Now in their 24th year, Pegasus Players has nurtured hundreds of high school playwrights culminating with productions of the best plays. The 2010 finalists feature rich, complex and mature works all written by young women. These teen writers have found subject other than teen angst that has dominated the YPF for many years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Felder, a terrific actor, expert musician (and composer) and playwright, reverently presents favorites like “Swanee,” “Someone To Watch Over Me,” “I Got Rhythm,” “They Can’t Take That Away From Me,” and others until our ears are ringing with Gershwin’s melodies.
From the toe-tapping overture, you know you’re in for a comic operetta and Roger L. Bingaman’s 26 member orchestra delivers Arthur Sullivan’s score in a delightful turn. The Gilbert & Sullivan 1879 operetta The Pirates of Penzance still resonates with audiences in the 21st Century
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
I must state that that I detest rap and most rock music yet I enjoyed the 2008 Tony Award winning In The Heights more that I thought I would. The infectious, manic and deftly executed dances (by choreographer Andy Blankenbuehler) and the very likable characters gave me something to care about.