Author: Tom Williams

MUST SEEOperaTom Williams

Tosca – January 2010 cast

Tosca is so romantic, so melodic and so emotional that I was completely enchanted from the early romantic duet arias. I was impressed by the rich vocals from Violeta Urmana and the smooth fluid tenor chops from Marco Berti as Tosca’s lover, Mario Cavaradossi. Lucio Gallao is the deliciously cunning villain, Baron Scarpia.

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Theatre ReviewsTom Williams

Funny Girl

Funny Girl, the seldom mounted 1964 classic Broadway musical about the life of Fanny Brice, is so associated with Barbra Streisand that most playhouses shy away from the piece. Not the talented artists at Drury Lane Oakbrook who, under the collective talents of Gary Griffin, William Ostetek and David New, have found a most talented actress to play Fanny Brice–Sara Shepard.

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Theatre ReviewsTom Williams

The Last of the Dragons

Lifeline Theatre has a strong reputation for mounting an effective assortment of kids theatre. My first encounter with their children’s fare was The Last of the Dragons adapted by David Bareford from Edith Nesbit’s fantasy story. This 55 minute cute little musical is charming with a worthy moral and it sure plays well with children 5 years and up.

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Beverly FriendTheatre Reviews

Chemical Imbalance: A Jekyll and Hyde Play

Where Wilde’s play is original, Lauren Wilson’s Chemical Imbalance is a clever, highly comic spoof of Robert Louis Stevenson’s quite serious work on the dual nature of man – the good vs. the evil. And if the story of one split personality is insufficient, playwright Wilson adds identical 10-year-old, twins (played by bouncy, blonde Tiffany-Leigh Moskow) – demonic Penelope vs. angelic Calliope. They not only parallel the Jekyll/Hyde situation, but are integral to the story because a drop of their blood is needed to provide an essential ingredient for the evil venom and its potential antidote.

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Theatre ReviewsTom Williams

Minna

Barker tries for complex, ambiguous and unstable responses by mixing comedy with tragedy and by blending time periods–here 18th Century melodrama with 1950’s intensity–as he blends satire of war and violence with sexual perversion from estranged lovers.

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Theatre ReviewsTom Williams

My Fair Lady

My Fair Lady is a witty, stinging social commentary on Edwardian British morality wherein the upper-class speech Professor Higgins boasts he can turn an uneducated low-class flower girl into a princess at the embassy ball. With one of the smartest books with brilliant lyrics (by Alan Jay Lerner) on one of the finest, lush musical scores by Frederick Loewe, My Fair lady is one of the gems of the Broadway stage

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