MUST SEE

The dynamic of Will casting his Romeo by Thomas Kent (Kate McGonigle disguised as a man) and eventually falling for Kent once hs discovers that Kent is really Viola de Lesseps, a star-struck want-to-be actor. Problem: Will is married and Viola is committed to marry the irrepressible Lord Wessex (Dennis Grimes). This doomed romance fuels the play with clever plot twists that are hilarious. We also hear some famous lines and scenes for Romeo & Juliet including sword fighting scenes and the famous dying scenes.

. Marry Me A Little has been updated with the help and blessing of Sondheim to include songs cut from the final versions of Follies, A Little Night Music and Company among others. Based on a concept from Craig Lucas and Norman Rene, the original idea was filled with songs from early Sondheim projects such as Saturday Night, The Girls of Summer, Evening Primrose and Road Show.

One of the most telling traits of this show is the treatment of common men and women, the real immigrants, not the upper-class privileged immigrants who came here with land grants and armies. This presentation is about common folks in their own words. We hear their plights and their desires – and – their problems one they arrived. We realize that discrimination was always a fabric of the American Experience. That fear of new arrivals, especially those who looked different and had different cultures, was hard to assimilate yet somehow they did become “Americans.”

Featuring an impressive set (designed by Grant Dabin), Garson Kanin’s 1946 dark comedy Born Yesterday is a timely cautionary tale about internal threats to our democracy from corrupt businessmen. (sounds familiar?) Kanin’s clever structured story involves a boorish, crude and loudmouthed millionaire junk dealer who descends on Washington, DC just after World War II to bribe a US Senator in a scheme to salvage all the junk metal (from tanks, trucks, and cannons) in Europe scattered around France Belgium and Germany.

By the Water uses the diaster to trigger deep-seated personal problems and how to move forward from them. Times change, people change, loyalties shift but family core values survive as life moves on. With clever dialogue, surprising humor and realistic characters, By the Water is a smart different family drama. Director Cody Estle has his actors nicely rendering their characters blending their angst with humor and passion. This is a wonderful play that needs to be seen.

Once seated, we continue to watch the crew getting setting up for the play. Only when we hear voices on the headset announcing the start of the tech rehearsal do we realize that the show we came to see is actually starting. We hear constant chatter over our headsets that is idle chatter with techies desiring snacks, gossiping and telling stories to pass the time while the slow process of getting the set located, the props in place plus to lighting and sound cues organized. There are many lag-time delays while the details get are polished and corrections made. Once the actors do some scenes, they need to become familiar with the blocking. That can be difficult since actor’s foibles and even script disagreements surface complicate things.