy” for the Shirelles would have at least implied some of that tension. After all, if Don Kirshner were a black music producer, would he have ever given Carole King’s music to them? Or would he have been more socially aware of what would have been seen as acceptable.
That being said, there is literally nothing I can say about the performance of Lynn Baskin. He was a wonderful singer, his comedic timing was on point, his acting was more than believe. It’s purely a question of what can be shown without being said and ultimately what the goal of the creative team behind this specific production is. If the goal is to not really bring race into the picture — or rather, it isn’t a goal to bring race into the picture, then there really is no need for Don Kirshner to be white.
The characters of Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann (played by Joan Schubin and Patrick Lavery, respectively) — ultimately they became another song writing team working under Don Kirshner, who also start a romantic and sexual relationship. What made these two characters feel special was very simply the chemistry between the two actors. It really did feel like we were watching love blossom between then and that was beautiful.
The only really negative thing that I can say about this specific production of this show is this — some of the wigs were distractingly bad wigs. And when the wigs are the worst part about any shows production, then you’ve got a pretty damn good production.
There is one more actor in this show that without a doubt deserves a shout out. Nicholas La Russa, who played a member of The Drifters, just has such a pure voice. I have seen this specific actor in a number of shows at Music Mountain Theatre and each and every time, I am blown away by Nicholas’ singing ability.
Heathersis a show that I know well. I love a good dark comedy and certainly enjoy a show full of camp. So Heathers the Musical is definitely right up my alley.
The Show’s Program
The show opens in the year 1989 with Veronica Sawyer (played by Sara Al-Bazali, in this performance) and other students of The Westerberg High School as they despair about living life as ordinary students, who are not high up on the social hierarchy (ie — the students are not the jocks nor are they the titular Heathers and therefore they are at the bottom of the food chain). The student who is seen as the absolute lowest in this social hierarchy is Martha Dunnstock (played by Syd Sider in this performance) — an innocent minded student, with a long standing crush on the football star Ram (played by Xavier McKinnon) who she once shared a kiss with back in kindergarten.
The three Heathers are Heather Chandler (played by McKenzie Kurts) — she is the lead Heather, dressed in red. Then there is Heather Duke (played by Kiara Lee, for this performance) — she is the Heather that is used the most by the other Heathers, even acting as a desk so that Heather Chandler can write a note. She wears green. And finally there is Heather McNamara (played by Elizabeth Teeter) — is the middle rung of the three Heathers, and she wears yellow.
The other two main characters that must be mentioned are Kurt (played by Cade Ostermeyer) — Kurt is Ram’s best friend, they play football together, and are almost always seen onstage as a pair.
And of course, the character of Jason “J.D.” Dean (played by Casey Likes) — J.D. is a fun character because he starts off as a mysterious loner who slowly descends into chaos as his god complex grows.
Two sets from the show
The plot of the show is pretty simple, Veronica wants to be a popular kid and to become a popular kid, you have the be friends with the Heathers. So, she gets the three of them out of trouble by forging a hall pass — forgery happens to be Veronica’s specialty as she is able to mimic the handwriting of just about anyone. The Heathers make Veronica popular, but also miserable, and in exchange, they use her forging powers to mess with other students — including that of her best friend, Martha.
Enter J.D. who falls in love with Veronica, leading into a plot full of trickery, deceit, false suicides, unintentionally turning hated characters into beloved, tragic martyrs and inspirations, at least one attempted suicide, and almost having an entire school blown to bits.
The first thing that is impressive about this show is the detail. When the first fight scene breaks out in the school, it were the ensemble members (and swings filling in) who really caught my eye. They acted just the way that one would expect high schoolers to react to seeing a fight break out in the hallway — they loved it! Throwing up rock-n-roll hand signs, silently cheering, and clearing having a blast. It is also worth mentioning how much of this show is done in slow motion — whether that be the jocks shooting spit balls at a nerd or J.D. punching Ram across the face — having the actors move in slow motion allowed for every single second to be clearly shown to the audience and really played up the campiness of the show.
The second thing that really struck me about this entire production is simply that each and every actor appears to be a very talented singer as well. Heathers the Musical does not require amazing signing ability. The physicality of the performance, the dark story line, the humour, the camp — those are the things that this musical calls for and needs for it to be successful. The fact that every single actor, once they had their chance to shine was able to belt was a huge added bonus!
The Cast Prepare To Take Their Bow
I loved the choreography and more importantly, the chemistry between the characters (and honestly of the actors too) of Kurt and Ram — the two popular jocks, was fantastic. Not only did they have choreography that quite literally had one climbing on top of the other but they truly felt like best friends just trying to party and get laid.
In fact, feeling like genuine teenagers is one of the things that this cast really was able to nail. The awkwardness of being a teen, the audacity of the things teenagers will say to parents, the need to be popular and to fit in, and the need to feel important are all things that most, if not all, teenagers experience. Whether inside of the walls of a school or just inside the constraints of life — we are all in some sort of social hierarchy. Where we fall in that hierarchy may change dependant on circumstances or timing or even where we are in life, but the social hierarchy always exists. And more importantly, everyone has damage.
Everyone has a story — good, bad, ugly. It’s what we do with what we learn from our damage, our trauma, and how we then in turn use that knowledge when we interact with other people — the other people in our social hierarchy. How we treat others, regardless of our trauma and how we navigate through society’s social hierarchy is what is really at the heart of this show. Under the camp, the silly, the dark subject matter, this is a show about treating others with respect no matter what. That’s really what this show comes down to.
I was not initially too keen on seeing this show for two reasons: 1. The ticket price. Theatre is my happy place and I have no qualms with sitting in the last row of a theatre (and therefore paying less) if it means I am able to see more shows. 2. I know the story of The Phantom of the Opera already, so I thought — how much more can they really do with that story?
A lot, apparently.
I am going to do my best to write a cohesive review, however, this show relies heavily on secrecy and I intend to maintain that.
Growing up, when I watched The Phantom of the Opera I would pity the Phantom. He was always a villain, but also mysterious, charming, and a misunderstood soul… and that is just kind of where the original show leaves it. Masquerade however, asks you to do more than to pity the Phantom — it asks you to see yourself in him.
Program for Masquerade
If I had to sum up the theme of this show, I would say it’s about learning to be vulnerable. The show very quickly takes you into a masquerade ball, complete with dancing — but it’s the act of wearing a mask that is truly important. In college, on the very first day of my freshman year acting class — my professor went out of his way to inform us that we all are already actors because we act every single day and our roles vary drastically on our surroundings and even who are the people around us. And truthfully, that lesson hit so hard because my professor was absolutely right. We bite our tongue to be polite around coworkers, bosses, teachers, etc. and then we change into someone else around our best friends and sometimes people don’t take their metaphorical mask off until they are alone, in solitude.
Whether a person is literally wearing a mask or metaphorically wearing one isn’t actually important. There is power in hiding your face or your emotions or even of just blending in with a crowd. But to take that mask off, let your vulnerabilities show, and accepting the judgment that may come with that is what this show is truly about. And it is achieved exquisitely.
The sets are detailed, insanely so. And realistically, it has to be because of how immersive this show is. The number of times that the actors speak directly to you, not the entire audience in the room, but to individual people and make them into (nameless) characters of the show is pretty much constant. Whether Carlotta is addressing the audience in the dressing room of the theatre before the performance of “Don Juan Triumphant” (in which the entire audience are now playing the roles of the chorus members in this fictitious opera), being handed a note that was written by the Phantom, hiding with a character as he attempts to escape from the people who control him, or being inches away from a crashing chandelier — it’s impeccably detailed (right down to one of the notes addressing the Phantom as “Erik” – a detail that is really only found in the novel by Gaston Leroux).
The Card for “Don Juan Triumphant” with the show’s cast list. (Characters from Masquerade)
It was also not lost on me how complex this show much be to put on. The entry times were set in 15 minute increments and there are multiple casts performing at once — just all performing different scenes and at different times so that the different groups of audience members never bump into each other. There was actually a technical difficulty that occurred when I was there. And if you happen to be a person who does not fully appreciate how a magic trick is done until you understand the inner workings of it — then a technical difficulty that pauses the show can be a wonderful bit of insight on how the show is able to pull off the magic needed. And it wasn’t until this technical difficulty happened that I was able to fully appreciate how technical and precise everyone in the cast and crew needed to be. Once the performance was set to begin again, the actors will take it from the top of the scene that was interrupted. However, depending on where you are in the theatre at that time, you may still have to wait for the music to catch up to the scene. And it is always fun, I find, to see the actor relax because the show is paused, and then turn right back into the character they were portraying as it starts back up.
The acting in this show cannot be understated. There are of course the characters that you expect to see — Christine, Raoul, The Phantom, Madame Giry, Piangi, and Andre, etc. but there are new characters as well who are used to tell the backstory. The vast majority of the music is from the original score of The Phantom of the Opera, though there are at least two songs that I did not recognise — they fit in perfectly. I also noticed which character sings which line is not always the same as in the famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical.
Some of actors of note are: Betsy Morgan who portrayed Madame Giry. She is one of the first characters that you get to interact with and she really sets the tone of the entire show. This role — really pretty much every role in this show — requires a good amount of improve because the actors are speaking directly to the individual audience members, asking you to complete tasks or to hide the character or even asking you actual questions. So the actor needs to be able to think quick on their feet and not only respond appropriately to whatever the audience member says or does, but also has to keep the show flowing because if one group is moving too slow, it will mess up all the other groups who have entered after them.
Jacob Lacopo played Joseph Buquet and he was an absolute pleasure to watch perform. Lacopo had one of the most physically demanding roles in the show. It requires a good amount of acrobatics and this actor made it look flawless. This was especially impressive because it was during his big scene that the technical error occurred and the show had to be paused. This meant that the audience was able to see him exit, out of character, and then reenter, get into character, and perform as if nothing had happened. It was simply beautiful.
Carlotta was played by Satomi Hofmann and honestly, Carlotta is probably my least favourite character in the show. And I have seen many productions where Carlotta is of course a massive diva, but not always an amazing singer. Satomi Hofmann is an amazing singer. And she’s funny. I imagine it must be fun to play this role because part of her character is to be rude to the people who have come to see Masquerade because in character, we aren’t there to see Masquerade, we are there to be her chorus members backing her up on stage. This role is also very heavy on needing to be able to improve because she asks an audience member to do a specific task. If that audience member does not understand the cue, she has fix that without interrupting the flow of the show.
Christine was played by Francesca Mehrotra. I was so impressed with this performer. The character of Christine often has to say a lot with her facial expressions and body language — she must be able to look conflicted, confused, full of wonder, pity, anger, love — and that is often achieved when the character is not signing. Mehrotra has an absolutely beautiful voice, but what struck me was her ability to have such subtle emotional changes without saying a word.
Raoul was portrayed by Paul Adam Schaefer who gave an immaculate performance. I appreciated his take on the character of Raoul who felt much more gritty in this show than I have ever seen him before. I often felt that Raoul feels decently passive, perhaps even confused, for large chunks of The Phantom of the Opera, but not in Masquerade. In Masquerade, Raoul makes his purpose and intent much more pronounced and this was wonderful to see.
The Phantom was portrayed by Hugh Panaro. What a joy it was to watch him perform and see him really delve into this character. As I mentioned above, this show is intimate, with the actors sometimes grabbing your hand or placing things/taking things out of your hands. The Phantom has to be able to do these types of actions very quickly, subtly at times, and is therefore reliant on the audience members being in the correct place at the correct time and doing the correct action. He has to be a villain, but also one that the audience does not detest. In fact, if you leave this show only pitying the Phantom, I fear you may have missed the point. You have to sympathise with the Phantom. Panaro has the difficult job making the audience see themselves in his character — a character who lets not forget, kills people. Panaro is, of course, an excellent singer (anyone playing the Phantom has to be), but more than that, just like with the character of Christine, the Phantom has to be able to change his facial expressions and body language in the blink of an eye and it must be done subtly since the audience is so close.
The only real downside of this show is since the show is constantly moving, the action never stops. Which means, if you’re in the back of your group, you may miss the beginning of the action in the next scene. Also, I fear this likely effects anyone who has to use the accessibility options more than anyone else because instead of walking through the building, at a relatively quick pace — anyone using the accessibility options have to wait for the elevator, which I fear takes extra time and almost insures they will miss some of the performance.
All in all, if you’ve ever dreamt of the Phantom of the Opera grabbing your hand and whisking you through the tunnels underneath the opera house — then this show is for you. If you have ever wanted to experience a show instead of watching a show — this is for you. And it is well worth the ticket price.
I went into The Outsiders completely blind. I have never read the book that it is based off of nor have I watched the film adaptation. I went into this show completely unaware of the plot. And honestly, by intermission, my first thought was “how West Side Story”. Of course, anyone who has seen this show knows that beyond feuding gangs and an unapproved love interest — that is really where the comparison of the two shows end.
Billboard for The Outsiders
This show follows the character of Ponyboy Curtis (played by Brody Grant), a 14 year old boy who’s parents recently died in a car crash, leaving him and his two older brothers — Darrel, the eldest brother who has assumed a fatherly role to his brothers, and Sodapop, the middle brother who is suffering from a broken heart (played by Brent Comer and Jason Schmidt, respectively). Taking on this fatherly role has taken a toll on Darrel, which has substantially strained the relationship between the three brothers.
The show begins with the lights not all the way down. This is because it isn’t until the first song begins that the lights fully go down and we, the audience, are introduced to all of the members of the first gang — The Greasers. This is done in a beautiful manner in which Ponyboy uses light to introduce each Greaser one by one. Before we are introduced to the characters, though, we can see them going about their daily business behind a scrim, which raises as the characters are introduced.
The Stage
The Greasers are not well off financially, they live on the wrong sides of the tracks, so to speak. But they respect their own. Ponyboy, specifically is not your typical Greaser. He is able to be rough and tumble, but he is a dreamer — he loves getting lost in books and movies and escaping the world through fiction.
The rival gang is called The Socs — because they “live like socialites”. So they are wealthy, upper class, and tend to think of themselves as better than The Greasers.
Ponyboy’s best friend and fellow Greaser is Johnny Cade (played by Sky Lakota-Lynch), who is a central character of this show. Johnny had recently been attacked by The Socs, which sets the scene for the rest of the action that happens. It is also notable that Johnny does not have a good home life, with parents who often fight. This leads to him being given a knife by Dallas.
Another very important character is Dallas Winston (played by Alex Joseph Grayson) who is the head of The Greasers gang — the other members all look up to him (except perhaps Darrel who has attempted to move on from the gang lifestyle), who has a criminal record, and who also runs away from his problems.
It is not long into the show that Ponyboy himself is jumped by The Socs, who attempt to cut his hair (their hair is very important to The Greasers) and he is knocked unconscious. The effects of being knocked unconscious are beyond belief — the use of scattered lighting, a high pitched ringing, and dampened audio all helped achieve the effect of Ponyboy being knocked out.
Once Ponyboy wakes, he is informed that he is now officially a Greaser because he has gone through the “initiation” process (being beaten up by The Socs). And thus starts the adventure.
Ponyboy loves going to the drive-in to see movies and it is here that he meets Cherry Valance (played by Emma Pittman) — the girlfriend of the leader of The Socs, Bob (played by Davis Wayne in this performance). Ponyboy and Cherry realise that neither is what the other expected them to be, which causes a confrontation between The Socs and The Greasers which eventually leads to the death of a character leading to the downfall of many.
Playbill and Understudy Card
This show poses many questions to the audience — why do teenagers rebel? Why do we as a society believe stereotypes about any groups of people? Can you outrun your problems — both physically and metaphorically? Or will it always catch up to you in the end? And perhaps most importantly, will things turn out alright if we just learn from the actions of our past and the pasts of those around us? Can change really happen?
This show is impressive — the sets are intricate — complete with a rain fall fight scene between the two gangs, but also fairly simplistic (for example: a car that The Greasers have is also turned into a bed for the Curtis brothers, so the set is also adaptable for the various scenes). The choreography is intense, precise, and still looks like a genuine fight is taking place. This is all enhanced by the use of lighting and sound effects, and of course, a cast filled with amazing singers.
One thing that I absolutely loved about this show is the number of young actors that is in it. Many of whom are making their Broadway debut with their roles in this show. And it is wonderful to see young actors take on such heavy roles as the ones in this show which deal with very heavy subject matters such as abuse, grief, guilt, and the struggle to keep trudging even when things are at there worst.
The one thing Ponyboy keeps coming back to is the phrase — “Stay Gold” which is used to mean to remind the characters to remember the good in the world. Perhaps that’s a lesson we all could use.
John Proctor is the Villain isn’t just a show — it’s a lesson. And being a lesson, it is fitting that the show takes place in a high school located in a rural, small town in Georgia. It should be noted that the playwright (Kimberly Belflower — making her Broadway debut with this show — and what a debut it was!) is from a small town in Georgia, but more importantly is an educator herself. And her education background shows!
The Billboard outside the Booth Theatre
Many of us know the story of The Crucible and we were taught about how noble and heroic and honourable the character of John Proctor is… except realistically, he’s not. And this show exemplifies this not just by explaining it to the audience in the context of students learning about the play, but also within the characters themselves.
This show centres around a few main characters: Shelby — a girl with a reputation of being promiscuous who has been away for roughly six months and no one knows exactly why. Carter Smith — a teacher at the school that the students attend. Mason — a boy in the class. Raelynn — a girl dating the character of Lee and is the main character of this story. She is best friends with Shelby, who has had sex with Lee. Lee — Raelynn’s aggressive and sex hungry boyfriend. Ivy — a student whose father is accused of having an affair on her mother. Beth — an innocent student who is rather religious and very trusting who only wants to see the good in people. Nell — a new girl who moved to this small rural town from Atlanta, Georgia and is therefore meeting and learning about many of the characters at the same time as the audience (and therefore is able to provide an outsider’s perspective to the other characters). And Bailey Gallagher — she used to be a student at the very school that these characters attend and she now works there. It must be noted that she also knew Carter when she was a student.
The Stage
This show takes place in 2018, with an emphasis on seeing the world through the eyes of high school girls, who are learning about the world — a world where the “Me Too” movement has started and the society is beginning to listen to the victims. It deals with very intense themes including, but certainly not limited too, power dynamics in relationships/abusing that power dynamic, engaging in sexual acts with minors, the internal struggle that many people feel when someone they personally know and trust is accused of something heinous and how hard it can be to accept those accusations as true, blaming the victim, and unfortunately, the likely outcome in far too many cases.
The show opens with Carter Smith teaching a sex education lesson to the class. He is not a sex ed teacher, but rather he teaches literature. He has no choice but to teach sex ed due to budget cuts (a thing I am sure the playwright is very familiar with). The students are not particularly interested in the sex ed lesson — in part because they are old enough that they already know about sex and realistically should have been receiving this class for years. But also because in small town, rural Georgia sex education is not the most important thing and there is a heavy emphasis on abstinence only. Between the religious nature of many of the families in the town and being generally conservative on the political spectrum — anything that might be seen as even remotely controversial by the parents in the school district is a challenge for this school to actually do. And that means comprehensive sex education is just not a thing.
But the students know better. Or at least, as the play progresses, the students learn better. And for an extra bonus — this show is very aware of the pop culture during the show’s time frame including quoting Taylor Swift and giving the audience (and the character of Nell) a recap of past events ending with the phrase, “And that’s what you missed on Glee”.
John Proctor is the Villain does a wonderful job of paralleling the actual play of The Crucible with the students (especially the female students), the teachers, and even the parents in the town that are never actually seen on stage. Once the opening scene of the sex ed class ends, the teacher — Carter Smith, begins to teach the class about The Crucible and explains how John Proctor is the hero. This sparks Shelby, you has just returned from being on a “sabbatical” for six months to disagree with Mr. Smith.
It is at this point that the show really takes off because for most of the audience — we have only ever known John Proctor as the hero. But Shelby points out numerous things: Abigail was John Proctor’s employee, she was a virgin with a crush on her boss, he never apologises to her, nor does he ever apologise to his wife, Elizabeth. In fact, John Proctor dies without ever even saying that he loves Elizabeth. Realistically, in the time period of The Crucible him dying damns his wife and his children to a life of poverty and hardship — and for what, really? To preserve his name. Just a name. Not a person, not the many lives he destroyed along the way, but the concept of a name. And honestly, I don’t know how many people in the audience had ever thought of John Proctor and The Crucible like that before.
John Proctor is the Villain also takes care explain some potential reasonings that the characters in The Crucible do things that we would think of as odd like dancing in the woods even though it is illegal and lying about why. And then we see our lead female characters reach their breaking points and just need to scream and yell and dance. And it puts it all into perspective.
Towards the beginning of the show, some of the female students decide that they would like to start a feminism club as an extracurricular activity at the school. However, this is denied because it would be too controversial for the town. This is when Mr. Smith steps in and offers to be the faculty advisor for the club and even offers to frame the club with works of literature so that it wouldn’t be seen as just as feminist club and therefore would be acceptable for the parents in the town.
In order to delve into this show further — I need to put a SPOILER WARNING:
The character of Shelby (played by Chiara Aurelia) is a very intricate one. Shelby has a promiscuous reputation in part because she had sex with Lee (played by Noah Pacht in this performance) who is Raelynn’s (played by Amalia Yoo) boyfriend. This, of course, causes tension and awkwardness between the characters of Shelby and Raelynn. However, with the help of Nell (played by Morgan Scott) Shelby and Raelynn are able to rekindle their friendship. A lot is revealed about Shelby — her reason for leaving, her past sexual partners, and why she even feels the need to be “promiscuous” (realistically, she is not a promiscuous character — she was groomed). It makes for a character that is by no means perfect, but also not at fault either. I imagine this is a difficult role to play — the actor has to be able to be liked enough for people to not instantly judge her character from the limited information we start with and then transform the character into essentially a hero.
The character of Ivy Watkins was played by Maggie Kuntz and I found her performance fascinating. The character of Ivy has to be conflicted. There is a rumour going around town that Ivy’s father had sex with one of his employees — which means he cheated on Ivy’s mother and again, this town is very religious. This leaves the character of Ivy very confused and unsure what to do — should she be angry at her dad? Should she feel better that the cheating was supposedly consensual? Can she love her father and hate him at the same time? And worst, as the show moves on, the rumour begins that her dad also had sex with Shelby and that’s why Shelby was away for so long. The character has to learn the kind of man her dad really is and it’s heartbreaking to watch.
Bailey Gallagher is another conflicted character (played by Molly Griggs) because she grew up knowing Carter Smith the teacher. She trusted him as a kid, even developed a little crush on him, and now she works with him at the school. But Bailey had heard rumours about Carter before… and she always dismissed them because she knows Carter and he’s a good guy. Which makes it even more important and powerful when she finally realises that’s she’s been dismissing the wrong people.
Perhaps the most interesting character, in my opinion at least, is that of the teacher — Mr. Carter Smith. Carter is played by Gabriel Ebert (who was absolutely amazing). What makes this character so difficult to play, I think, is that he isn’t a straight forward character. The audience and many of the characters believe he is, but he has dark secrets that are not revealed until we are well into the show. These secrets have to come as a surprise to the audience in order for the message of this show to be loud and clear — so when the audience gasped when everything came to light — I was thrilled.
The character of Carter starts off as incredibly likeable, charming, progressive even for someone in Georgia. He’s for feminism, he wants to help… but does he? Carter is the John Proctor of the show and the fact that it takes the audience by such surprise is beautiful. It is revealed that Carter has a habit of not only cheating on his wife, but doing so with girls that are not only minors, but who are less powerful than him. Often, he goes after his own students to groom them. And as this becomes evident throughout the show, the audience has to turn on Carter. We have to hate him. And there is just something so amazing about watching a likeable character becoming so detestable by the shows end. It takes a special kind of acting ability to sway an entire audience’s perspective eight times per week.
I was able to ask Gabriel Ebert after the show, how it felt to play someone who has to become so hated by the time the curtain falls. He simply smiled and stated, “it’s necessary”. And he’s absolutely correct.
Once it is revealed that Carter had seduced Shelby (and that she was not his first victim nor will likely be his last), the audience gets to learn the fates of Carter, Shelby, and Raelynn (among others, but these are the most important). Carter is forced to take a short leave of absence. He is allowed back into the classroom to teach. Shelby is forced to take classes from another teacher. The town, as a whole, the school, as a whole — does not believe Shelby (even if many of the characters do by the shows end). In fact, Shelby gets punished as if she were the problem.
And finally, the show ends by cutting to black at a pivotal moment — the character of Beth (played by Fina Strazza) has a decision to make. Beth is a very conflicted character who very much trusts Carter. She doesn’t want to see the bad in Carter. But she is also likely to be Carter’s next (at least attempted) victim. Throughout the entire show she cannot wrap her mind around the idea that someone she trusts so much could be a bad person. At the show’s end, most of the students have come around to believe Shelby and take a stand against Carter — even Bailey. But Beth, right at the end, runs towards center stage before the lights cut to black. It must be stated that it is very much up to interpretation if Beth has run to join Raelynn and Shelby and the other students against Carter… or if she was rushing to stand by Carter’s side. I like to think she joined the other students. But I cannot say for certain.
I really wish this show was running longer because it is an excellent work of theatre that is really able to flip a very well known play on its head and make it relevant for a modern audience.
I was not exactly sure what to expect from The Boys From Kingsbridge — I knew it was a “gritty police drama” framed against the success of the Yankees baseball team and their success in winning the American League Championship Series and thus earning the team a spot in the World Series.
I was honestly, a bit concerned that this may be a very pro‐police show — which could be a rather hard thing to pull off in today’s society where the police officers themselves are often the ones taking the criticism when a cop does something wrong. And I am not saying that the individual police officers who do morally wrong things (and especially the police officers that do take it way farther than a situation needs to be taken) should not be held accountable — they absolutely should. But this show points out that while yes, bad cops should absolutely be punished, but also the people in the charge, the politicians making the laws, need to be held accountable, too. Because, as this play states, most of the police are trying to uphold the law, whether they agree with that law or not. They are given quotas to meet and sent to impoverished areas to enforce crimes that are often not really important just so that the police force can keep bringing in money. This is a system, it is argued, that the good cops, the average cops, are essentially stuck in the cycle set up by the higher ups.
There is of course, some truth in the fact that the police forces, as a whole, are systemically broken and racist. And for a lot of police officers, just like people in any other job, they comply with the orders they are given — not because they necessarily agree with the orders or the policy, but because if they refused it would be career suicide, at best, and perhaps even criminal at worst. That being said, the system being broken doesn’t absolve the individual police officers who do go too far. In fact, it should inspire the police officers to work to make change, but I fear for most, it’s just about keeping their jobs and not making waves. I imagine that at least for some, the endless cycle of being forced to do things that you don’t believe in morally would hopefully inspire change and not just beat the person down into submission. But I’ve always been hopeful. The show does take special care to point out the high suicide rate among members of law enforcement and takes care to explain that it is often due to being overworked, having broken or faulty equipment, and having no choice but to do things that they feel are wrong.
The show includes two actors — Steven Sarao, who is also the writer, playing the character named Steve. And opposite him, as his police partner and best friend, is James Lorinz portraying Mike.
Steve is a book smart man (having attended Harvard), driven to make a positive change in the world, wants to see reform in law enforcement, but struggles in feeling that he is nothing but a work horse, a lackey, for the more powerful who do not have the best interest of the innocent members of society in mind, but rather they are interested in cutting corners and lining their own pockets.
Mike is much more of a streets smart type of guy. He knows he has little ability to change the system that he works within. Mike (and Steve) have both been studying for the Sergeant’s exam — to see if they could be promoted. Mike has failed this exam multiple times, but Steve consistently passes it. However, Steve never takes the promotion and instead works with Mike in hopes of Mike being able to pass it too.
Mike and Steve go way back, having known each other their entire lives and really only ever parting ways when Steve attended Harvard University. Their friendship is truly a codependent relationship and as the play unfolds, it is revealed that it has been this way for a long time. The two friends have had a hard life growing up complete with abusive parents, rough neighbourhoods, and fist fights having to be a way of life.
The show opens with Steve telling the audience about his friend Mike and how they will never see each other again. He continues to monologue about growing up in Kingsbridge, and his love for the Yankees, and most importantly about Mike.
Then it is Mike’s turn to give his opening monologue in which he gives his point of view on the same things that Steve spoke about. And finally, the audience see the two characters interact — they do act like long time friends, giving each other a hard time, cursing each other out, and just chatting like close friends do.
As I mentioned before, this show only had the two actors. Therefore all of the other characters — a police sergeant, a couple being arrested, etc. were either not present on stage at all or the two actors mimed moving the other people around (an example would be placing their hands on the arrested couples heads and leading them into the police cruiser). While this worked for the majority of the show, there was at least once where it was not made clear that two people were being arrested and not just one until a good minute or two after the event happened and it was the dialogue that gave it away.
The sets were simplistic; the front of a police car, a podium, a bench, a radio, a desk… nothing elaborate, but the show simply did not call for extravagance, in fact, it called for simple and worn down.
The costuming was also pretty minimal, really only consisting of the two actors wearing their police uniforms. I did find it odd that neither of the uniforms had any sort of badge on it anywhere and the guns that the officers carried having bright red tips was a bit distracting. But I have to wonder if legalities of some sort prevented the usage of more realistic uniforms and firearms.
The show did have one glaring problem that is hard to overlook. At one point, the two characters are in their police cruisers, just chatting, but it’s during a “sacred time” where the characters get to enjoy their coffee and relax a little bit before the day really starts and they start receiving “jobs” (911 calls) that they have to respond to. It is during this scene that the audience see both the characters of Mike and Steve with open books in their hands. I thought that the characters were parked, reading books, enjoying the quiet part of their shift… until they mention the need to pull over. It was then that I realised that these character were not parked and enjoying a book during a slow part of their shift — the actors were reading their lines from the script. Unfortunately, this was not lost on other members of the audience because I was asked immediately upon exiting the theatre by another patron if the actors were still on book.
There was one other thing that I found odd about this show…and WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD:
The show opens with a radio talking about the Yankees and immediately after is the opening monologue spoken by the character of Steve. This is the monologue in which Steve tells the audience about how hard it is to be a police officer. This is when the audience is informed of the high suicide rate among law enforcement and how the police officers also get the short end of the stick. And it is in this monologue that it is mentioned that Steve never sees Mike anymore.
It becomes apparent on this opening monologue that one of the two characters is not going to survive this tale. And since this show opens with Steve, I would have thought Mike would unfortunately lose his life. In fact, a major plot point throughout the show is that Mike is desperate to tell Steve something, but he struggles to actually say the words. I was sure that perhaps this secret that Mike must tell Steve was going to be along the lines of him being sick and terminal. So it was a huge surprise to me when Steve is the one killed in the line of duty. And then the show ended. With the choice of Steve being the one to die, I felt there needed to be an additional scene where, heartbreakingly, Mike cannot handle it anymore and takes his own life — harking back to the words that Steve spoke in the beginning.
There is a lot to be said about this very downplayed work of William Shakespeare. The entire show is incredibly political and there are certainly themes that can easily be seen as parallels to the modern day political regime in America… I’m just not sure if the show exemplifies that in the way that is necessarily intended by this production.
My first question — if this is a parallel to the current administration, who is the Trump‐like character in King John? Is it King John himself? The character who is seen in a positive light by his fellow Englishmen (eventually, at the end), but also as someone who flip flopped on their standards and killed at a whim for power. Or is the Trump‐like character supposed to be The Bastard, Philip Faulconbridge? A character who just kind of falls into place, in line for the throne. He rambles, he has asides to the audience, but he never really says much. However, he is violent, he is there to take the glory, and most importantly, he doesn’t actually do much — everything happens around him and he gets the benefit of it. In fact, his defining characteristic is his lust for power.
The political nature of this show goes down even to the colouring of the costuming. The English wore red — mostly in the form of sashes and the French wore blue, also mostly in the form of sashes. Were these colours chosen specifically to match the colours typically associated with the Democratic and Republican parties in America? I can’t say for certain, but I’d suspect so. It must be noted, however, if the French are intended to be representative of the democrats and the English representative of republicans — the political ideal of the show falls apart. Shakespeare, being an Englishman, who had to write a certain way to please the crown had no choice but to make the French be as violent or even more so than the English — which undermines the entire idea of the political nature because it was written with bias. This leaves me to wonder, perhaps the point is not one is better than the other. Perhaps the point is that they are both equally bad and that the influence of religion poisons power.
I do find it interesting that the character who causes the most actual harm is that of Cardinal Pandulph. He is the mouthpiece from the Vatican and he pushes the war between Louis the Dauphin and King John forward with a slithering snakelike ability. Interestingly enough, he wears purple. Purple is of course, the colour of royalty in Ancient Rome, but it is also the colour that you get when blue and red are mixed.
The colour scheme can of course be interpreted that the church or religion is the real issue behind politics as everything that happens in this show is a direct result of interference of the (in this case) Catholic Church. And this would resonate with modern politics as it is not uncommon to see religion become involved.
The rest of the costuming was simple — all black. This was particularly wonderful during scenes of battle, which was done with a bit of a choreographed fighting and dance. However, most notably, was the decision of the actors (minus a few main characters) being completely covered with only their eyes showing. The names of those covered characters are not important. They are nothing more than unnamed casualties in a meaningless battle.
The mostly black costuming went well with the black box theatre and minimal set pieces (mostly consisting of multiple black boxes that the actors could stand on and an all black throne).
The show used a nice mixture of what I can only describe as some sort of tribal/battle music and religious hymns which mirrored the war and religion beautifully throughout the entire show.
I cannot even begin to discuss the talent of the cast. Some of the more notable cast members were Bellamy Woodside Ridinger who played King John and had an amazing death scene, among many emotionally powerful displays of both fear and success. Mateu Parallada who played The Bastard Philip Faulconbridge who is linguistically able to navigate the often complex language of Shakespeare with ease. Ruby Rich who played the character of Constance with such emotion — she really gave this performance her everything! But perhaps the actor who caught my eye the most was Martin Challinor who played both Cardinal Pandulph and the character of Hubert.
Martin Challinor was able to transform from the slimy, sinister Cardinal into the scared knight unable to bring himself to actual harm Arthur. And most impressively, he seems to do this with ease.
This show relies on a cast of eleven actors to play a variety of different characters. And this show nails that.
There certainly were parts of this show that could have been cut without having a major impact on the story and still maintaining the integrity of the story. That being said, I would personally love to see a live production of Shakespeare that has not been cut at all — bring on all five acts
I have no good excuse as to why it has taken me anywhere near this long to finally see a classic such as Chicago.
I love how minimalistic this show is. Everything is so simple – the staging is only elaborate in its dance numbers, but at the same time it feels very reserved. I believe this is due to the ease that the actors do the choreography and staging. It is as if the actors (and therefore the characters) did each dance number with such ease that it really kept the show feeling flawless as the actors – who are all wearing various costumes that are black – play a large variety of different, often nameless, characters.
Additionally, the sets were also minimalistic. The vast majority of the set consisted of the orchestra, wearing suits/formal clothing, sitting in front of the audience and playing their music, while the cast sits in unassuming black chairs during any scene in which that actor’s character is not one of the characters that happen to be centre stage. The orchestra even became part of the show at times, with the conductor’s baton being taken from her at one point so that a lead character could conduct the orchestra and the conductor even addressing the audience.
I found a very compelling moment of choreography happened while the vast majority of the actors were simply sitting in their chairs. During the song “Mister Cellophane” sung by the character of Amos (played by Raymond Bokhour), a song in which Amos laments about being invisible, the entire company turned in their chairs, putting their backs to him. It was very simple, but so powerful.
I very much appreciated Raymond Bokhour’s performance. He is able to play Amos so meek, but also able to belt at just the right moments, only to slip back into being meek. It was beautifully achieved.
Rachel Schur and Bianca Marroquín played the characters Roxie Hart and Velma Kelly, respectively. Both of these actors clearly love what they do and it shows through the fun in their performances.
Jacqueline B. Arnold portrayed the character of Matron “Mama” Morton and is such a vocal powerhouse with one hell of an ability to belt.
This show has something that anyone can enjoy: great, catchy music, talented actors, fantastic dancers, glitz, glamour, but also fun and camp. I can absolutely understand why this show has been such a success.
I had honestly put off seeing Hadestown since the show opened on Broadway because I wasn’t sure that I would enjoy it. I had heard some of the music before, but always out of context and I knew the story from Greek mythology, so I never got around to seeing this show before. Clearly, the importance of retelling this story was lost on me until now.
However, I kept hearing about people who have “seen the show 17 times” or who have decided to get a “Hadestown” tattoo and this began to sway my opinion, so I purchased tickets. Directly before the show, I had a moment to speak with my aunt and a friend of her’s and I am so glad that I did. My aunt’s friend very briefly compared Maybe Happy Ending to Hadestown and I had never heard that comparison before – I can absolutely see why she compared these two shows!
Both shows are so full and complete in their storytelling. Both shows are deeply layered. Perhaps most notably though, both shows are very human.
When I was in college, I took many creative writing courses and in doing so, I read a story written by a classmate that was about a woman who elected to let herself be hurt over and over again (in the classmate’s story, the main character perpetually chose to raise a child that would tragically pass away, and this would happen over and over again, essentially as a loop) and it baffled me as to why the character would continue to choose pain. My professor looked me in the eye and said, “Because she’s human. And to continue to feel the pain in order to have short lived parts of good, is innately human”. That stuck with me. And that is the essence of Hadestown.
The entire ensemble was flawless. Every movement of their choreography was clearly well rehearsed, but it did not feel like it was well rehearsed – it just felt flawless. This extended beyond the actors though, and into the set itself. The use of lighting in the choreography is incredibly impactful, perfectly illuminating the main characters when appropriate, but also able to show us the depth of the darkness in actual Hades. Even more so, is the effect of the turntable (made up of three sections, all three able to spin independently of the others, and with the middle piece being an elevator that both lowers below the stage and also elevate the actors higher than stage level) which is more than effective in both showing people going down to Hades and also works to show Orpheus making his long walk. In fact, in times of high destress to the main characters, the turntable would be utilised in a way to create confusion, tension, almost a dizziness with the movement on stage; which forces the audience to feel the emotions that the characters are feeling.
Orpheus was played by Ali Louis Bourzgui who was phenomenal as a young boy in love. Vocally, at the beginning of the show, it did feel like he was perhaps struggling to hit those (insanely) high notes. That feeling was short lived, however, as within a song or two, he was able to sing it rather angelically. So perhaps, he wasn’t struggling at all. Maybe the character of Orpheus just did not know how to fully sing the song yet.
Eurydice was played by Myra Molloy and honestly it is hard to believe this is a Broadway debut for her. She has amazing command of the stage, is undoubtably a talented singer, and most importantly, was very believable in her portrayal.
Phillip Boykin portrayed the character of Hades and he most definitely did not disappoint. His booming voice is certainly one that is well suited for the role! So big, so powerful, but also the ability to turn that around and to be soft and sweet. This ability gives the character of Hades such depth.
Daniel Breaker played Hermes and Lana Gordon portrayed Persephone. Both of these actors are amazing vocal performers who’s characters both lead the audience (and other characters) through the story, but also who reveal the softer side of Hades (and why that softer side is even there).
This show was very obviously well thought out, with nothing seeming to be have been left up to chance. Every single thing in this show, no matter how small, feels intentional. And it is beautiful. This show is a masterpiece.
This show is very cute. It tells the real life romance of Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner, actors known best for their comedy performances – one for his movies including Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, Young Frankenstein, and See No Evil, Hear No Evil and the other most notable for her numerous Saturday Night Live characters and sketches. The show is framed by being an intimate interview between an unnamed interviewer, voiced by Dick Cavett (this character is never seen, only ever heard), and Gene Wilder (played by Jonathan Randell Silver). The interviewer asks Gene Wilder to discuss his romance with his late wife, Gilda Radner (played by Jordan Kai Burnett). Gene is initially reluctant to discuss this because it is a “private” matter, but Gilda appears and urges him to tell their story. From then on, the show alternates between Gene Wilder talking to the interviewer and seamlessly drifting back in time through his memories bringing the audience with him to relive the experiences.
The chemistry between Burnett and Silver is hard to deny. The budding romance feels genuine and the witty dialogue between the two characters felt almost as if you were watching two people actually fall for each other for the first time. And that was absolutely delightful. Silver, especially grabbed my attention (for the record, I am much more familiar with Gene Wilder’s career than I am with Gilda Radner’s) with just how much he sounded like the late Gene Wilder.
The part of the show that just felt off to me was the parts where comedy was supposed to be the main focus… whether it was Gene Wilder being so neurotic that it felt like we were watching someone doing their best “Leo Bloom” impersonation or a monologue that cycled through all of the characters that Gilda Radner played on Saturday Night Live — it felt forced. Those moments felt like I was supposed to be watching someone who was supposed to be acting silly. It just didn’t feel genuine.
I also found this happened whenever the show would start to get too serious. When the characters of Gene and Gilda were intimate with each other, for example, the show would go into a dance motif. It was clearly meant to be a lighthearted way to say that the characters were making love, but it felt as if the show was simply trying too hard to be funny.
This shows best moments come when the characters of Gene and Gilda bounce off of each other and the comedy stays focused on the developing relationship. The story is a romance — I just wish it didn’t try so hard to be a comedy. The romance, the grief, the loss, the wisdom learnt is enough… everything else began to feel like an imitation of the titular characters. Love and loss are emotions that almost all humans have felt at some point in their lives. Whether it’s losing a person, a pet, or even an opportunity — the grief of losing someone or something can be beautiful. This show has the chance to really show the audience the beauty of humanity through the eyes of a man who has loved and has lost that love, which is something everyone can relate to.
Pirates of Penzance is a show that I adore, so I was honestly not sure that I would enjoy a new adaption. I was especially concerned I would not fully appreciate the show since the new adaption is set in New Orleans, Louisiana and I simply don’t connect to that culture (I have never even been to New Orleans, so the only things I know about the culture, music, etc. comes from other sources of media, often fictional stories), so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself roaring with laughter and genuinely enjoying the different musical styles. And honestly, Pirates! The Penzance Musical does not stick to stereotypical New Orleans inspired music. It actually included a large variety of musical styles, which helps make the entire point of this show – we are all from somewhere else (except for Penzance) — have a larger impact, which is probably something America needs right now.
The show opens with the characters of Arthur Sullivan (played by Preston Truman Boyd — he also plays the character of The Sergeant of Police) and William S. Gilbert (played by David Hyde Pierce who is also playing Major-General Stanley) explaining to the audience how and why this new adaption came to be located in New Orleans and how they themselves are indulging in some kind of piracy themselves in simply making this adaption (this is a lovely in joke for anyone who is aware that “Pirates of Penzance” is in the public domain and therefore not subject to copyright. This means that anyone can put on productions of the show, but more than that, they can change and adapt the script however they please). This is a very self-aware moment in the show and personally, I very much appreciate when a show is self-aware.
To say the choreography in this show is impressive would be a massive understatement. It is quick, it is intense, and it is silly. Even early on, upon meeting the Pirate King (played by Ramin Karimloo) we are treated to a high intensity dance number that sees the character jumping on barrels that are laying on the ground sideways, being held by two of his Pirates. Every single time that the Pirate King jumped, the Pirates would spin the barrel around, and the Pirate King would have to land the jump on the barrels side.
This high intensity dancing did not stop as the show continued. In fact, by the end of the first act, the entire company had managed to turn an elaborate dance number into every single person being able to play the washboard as a musical instrument. During intermission I actually remarked “having the entire company being able to play the washboard is almost as impressive as the entire company being able to tap dance.” Little did I know that during act II, at least half the company would be tap dancing.
David Hyde Pierce was excellent as the Major-General. I have honestly never heard the song “I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major-General” sung so cleanly. Each and every single word of that song was enunciated and crystal clear. And he made it look easy. I appreciated the character, while still being highly inebriated, was still fairly cunning.
It was also nice to see that David Hyde Pierce is a genuinely nice man who took the time to great every single fan at the stage door and even had short conversations with people. He seemed genuinely surprised and happy to be complimented on the horror film he starred in called The Perfect Host and I even heard him discussing the process of the make-up design for his character with a different audience member.
David Hyde Pierce signing my Playbill at stage door
Jinkx Monsoon played the character of Ruth and she was wonderful! I can absolutely understand why her career on Broadway is booming — she is a vocal powerhouse with the ability to belt and even wail! And let’s be honest, she has wonderful comedic timing. With a show that has such a silly plot line (the entire show is based around mishearing the word “pilot” as “pirate”), her ability to do camp is absolutely perfect for the role.
Pirates! The Penzance Musical is a silly show and it should be. With a ridiculous plot, over the top acting, self-awareness, breaking of the fourth wall, and high intensity dancing, this show brings a bit of everything culminating in something that can only be described as pure fun.
Operation Mincemeat is a musical comedy based on the real events during WWII which lead the British military to use a corpse to trick Hitler into moving the German troops out of Sicily and into Sardinia, which was an essential part of why Germany lost the war. This show is chocked full of British humour, filled with small details (an example being a prison uniform labelled “24602”), relies heavily on perfect timing, and is all done by a cast of five actors playing close to 50 or more different characters in total.
This was my second time seeing this show (Read my prior review), so I was actually quite happy to see one of the understudies stepping into the role for the performance. I love being able to compare and contrast how the different actors played the same character. In this case, Jak Malone (who usually plays the character of Hester, among others) was out for this performance and Sam Hartley filled those shoes. Anyone who has read my last review of the show knows that I found Jak’s performance to be absolutely phenomenal – layered, deep, and beautiful (and that’s just for the character of Hester; never-mind the roles of Spilsbury, Ivor Montague, Lieutenant Bill Jewell, Willie Watkins, and more).
Sam Hartley played the character of Hester differently than Jak did. Sam’s version of Hester felt more timid. Whereas Jak’s portrayal made Hester come off as more confident – even in the song “Dear Bill”, when Jak sings that song, he hits every note cleanly and clearly, as if the notes and memories just come to Hester from her lived experience and she confidently and (mostly) happily relives the memories needed to write the letter that is being planted on the corpse. When Sam sang “Dear Bill”, it didn’t feel so much as if Hester had actually healed from her past. It came off more as if she was still truly struggling with the heartache that those memories bring her. It was almost as if the memories haven’t reached the point of being happy memories yet, like she is still in the part of the grieving process where even saying the words out loud is challenging and she still is perhaps bitter at not being able to make more of those (formerly) happy memories.
Another example of how the two actors played the character differently had to do with Hester’s interactions with the character of Johnny Bevan (played by Zoe Roberts). In Jak’s portrayal, with the character of Hester having more perceived confidence, she acts very professionally when around Bevan. It feels as if Hester would not dream of acting on any potential romantic feelings towards Bevan not because she may fear being hurt, but rather because Bevan is her boss and that could definitely be seen as inappropriate due to the power dynamic of a boss/subordinate relationship and/or it simply wouldn’t be the proper lady like thing to do for a proper British woman of that time period. When the character is perceived like this, is makes the mentorship-like relationship between Hester and the character of Jean Leslie (played by Claire-Marie Hall) not just wholesome, but also perhaps gives the two characters a more meaningful connection because it implies that Hester has learnt from Jean as well.
In the same interactions between the characters of Hester and Bevan, but with Sam’s portrayal of Hester, it felt as if Hester was simply too afraid to act on any potential romantic feelings. Not because it would be inappropriate, though, but rather because the thought of loving and losing again is just too much for Hester to realistically consider. Hester still does come off as if she learned from Jean, just not to such an obvious degree — it’s still there, just more subtle.
Honestly, I think it says a lot about Sam Hartley as an actor to be able to step into the shoes of the person who originated the role and then give a performance that is not just a replication of the originator. Sam was able to bring the character of Hester to life in an equally as good way, but also a very different way. And that is always nice to see.
The main cast: David Cumming (as Charles Cholmondeley and others), Claire-Marie Hall (as Jean Leslie and others), Natasha Hodgson (as Ewen Montagu and others), Jak Malone (as Hester Leggatt and others), and Zoe Roberts (as Johnny Bevan and others) have been playing these roles together for about six years and (I believe) they are the originators of each role. Which is why I find it so impressive that Sam’s presence on stage did not change the chemistry between the characters. In fact, even with the slight changes in the character of Hester that really made the character his own, Sam was able to keep the feel of the show and chemistry between characters the same. At no point did he feel like the odd man out. Brilliantly done.
The large range of characters that the actors play really is impressively done. Throughout the show, the various actors change characters on stage, right before the audiences’ eyes and it is done flawlessly. The actors change not only their physical demeanour, but also the dialect and accent they are using, the clothing they are wearing, they literally drop one character and seamlessly go on to another before just as seamlessly going back to the first character. Just one, out of many, prime examples of this comes in the shows final scene, appropriately titled “A Glitzy Finale”. In this scene we see David Cumming portray both his main character of Charlie Cholmondeley and as an actor portraying the character of Charlie, as seen through the eyes of the character of Ewen Montagu. On top of the that, when portraying the role of the actor who is portraying the character of Charlie, we seen the actor‐character both in and out of the character of Charlie. And all this is done by stepping forwards, putting on glasses, changing his posture, and changing his voice, only to reverse the entire change just as easily to return as the original portrayal of the actor.
There did appear to be some small changes to particular lines of dialogue since I saw the show last, but nothing major was changed. What definitely did not change was the impressive vocals from Natasha Hodgson. She largely plays male characters in this show and I have been impressed each and every time as just how deep her voice can get because conversely, she can also hit a damn good high note.
David Cumming is probably the actor that plays the most physically demanding role in the show. The character of Charles is a very anxiety ridden, high energy one. On stage, David looks very tall and lanky. By the end of the song “Dead in the Water” (which comes early in the first act), I am always left thinking “this guy could really do justice to Monty Python’s ‘Ministry of Silly Walks’”, so it is always a bit of a surprise when he comes out at the stage door and is not a particularly tall man. A lot can be said for the costuming of this show, which is both simple (often coming down to a change of a hat or jacket) and effective — both in being able to be done very quickly, but also at just easily getting the feel of the character across to the audience right away.
This is a show that I could easily watch time and time again because I’ll notice something new each and every time. There is so much nuance that goes into this production that I know there is always something I’ve missed. And I love when shows are that brilliantly detailed. One detail that I absolutely missed the first time is a simple one: the logo on the playbill. The words “Operation Mincemeat” are not only outlined to make it look like the briefcase that is prefixed to the wrist of the corpse that was used by the British, but it also doubles as Hitler’s moustache. The scribble, is Hitler’s hair. I want to give a special shoutout to the fan that pointed this detail out to me because once you see it, you can’t unsee it and it is just such a brilliant detail. I also appreciate how very self aware this show is both in the sense of acknowledging that it itself is a show, but also socially and politically. I also happen to be a sucker for a show breaking the fourth wall, which this show does at times, and unapologetically so.
All of these actors are stars. They all give it their all in each and every performance. But perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of this show is simply how much fun the cast has performing it. I hope to see this show stick around for a very long time because it honestly is a masterpiece.
One of my favourite things about Music Mountain Theatre is how good this theatre is at nailing any and all things camp. The Rocky Horror Show was no exception.
The Rocky Horror Show is an unapologetic show in many ways — the use of call back lines, the audience dressing up in character, prop bags being sold with the full knowledge that the theatre will be completely trashed by the shows end… I would even go so far as to say it is the closest thing we have in America to a pantomime (at least that is widely available for audiences). And Music Mountain Theatre keeps this show unapologetic, which is done through the highly sexualised staging (I’m looking at you, giant human penis complete with ejaculation), the use of humans being props (some notable instances being an Usher running across the stage yelling, “I’m an [expletive deleted] motorcycle!” and two ushers acting as the cars windshield wipers, while constantly giving the middle finger to the audience, and of course, sweeping all of the rice that was on stage back into the audience with a push broom), and improvisation from the cast and the audience (some examples being the actor playing Brad who has an obvious tattoo on his leg remarking “it’s a birth mark” when asked “do you have any tattoos, Brad?” and Rocky and Janet making the visual gag of the CEO who was caught having an affair while at a Coldplay concert when found by Dr. Frank-n-Furter).
Being that this show is done as a special one night engagement (it is a rather special night, after all, one of the master’s affairs, so to be a one night engagement makes sense), the theatre itself is still set for the current main stage production (which happens to be The SpongeBob Musical currently). This was not an issue however and instead lead to some great improvised lines including Brad commenting on the castle seeming to be in “some weird underwater aquarium”.
As stated above, the sets were minimal, with humans taking the place of many set pieces. This only made the show funnier because the sets that they did have included a giant (hairy) penis for things like the Sonic Transducer — complete with a smaller (again hairy) penis to act as the switch itself.
Ultimately I think this production of The Rocky Horror Show does what The Rocky Horror Show does best — brings people together. Despite this being a highly sexualised show, with lewd and crude comedy, and audience participation that is as equally crass; Rocky Horror is a safe place for people of all backgrounds and even of all ages (for the record, I am not advocating for bringing young children to see this show, I am referring to a young teenagers age range).
One thing I love about seeing productions of Rocky Horror whether it’s the staged show or the movie, is the diversity of the audience it attracts. Even at this performance, I saw kids (young teenagers) who were experiencing the show for the first time sitting next to people well into their 80’s who have been seeing the show since they themselves were young teenagers. And they were learning call back lines from each other and congratulating each other when one of them yelled a particularly funny one.
Rocky Horror is a show with no real hard message or meaning behind it. At its bare bones, it’s the story of Frankenstein, but really it’s about having a good time. It’s about meeting new people and laughing. It’s about accepting everyone for who they are, regardless of age, or social status, or gender, or gender expression (in fact, it’s a really safe place for a person to explore their own gender expression without judgement), or anything really. Because for a show without any real meaning the message that the audience takes away is “that was a really fun time” and sometimes that’s all you need from a show.
Well done.
*Note: if I am able to get a cast list from the theatre, I will update this review to include more details on the performances of each of the specific actors.
Gypsy is a show that I have seen before and have had trouble connecting to as a whole. I couldn’t relate to the complexity of the emotions that are expressed in this show: grief, sorrow, being defeated, refusing to give up, jumping through hoops to rationalise your own behaviour because the thought of never reaching the top is soul crushing, and even ultimately, giving in to the delusion of someone else to save your relationship with them… resulting in you being trapped for life and that just being an accepted fact.
Oh how a few long years can change a person.
With this cast, most notably led by Audra McDonald as Mama Rose, every single, heartfelt emotion was radiated from the stage. And it wasn’t just Audra McDonald that deserves the credit. The entire cast were vocal powerhouses – able to go from a meek, quiet, timid character and slowly transforming into powerful, loud, confident belting in a way that not many can do.
A special shout out has to go Joy Woods as the character of Louise. That character as a whole made a full transformation from being so tiny in the background, to standing up for herself in full confidence, and then to see her know she has that confidence, that ability, and to choose to keep a toxic person around out of…what, really? Pity? Perhaps a sense of duty?
Danny Burstein as Herbie also gave an amazing performance! To watch his character go from someone who was able to be sweet talked with the promise of marrying the woman he loves and then transform into a character who still loves the woman, but knows it will never work and that he cannot accept the toxicity that comes with her love, even if it emotionally destroys him to leave….even if it means never achieving his own goal.
Audra McDonald’s performance of Mama Rose is powerful! Beyond her insane belting ability, she exudes the raw emotions that her character feels throughout her entire body. At intermission, I turned to my friend who I had joined to see this show (he wanted to see it and I cannot thank him enough for that) and pondered how physically and emotionally taxing this role just might be on any performer who has to do it eight times per week with this level of intensity.
It is not easy to change the emotion of written words, but this cast manages to do just that through simple changes in demeanour: a half smile, a sigh – through tiny, little gestures that manages to speak volumes without actually saying anything at all. This show forces the audience to feel every difficult emotion that each character has to go through. And it is powerful. It is effective. And it can be felt throughout the entire theatre.
The cast was made up of almost entirely young actors; the youngest seemingly having just graduated high school. However, they are an impressive bunch and vocally, these actors are a powerhouse. Special shoutout to Trinity Anjelic (playing Dionne), Sarah Harrison (playing Jeanie), Anastasia Durand (playing Sheila Franklin), Matt Keelan (playing Woof), Alexander Minter (playing Margaret Mead), and Sol Siedell (playing a member of the Tribe) for their stand out vocal abilities. In a show where all of the actors are good singers, those listed above took it an extra notch up.
The script of Hair has gone through numerous rewrites and revisions, so it was not a huge surprise to hear a few songs that I wasn’t familiar with. Most notably these were the songs “The Stone Age”, “Oh Great God of Power”, and “Eyes Look Your Last”. Most notably missing from the score I am used to was the song “The Bed”. The addition of these songs did not take away anything from the show. In fact, it added an element that I had never seen before — they stress that the character of Claude (played by Soren Madsen) is the Aquarius bringing on the Age of Aquarius. This added religious element to the show: Claude is representative of Jesus and his story line makes him a martyr for his ideals and beliefs. I have to conclude that all of the choreography in which Claude was standing with his arms stretched out to his sides, reminiscent of Jesus on the cross, was intentional.
I very much appreciated the staging for the song “What a Piece of Work is Man”. This is the first time that I have seen this song sung quite literally overtop the actors that just seconds ago were writhing with agony while singing about being blown apart from metal explosions and shrapnel and then lying deadly still on the stage. Cue “What a Piece of Work is Man” and you can feel the utter disgust and disdain as the actors sing out Hamlet’s famous soliloquy that their characters feel at seeing such death and destruction at the hands of their fellow men.
As for the famous “naked scene”. People blow this out of proportion all the time. In this production, the actors begin to undress under dim light, and within seconds really, the actors on stage are in an almost complete blackout. I actually would have liked to have seen the actors back lit for an additional beat or two before the blackout. This is simply to make the effect of the characters appearing in a silhouette last just a bit longer. Right before the blackout, the actors all appeared as nameless, featureless, human bodies. The actors being in various stage of undress made no difference. It was seeing them all be nothing more than bodies and unfortunately I think that effect would have had a greater impact if just held for slightly longer. Let the audience really soak up the vulnerability that nakedness represents before making it clear that those soldiers aren’t going to come back.
This theatre does not use a live orchestra and instead rely on a track that the actors sing to. This is typically not a problem at all, however, it does run the risk of the audience reacting to a song or a scene for longer than is anticipated by the production team. This happened a time or two during this show where the audience continued cheer or laugh and an actor attempted to wait for the noise to die down before saying their line. However, that would cause the next actor to rush their line so that the singing cues were hit on time.
This production felt fairly seamless in its transitions between scenes. I appreciate that the entire theatre was used for this show considering how often the fourth wall is able to be broken throughout. But more importantly, I was able to feel the emotions of the various characters. Whether it be Jeanie wordlessly realising what was happening when Claude says goodbye at the “Be-In” or Claude lamenting on his common, regular existence and his dreams of greatness.
I really appreciated the character of Claude attempting to find strength in his invisibility. Claude is a dreamer, full of hope, who wants to make change in the world. For the majority of the show, he is a nobody and he goes so far as to describe himself as “invisible” early on. So it was interesting to see him take that negative and attempt to use it as a positive.
Of course, fans of the show know how that ultimately works out for him. And then the audience is left with a long lasting gut punch and we are left to ponder “why can’t we just love”?
This production is filled with fantastic singers – both equity actors and non. Special shout out to Tom Geiger (playing Roger and Teen Angel) whose vocal ability went above and beyond what was required for his characters.
The only big downside of this theatre is the sound system/acoustics. However, that did not appear to be much of an issue for this particular show because the singers were really able to shine without getting lost behind the music (which has happened in other productions here).
Jenna Kuetzi (playing Rizzo) delivered a heartfelt rendition of “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” where the audience could really feel how much pain the character harbours inside of herself. Kohl Pilgram and Tiara Whaley played Danny and Sandy, respectfully, and both were spectacular. It certainly felt that the two actors had chemistry between them.
The show felt genuine in its delivery of awkward teenagers attempting to figure out life and love, which is always very nice when it is a show about high schoolers. I always appreciate whenever a show that is cast largely by adults and takes place in high school manages to come off as if they are actually doing things like dancing, romancing, and just going about their daily lives for the first time. This production manages to capture the essence of being a teenager with ease.
This was the first time I saw “Dreamgirls” and I am honestly quite ignorant on the subject of The Dreams (and on a lot of music in general), so I went into this show expecting to know a minimal number of the songs.
By intermission, I realised that I am only familiar with one song (“(And I’m Telling You) I’m Not Going”) and I could not be more blown away with the performance of that song. Effie White (played by Aveena Saywer) was obviously a stand out singer from the start of the show, but the passion, the anger, the desperation to prove herself shined through so much more than her physical voice alone. Her ability to throw herself into and onto the table as she belted her way through that song ended with her getting a (well deserved) standing ovation despite the scene not having ended yet.
By the curtain call, I realised that was the only song I already knew in the entire show.
This show has it all: high intensity dance numbers, a fabulous musical score, a cast that can belt to their hearts content with remarkable control of their vocal abilities, and the raw emotion needed for these characters. “Dreamgirls”, it would seem, is extraordinary at showcasing each actors’ singing, dancing, and acting abilities. However, this cast took it one step further; they made it look like it was done with ease.
Everything I had heard and read about this show was “Monty Python meets Mel Brooks with a dash of Hamilton.” I, as a huge fan of Monty Python and Mel Brooks, came into this show figuring I would either love it or loath it. Personally, I hope that Monty Python and Mel Brooks would be proud to have their names linked to this musical.
I appreciate the small cast, only five actors are in this production (not including the understudies) and they work as a number of different characters as well as changing the sets throughout. A very notable moment of these seamless transitions was the ending number of the first act (“Just For Tonight”) which blended a high intensity, dance infused pub crawl with the solemn duties tasked to the crew of the submarine carrying a corpse.
The cast consists of David Cumming (playing Charles Cholmondeley and others), Claire-Marie Hall (playing Jean Leslie and others), Natasha Hodgson (playing Ewen Montagu and others), Jak Malone (playing Hester Leggatt and others), and Zoë Roberts (playing Johnny Bevan and others).
This is a show where the gender of the cast played no importance towards the gender of the characters they portrayed. Jak Malone blew me away with his singing ability and his rendition of “Dear Bill” brought me to tears. Both Malone and Natasha Hodgson played gender swapped characters for their main roles and they both nailed it. Natasha was a convincing man, even dropping her voice to an impressively low tone quite frequently. Malone, on the other hand, nailed the daintiness expected from a woman of that time with both grace and dignity.
In fact, this was Jak Malone’s Broadway debut. I can describe his performance in one word: Phenomenal. I hope to see a lot more Malone in the future.
The entire show was very well put together. The scene transitions and movements were very simple, allowing each of the actors to shine, while keeping the show flowing in both times of light hearted laughter and when dealing with the harsh realities of life. I can see why this show keeps getting extended and why it excelled in London’s West End. All in all, the show really was “Monty Python meets Mel Brooks with a dash of Hamilton” and I mean it that in the very best of ways.
Bravo! Well done. The standing ovation at the end of this show was absolutely earned.
(Performed at Music Mountain Theatre. Lambertville, NJ)
This is the very first time that I have ever seen this show. The only thing I knew about this show was that it was about teenagers dying in a roller coaster accident and had gained a cult following. Going into this show, I wondered if this was just going to essentially be Final Destination: The Musical. I was very glad to see that it was not.
The set was beautifully done; mimicking a carnival, including a series of tv screens with an accurate countdown of your “wait time” in line before you take your ride on the Cyclone begins. In fact, the whole show keeps the carnival motif, even making the afterlife into a carnival like game of its own.
The cast was small, consisting of seven actors, most of whom are currently either college students or recent graduates. The first actor that I found myself drawn to was Roger Madding (playing The Amazing Karnak). I found myself watching him when the other actors were supposed to be the main focus of the show. This is because, while he did stumble over a line or two, his robot movements – or rather lack of movements – was amazing. Madding managed to stay almost perfectly still, down to barely blinking, regardless of if the spotlight was on or even near him. Bravo, sir, that looked quite difficult.
Elizabeth Axler (playing Jane Doe) definitely stood out for her vocal ability. There was not a single note that she did not hit perfectly. Elisa Carey (playing Ocean) did a wonderful job playing the girl that we all love to hate. After all, who has not encountered that person who thinks they are always the main character of the story and that they more important than others? Surely, every high school has had at least one person like that. This ability to be relatable to everyone makes the character a lot of fun. Sarah Harrison (playing Constance) managed to bring me to tears with her acting ability by the end of the show. Constance is a much deeper character than I expected her to be, but I am glad that she was because Harrison was able to nail it. Nicholas La Russa (playing Noel) did a phenomenal job. I saw in the Playbill that he has previously played Angel in RENT and I can definitely believe it because his dancing was absolutely top notch. Connor Riley (playing Mischa) can certainly play the bad boy well. It was interesting to see an actor who can clearly dance and sing play a character that is almost always half-assing his way through life. It makes me wonder if it is harder to play a character that is more reserved, a deep thinker perhaps, than it is to play a character that is more “in your face”. Riley managed to make Mischa both too cool to care, but also a tortured soul. It was a beautiful combination. And finally, Shawn Ritzheimer (playing Ricky) brought such life to a character that is initially silent. By the end of the show, the audience is happy to see the outcast character, with an amazing imagination, come into his own.
While this show points out that not every show has a moral, this is one show that does. Enjoy life – it is not a game, but it is a ride. Appreciate what you have already because you never know when that ride will come to an end. Take the time to appreciate the beauty of the things around you and don’t feel shame for doing so.
