Playing Catch-up on 2014

Back to playing catch up on shows I've seen and reviewed this year. I promise this is just going to be one comprehensive post (within links to the actual reviews on BroadwayWorld.com). I'm so far behind that I feel horribly guilty.

Again, apologies.

Grey Gardens: Presented as part of Tennessee Repertory Theatre's REPaloud Series

Man and Superman presented by Blackbird Theatre in Nashville

The Dixie Swim Club presentd by The Cumberland County Playhouse in Crossville

Love, Loss and What I Wore presented by Cookeville Performing Arts Center

Red presented by Tennessee Repertory Theatre

Sister Act: The Musical at Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville

Interview with Chester Gregory of Sister Act: The Musical 

Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson presented by Street Theatre Company, Nashville

Company presented by Tennessee Repertory Theatre

Wicked at Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Nashville

So if you wanna play catch-up on what I've done this year...here's your chance. :)

I have a few blog posts floating around in my head as well, so I might be bringing you a few of those (on THIS blog) in the next week or so.

Happy Friday!

Why Torture Is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them

Last weekend I made the trip to see a play that was in the town where I went to college. The entire town has a really active theatre scene for its size, so there’s almost always something going on. This show was at Cookeville Performing Arts Center and was part of their “Backstage Series.”

I love these shows because they are so intimate. The entire show AND audience are on the stage. For this show, in particular, this was an incredible feat as there was a ROTATING set. Such an interesting title of a show, this Christopher Durang piece is entitled Why Torture Is Wrong and the People who Love Them. If you know Christopher Durang, you know that most of his shows are….disturbing, to say the least.

This show was no different. Staged in an incredible way, with a set designed by Kim Frick-Welker (and a shout out to Brandon Walls who is listed as “Master carpenter (Revolve)” in the program), perhaps my favorite part of the entire show was the set. There are several different scenes in the show, so a revolving set made it possible to have totally different sets, with little to no prop movement onstage.

Taken from CPAC's event page on fb

Another great part of the show was the song selection for both the pre-show and the scene transitions. Most were perfect for the mood, or what was happening in the scenes and I often times couldn’t help but silently sing along.

The show itself was funny, but really not my cup o’ tea. From the first scene we meet Felicity, who has woken up with a major hangover, and no memory of the night before, only to find herself married to a stranger named Zamir. Felicity, played by Kate Breidert, seems to be a sweet girl but is completely confused as to how she came to be married to Zamir, played by Matthew Wilson.

Felicity realizes quickly that Zamir is a little….off. He’s got a short fuse, and refuses to get an annulment or a divorce. When nervous and confused Felicity questions Zamir about what he does for a living and his personal life, he’s vague at best. Matthew Wilson does a good job of playing creepy. Zamir is creepy, he’s questionable, and he’s scary.

Felicity takes Zamir to her parents’ home in the suburbs, in part to meet her parents and in part so that she can get some help from her parents in finding a ways out of this marriage. We immediately meet her parents who seem to be as crazy as Zamir, just in a totally different way. Luella, Felicity’s mother, seems to be living in total denial of everything. Beverly Hedgepeth played Luella to be the type of person who adores avoiding reality. She continually talks about theatre, relating everything in her life to a show she’s seen and wanting to know if Felicity has seen any new shows, in spite of Felicity’s insistence that she hates the theatre.

Leonard is the epitome of a crazy right wing conservative. Every single crazy thing that you’ve ever heard is true, or heard made up, about a crazy conservative, Leonard is, says, believes. Leonard is played by Pat Frank. Frank is hilarious in this role. It’s almost a cartoonish take on an outspoken conservative and his wife with her head in the sand.

We later meet the “reverend” who married Felicity and Zamir. Reverend Mike is serious about his title as a reverend…and about his secondary career as a porn star/film maker. A hilarious character, Brent Fleshman gives the good reverend a slimy, yet endearing personality. You can’t help but like him, even though he’s a shady character.

We then find that Leonard is seriously off his rocker by his secret room in his house, and his friends Hildegarde and Looney Tunes who share his views and want to help bring down domestic terrorists. Played by Tracy Clark, it’s immediately obvious that Hildegarde has a crush on Leonard and that she would do anything he asked of her. Looney Tunes was played by Josh Rapp and was just that: Looney Tunes. Also crazy, Looney Tunes makes noises that remind you of your favorite cartoon characters.

When Felicity thinks that it’s possible that Zamir might be a terrorist, her father thinks the same thing. While Felicity is one to just pacify the situation, her father wants to do the exact opposite. When Zamir and Leonard meet, they immediately dislike each other. Felicity just wants the whole thing to go away, and Luella just keeps talking about theatre and changing the subject.

In true Christopher Durang fashion, there are bloody body parts in this show, and a very, very, very odd ending involving time travel. Honestly, when the show was over, I wasn’t quite sure if I’d seen a bashing of the conservatives, a Dr. Who special, or a comedy. And I kind of liked that.

While it wasn’t a show for everyone (the people sitting in front of me left at intermission), it was a show that was well done, well-acted, and funny, if you don’t take things too seriously. I enjoyed myself and left only slightly confused (time travel seems to do that to me).

I’m sad to say that it closed this past Friday and I’d like to apologize to the cast for only now getting this posted. It was a fun show and something on the fringes of “acceptable” in the mostly conservative South. Which is something I’ve come to expect from theatre in the Cookeville area.

You can check out the upcoming shows at Cookeville Performing Arts Center by visiting their website.

Falling in Like

Have you ever seen a production that had a lot of potential, but just didn’t quite hit it out of the park in the way that it should? Yesterday I saw a fairly new play called Falling in Like. From what I gathered there have only been a couple of other productions of the show, written by Jerry Sipp and directed by Andrew N. Davis. When I’d first heard about the show, the title alone was enough to catch my attention. It sounds like a great romantic comedy.

The production was done at Cookeville Performing Arts Center, which puts out some great pieces of community theatre. In fact, the entire town of Cookeville has some amazing theatrical opportunities at CPAC, The Wesley Arena Theatre, and Tennessee Technological University’s Backdoor Playhouse.

The basis of the story is all rom-com. A production of a play loses its leading lady to an injury only weeks before opening. An unsuspecting intern ends up stepping into the role and makes it part of her mission in life to use her psychology degree to “shrink” the stand-offish leading man, who has no desire to share any part of his personal life with… anyone.

Surrounding them is a supporting cast of a producer, director/playwright, another cast member, and a stage manager to add to the laughs. Leading lady, intern/understudy Abbie was played by Chessilyn Angel, and her leading man Frank was played by Tony Craighead. Chessilyn did a wonderful job of portraying the innocence and exuberance of a recent college grad ready to make her way in the world. Tony played the standoffish leading actor well.

Stage manager Marge was played by Tracy J. Clark. She was hilarious and the character had some of the best one liners in the entire show. She had, perhaps, the most interesting character in the entire production. You knew, almost immediately, Marge had been doing her job for so long that she had become slightly jaded in her work, but that she still knew how to get things done.

Playwright Arnie was played by Travis Flatt. He was the slightly eccentric writer who was still re-writing parts of the play right to the very end. Travis had the “crazy” down, complete w/ scribbles on legal pads and cup after cup of coffee. Evil leading actress Victoria was played with self-absorbed perfection by Kimberly Frick-Welker. Adam Combs played the other actor in the play, Sonny, who was always getting lines cut from his role and trying his best to get some lines back. Constantly trying to make the peace with everyone was producer Jeffrey played by Lynn England. Lynn portrays such a clam persona as Jeffrey that it works well.

Staged as a “Backstage Production,” all the seats for the audience are on the stage. I’ve seen “Backstage” productions at CPAC before, but unlike other times, Falling in Like has the first row of both sides of seats reserved as part of the show. It works well and gave me a feeling of interaction with the cast a la Spring Awakening. There was very little in the way of props, but that fit the show well since it was all about the rehearsal stage of a play.

Overall, the show was good. It was fairly well acted, well-staged, and had its laughs. My reason for saying that it “wasn’t quite there” yet was simply that I didn’t feel a major connection with any of the characters (Marge, the stage director aside). The bones of the story are the bones of a great romantic comedy, but I think there needs to be some more character development in the writing. I wanted to know why Frank was so unwilling to share his personal life (I never felt like I got an answer). I wanted Abbie to be a little less annoying in her quest to “shrink” Frank. I wanted to know why Frank and Victoria had the strange relationship that they had (were they former lovers?).

Still, this show is more than worth going to see. It’s funny and an enjoyable way to spend an evening. You can still catch Falling in Like at Cookeville Performing Arts Center through September 3rd. You can call 931-28-1313 to buy tickets.

Man of La Mancha

There is a great thing about having a friend that is semi-involved in community theatre.... sometimes you can see shows for free by doing something cool, like ushering a show. That was the case with this show. I ushered, they let me stay and watch the show. No one knew I was going to blog about it. No one asked me to blog about it, but I did not pay for a ticket. (This is my disclaimer for this show, now on with the review!)

Man of LaMancha. What can I say about this show. When I was in high school, my Spanish teacher made us watch Don Quixote. At the time, I thought the movie was pretty cool. So when I figured out that Man of LaMancha was a musical version, I was all up for seeing it. The book is by Dale Wasserman and the music and lyrics by Mitch Leigh and Joe Darion, respectively.

The town I went to college in, and that my best friend still lives in, has a very active theatre world. There is the theatre at the university and two separate theatres that have community type productions. This particular production was put on at the Cookeville Performing Arts Center.

I have good things to say about almost every production, but you also have to understand the difference in a professional production and a community theatre production. This musical was definitely a community theatre production. That aside, it was a pretty darn good community theatre production.

The costumes were pretty fantastic, in my opinion. Especially the costumes of the donkeys (amazing!!), Aldonza/Dulcinea, and Don Quixote, himself. My favorite was probably the prop piece that became Don Quixote's sword after he charged the windmill.

The star of the show, and the most talented person on that entire stage, was Rick Woods, who played the parts of Miguel De Cervantes, Alonso Quijana and Don Quixote. He was absolutely amazing. His rendition of "The Impossible Dream" gave me chills, flat out. Another standout, vocally, was Antonia (Alonso's niece), played by Ashley Francis. Her voice was fantastic.

The story itself is the best part. It's really a page out of Shakespeare's book, as it's a play within a play (and almost again, within another play). Miguel De Cervantes and his servant have been arrested during the Spanish Inquisition and are thrown in prison. Their fellow prisoners have plans to put them on their own Prisoner's Trial. To defend himself, Miguel De Cervantes begins to weave the story of Don Quixote, a crazed man who always sees the best in people and the positive side of things. But it turns out that Don Quixote is just Alonso Quijana, a crazed man who thinks he's Don Quixote.

Along the way, Don Quixote meets a hilarious cast of characters that partially fight his insanity, and partially play along with it. The songs in the show are pretty amazing, but my favorites are (of course) "The Impossible Dream" and "Dulcinea."

There are a few more times to see this show. It plays through July 23rd. If you are a fan of community theatre you will probably enjoy this show.