Songs from the Shower: Cadenza and Theatre3x60 collaborate on a fluid production.

SONGS FROM THE SHOWER
A co-production of Cadenza Productions and Theatre 3x60
Musical Direction:  Carol Salamone, Direction:  Carey Nicholson
With:  Todd Appleton, Lyle Corrigan, Trish Harris, Donna Lajeunesse, Catherine Marzola, Andrew Smith

Cabaret entertainment poses challenges for performers.  Not only should the singers be versatile in the ability to shift vocal range and style quickly, but also the selection of songs must appeal and sell to a wide variety of music tastes.  Let’s face it – unless your audience members have seen several musicals, chances are most guests:  a) won’t know the songs b) have either been ‘dragged’ or ‘coerced’ to go or c) attend to support family and friends.

SONGS FROM THE SHOWER opened on a very warm July 6 evening for a two-week run at Port Perry’s Town Hall 1873.  This production has been cast extremely well by Carol Salamone and Carey Nicholson as all members of this six-person cast have stage experience throughout the Durham and GTA Regions.  Each has his and her signature numbers to sing and, my gosh, several of the songs soar through the roof of the Town Hall.  Most importantly, the audience can tell these six performers work together as a true professional ensemble of players who listen, pay attention and watch carefully as a scene unfolds before them without upstaging the moment.

Since this show is a co-production between Cadenza and Theatre 3x60, thank goodness the set is minimalist because an evening of entertainment like this has to move quickly from song to song.  The transitions between each song are smooth and fluid.  And yet, there was a minor quibble that will most certainly be addressed and rectified for the next performance.  Sometimes, the sound balance was uneven and it was difficult to hear the lyrics especially from some of the songs of the shows I did not know.

Near the end of the first Act there is, as the French say, a soupcon of naughtiness and ‘adult’ content where you will raise your eyebrow for a minute BUT MAKE SURE YOU RETURN FOR THE SECOND ACT as this is where the performance flies high and the audience is in for an enjoyable time. Time and space do not permit me to comment on each song, but I want to point out some personal evening highlights. Close your eyes and just listen to the beautifully sung ensemble numbers A NEW WORLD and FOR NOW.  The male trio belt confidently YOU’RE NOTHING WITHOUT ME through the roof of the Town Hall highly charged with aplomb.  The female trio girlishly teases us with YOU COULD DRIVE A PERSON CRAZY.  Lyle Corrigan and Todd Appleton have great fun with BETTER WITH A MAN. Donna Lajeunesse reveals her vocal range and depth in BEING ALIVE, YOUR DADDY’S SON and OLD-FASHIONED LOVE STORY.  Catherine Marzola and Trish Harris assuage our fears of life in SOME THINGS ARE MEANT TO BE. Andrew Smith and Donna Lajeunesse hilariously account for so called advantages of friends with ‘benefits’ in WE’RE JUST FRIENDS.

Live, professional theatrical entertainment abounds a’plenty this summer in the Durham and Scugog Regions.  Make sure you get to see some very talented people grace the stages this summer.

SONGS FROM THE SHOWER continues July 8, 13, 14, 15 at 8 pm AND July 16 at 2 pm at Port Perry’s Town Hall 1873, 302 Queen Street. Recommended for ages 13 and up as there is some adult material.  Tickets may be purchased at the door prior to performance or visit their website for further information. 

Joe Szek: Stratford Festival Theatre needs to polish up its 'Guys And Dolls'

GUYS AND DOLLS (A Musical Fable of Broadway, Based on a story and characters of Damon Runyon).  Music and Lyrics by Frank Loesser.  Book by Jo Sweling and Abe Burrows.
Festival Theatre, Stratford, ON
Directed and Choreographed by Donna Feore, Musical Direction by Laura Burton, Produced by David Auster

Well, a plot synopsis isn’t necessary for this one as almost all of us, who have either a love or an appreciation of the performing arts, are aware of the fly by night Broadway romance of gambler and ‘intended’ groom Nathan Detroit (Sean Arbuckle) to the bubbly and perky Hot Box girl Miss Adelaide (Blythe Wilson).  Nathan makes a bet with high rolling gambler Sky Masterson (Evan Buliung) that he won’t take the Save-A-Soul missionary ‘doll’ Sarah Brown (Alexis Gordon) to Havana with him.  I will admit that I wasn’t keen on seeing GUYS AND DOLLS. Why bother reviving this chestnut when there are other stories that need to be shared with twenty first century audiences?

Anyway, I tried, I honestly tried (apologies to Miss Adelaide for the awkward paraphrasing) to view this production with fresh eyes but it’s challenging.  At this June matinee performance, the actors appear to shout and maintain the frenetic energy at such an elevated level and feverish pitch all the time that it is distracting and tiring. Granted these thirty-one professionals are doing their best to create the vibrancy of 1940s New York, but the performance level is forced too much; it’s pushed too much in our faces all the time, and the ‘garish, cheeky, sweet world of Damon Runyon’s Broadway’ (from Robert Harris’ Program Notes) appears willy nilly throughout the performance.

That is not to say this GUYS AND DOLLS is a terrible production as there are some moments that are spell binding and jaw dropping, specifically Director Donna Feore’s brilliant and mesmerizing choreography.  If you are sitting in the balcony of Stratford’s Festival Theatre, you will most certainly admire and appreciate the breathtaking Crapshooters’ dance routine prior to the show stopping LUCK BE A LADY.  TAKE BACK YOUR MINK and A BUSHEL AND A PECK evoke the peek a boo, titillating, burlesque and dance hall palaces of 1940s Manhattan. The Havana bar scene is seamless and flawless in specific movement, its sea of costumes and carefully staged fight thanks to John Stead. Dana Osborne and Alison Marshall’s costume designs are colourfully and distinctly refined.  The unseen orchestra led by Music Director Laura Burton are in tip top and fine form.  It was a nice touch to have Ms. Burton acknowledge and take a bow at the curtain call.

A few of the supporting players also deserve mention. Steve Ross as Nicely-Nicely Johnson and the company deliver a knockout and stellar rendition of SIT DOWN, YOU’RE ROCKIN’ THE BOAT with pizzazz and gusto.  Laurie Murdoch delivers a touching MORE I CANNOT WISH YOU to a confused Sarah Brown who is uncertain how she feels about Sky.

GUYS AND DOLLS continues in repertory until October 29, 2017 at the Festival Theatre, Stratford Ontario.  For further information please visit their website. 

Previously published on ONSTAGE.

New Soulpepper play is shocking, disturbing, inspiring, enlightening

FOR COLOURED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF (Ntozake Shange)

Soulpepper Theatre
Director:  Djanet Sears, With:  Tamara Brown, Karen Glave, Ordena Stephens-Thompson, d’bi.young anitrfrika, Akosua Amo-Adem, SATE, Evangelia Kambites

For years, I have read numerous articles about FOR COLOURED GIRLS and its treatment of some extremely serious adult issues of the day ranging from HIV/AIDS to physical/emotional abuse and sexual assault.  I wasn’t sure if venturing to see this production would or could make for an entertaining evening.  To see this production is not entertaining, but it is important to become an audience for it. What is striking about Soulpepper’s production, in Director Djanet Sears’ words, is the fact we are invited to ‘set aside our understanding of genre, and our understanding of Black womanhood, so that we may follow [these] characters as they explore questions that still plague [black womanhood] four decades later.’

September 2016 celebrated the fortieth anniversary of the Broadway production of FOR COLOURED GIRLS.  In the Programme Notes, Ntozake Shange called her production a ‘choreopoem’ in that movement, voice, dance, song, poetry, sound and lighting all work seamlessly together on the stage to sculpt the English language in order for the text to leap from the page and into the audience’s lap in a manner that reflects the author’s experiences of the world. Forty years ago, I’m almost certain audiences would have found this 1 ½ hour play sans intermission shocking and disturbing for its content while inspiring and enlightening to the questions that are raised.

Once again, Soulpepper has exceeded in its excellence of story telling. Seven extraordinarily talented and stunningly beautiful women are a true ensemble of professional actors who tell this story with compassion, honesty, frankness, comedy, brutality, kindness, decency and redemption.  Each woman is costumed in a specific colour of the rainbow that represents multiple viewpoints to which we are privy all the time.  These individual colours of the rainbow emit some light but, when they gel together, the entwined colours become a tapestry of the beauty, strength and vitality of black womanhood.

Be prepared for some haunting moments that will remain with you long after the lights fade.  Periodically, there is a consistent and persistent humming sound through many of the turbulent moments of the lives of these women.  This humming becomes the voices of those women who have been wronged through no fault either of their own choice or their own doing.  This sound also reminds us these women are human persons whose suffering will never, ever be erased.  The rape of one of these women by a so called ‘friend’ will make you uncomfortable, angry and fearful of how such a horrible crime can be inflicted on another human being.  The news of the HIV/AIDS virus is horrific and shocking.  These seven women effortlessly control our emotions from the Baillie stage.  At moments, we laugh as we can sense the joking and teasing while only seconds later our hearts and voices are ripped from our human soul as we see the affects of the atrocities of crimes committed against these women.  But through it all, by the end of the production, we see how forty years ago these women endured and survived.  Have these problems been erased forty years later?  That, my friends, would be dinner topic but FOR COLOURED GIRLS makes us aware just how important this theatrical piece needs to be seen.

FOR COLOURED GIRLS WHO HAVE CONSIDERED SUICIDE/WHEN THE RAINBOW IS ENUF continues to June 3 in Toronto’s historic Distillery District at the Young Centre for the Performing Arts. Visit www.soulpepper.ca for further information or call 1-416-866-8666 for ticket information.

Previously published at OnStage  

edited Sat May 20 2017

Explore Ajax community theatre with SlowCity's new reviewer Velika Maxam

The Explorators Club
Staged at the St. Francis Centre, 78 Church Street South, Ajax

Written by Werner F. Schmidt, Produced by:  Sarah-Liis Salonius/Ajax Community Theatre, Stage Managed by:  Eren Barnett, Directed by:  Nancy Palumbo

by Velika Maxam

An elderly band of bumbling adventure seekers converge to form The Explorators Club of Pilkinton-Wells, England (not to be mistaken with the Explorers Club of London) to share in their reverence for the likes of Polo, Magellen, Cartier, Amundsen, and of course Caldwell.  Now in his 90s, President of the Explorators Club, and first to climb Mount Butterworth, Tom Caldwell lies dead on his settee surrounded by tokens of his great exploits, with his repose oblivious to those who serve his Arctic Institute well.   The unforeseen discovery of his corpse, by his aged compatriots and potential beneficiaries armed with a hefty insurance policy, paired with the swift intrusion of the Amelia Earhart-esque adventure seeking Ruth Beekman, eager to dust off the gentlemen only club membership policy, proves quite the quandary for a few grumpy old men but madcap fun, and folly for Durham audiences, in Ajax Community Theatre’s newest production, The Explorators Club.

The cast of eight, comprised of some of Durham Region’s veteran actors, add to this entertaining explorer’s comedic adventure.  Adorned in a red fedora, Ruth Beekman (Debborah Lobban) trail blazes onto the scene with spirit and fervour, with a walrus harpoon tranquilizer gun deep in her holster determined to make strides in a male dominated world.  Add to the mix the Tilley toting wild trio of octo-sexa-septua-genarian club members, Secretary Ashcroft Sloan (Daniel Wyse), Fred Sheridan (Ian Speiran), and George Darnley (David Cooke) who together, in an effort to save the Caldwell legacy with an insurance claim hunt, desperately attempt, failingly, to finagle cadaver juggling with fiery girl power resistance, in as curmudgeonly a fashion, as they can muster. 

What’s a comedy without an undertaker, the dapper Reese from O’Halloren, Shaughnessy and Kelly, who is eager to remove the body and sell his latest wares to the crestfallen of the dearly departed, played by Dillon Hunter, who marks his third performance on stage, as a budding new addition to local theatre.  Backstage devotee Cathy Thompson, marks her return to the stage as Mr. Caldwell’s faithful housekeeper Sue Loften, who dutifully keeps the old boy's club fed and feisty, while thug nephew Sid Loften (Andy Roberts) proves to be the second act’s unexpected sardine guzzling guest highlight.

Make no mistake; the well designed set of cadaverous Caldwell’s common room, lends itself well to an English hunting den meets Colonel Mustard, adorned with snowshoes, globe, medals, skis and the piece de resistance, a genuine moose head mount.  It’s a testament to Director Nancy Palumbo and so many impassioned community theatre set designers who ceaselessy seek out set pieces, to create a scene while staying on budget.  The St. Francis Centre, home of A.C.T for the past 6 seasons, also poses a challenge for set design in that formerly a church, the stage is deep yet narrow.  And yet with the aid of fellow set designer Dave Edwards, Nancy was able to make good use of space and colour with a multileveled set, conveying well the Explorators Club’s den like feel.

There are true moments of hilarity in this play, that revolve around the intended and unsuccessful disposal of the rigor mortis afflicted Caldwell off the terrace, and Ruth Beekman's empowered explorer leadership style alla Annie Oakley, as the heroine who forges the malcontented bunch out of folly.  The actors all certainly add their own level of uniqueness, and style to their characters that were humourously composed with one common quirk, their ageless exploration fanaticism.  The potential beneficiaries of Mr. Caldwell’s insurance policy, aging trio Fred, Ashcroft and George certainly convey in classic stuffy vintage style of short trouser pants, and bridge league savvy, the never-ending art of male bolstering.  Author, zoology teacher and sure shot Ruth Beekman'sportrayal is never short on breaking the glass frontier, with her wit, picture frame straightening style and lethal use of force.   Housekeeper Sue, nephew thug Sid, and undertaker Reese, all aid to bind together the myriad of misunderstandings, mishaps, and misfiring that make this a classic gem of a comedy.

The Explorators Club continues May 4, 5, 6, 2017 at 8pm, and tickets are available at the door before each performance or visit their website.

WCT's 'Things My Mother Taught Me' is standup and fall down funny

THINGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME by Katherine DiSavino
WHITBY COURTHOUSE THEATRE

Produced by: Ted Niles and Brandon Rideout, Staged Managed by:  Stephanie Lehman, Directed and Designed by:  Brandon Rideout, With Sharon Berman, Darren Brunke, Melissa Gibson, Nancy Gleed, Genevieve Hebert-Carr, Shael Risman, Lincoln Trudeau

Ah, moving day!  One of the most difficult tasks for young people especially for those who are trying to launch themselves from the safety net of their parents’ homes and into lives of their own. To close the 2016-2017 season, WCT has selected THINGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME, a rom-com about a young couple who has decided to move in together to test the waters to see if they are compatible.  

This script is not Tony award winning material but, for the two hours you are watching the production, it’s fun.  Since our world is in such a state of chaos and fear, there is nothing wrong with silly or implausible plot lines to take us away from these woeful world events for a couple of hours.

After the opening night show, Director Brandon Rideout told me that he had turned down this script three times when he was approached to direct it.  When he was asked a fourth time, Rideout re-read the script again, mulled it over carefully, and then agreed to do it because he wanted to move the script beyond the initial sitcom feel that it has at first glance.  The opening night audience laughter indicated he was successful in his objective.

Along with Ian Handscomb and his team’s believably realistic construction of an empty apartment, Rideout’s set design is effectively stark.  As we enter the auditorium, we literally believe that we have entered a unit complete with the painter’s white and beige colour on the walls.   Character blocking is smooth and helps to delineate which character is in control at certain moments. Lighting is taut and helps to focus our attention at certain moments.  

This apartment is set in an ‘up and coming’ (in other words, seedy) Chicago neighbourhood where we are first introduced to the on the prowl and slightly tipsy building superintendent, Max Mirowski (an amusing Melissa Gibson), who only performs a customary and very quick dust, clean and polish. During this silent walk on before the play begins, Ms. Gibson pokes fun at what might happen or occur in large dwellings before new tenants arrive.  As the story progresses, some of Max’s ill-timed appearances further contribute to the ensuing off the wall turn of events.

Genevieve Hebert-Carr and Darren Brunke are Olivia Keegan and Gabe Lawson, personable, likeable and down to earth young people who have decided to move from New York City to begin their lives and careers.  Their first problem?  A chair will not fit through the doorway.  The script directions call for the chair to remain in the doorway before the play begins; however, Rideout cleverly opens the play by showing how Olivia and Gabe are responsible for placing said chair in the doorway. 

In doorway:  Shael Risman, On floor:  Nancy Gleed, Photo courtesy of Ted Niles.

Ms. Hebert-Carr and Mr. Brunke have appeared in other local community theatre productions and both show an intuitive understanding of comic timing from this opening bit of shtick.  Olivia Keegan is the epitome of organized efficiency and Ms. Hebert-Carr maintains this quality until the surprise arrival of her mother and father. Mr. Brunke’s mannerisms and movements reminded me of two fine comic actors – the late John Ritter and Jim Carrey.  Ritter and Carey see the importance of maintaining believability in the most unbelievable of situations, and Mr. Brunke rises admirably and successfully to this challenge.

Nancy Gleed, Shael Risman, Sharon Berman and Lincoln Trudeau confidently play the couple’s sets of parents. For the diehard community theatre fans, when Lydia Lawson (Ms. Gleed) in exasperation calls her husband, Wyatt (Mr. Risman), “an old poop”, ON GOLDEN POND comes to mind as central character Ethel Thayer called her cantankerous husband, Norman, by the same loving term.  Ms. Gleed pulls out many ‘motherly’ techniques to make sure son puts mama first. Shael Risman has DAD figuratively written all over him and we want to go up and give him a big bear hug. Wyatt is well intentioned in wanting to help set his son up in the apartment, but Wyatt also understands how important alone time is for a young couple especially when he and Lydia have misunderstood and believe they have inadvertently and hilariously walked in on an intimate moment between Olivia and Gabe.

Karen and Carter Keegan (Sharon Berman and Lincoln Trudeau) offer a diverting contrast to the Lawsons.  While Lydia is uptight in not wanting to let go of the purse strings with regard to her son, Karen (Ms. Berman) is pragmatic in her relationship with her daughter. Like Mr. Risman, Ms. Berman (who is married in real life to Mr. Risman) has MOM written all over her figuratively.  As Carter is her second husband, Karen does not want her daughter to make the same mistakes.  We can sense tension in some moments between Karen and Olivia, but in the second act the humour mounts once again as the women do shots while the men have left to track down Olivia and Gabe’s stolen van of furniture and belongings.  Carter Keegan knows when to keep his mouth shut on matters that do not pertain to him; however, Mr. Trudeau is priceless when he returns in a drunken stupor with Wyatt after the men have tried to track down the stolen van.

There are some sidesplitting moments in the second act involving Messrs. Risman, Trudeau, Brunke, a tub of ice cream and whipped cream.  On top of that, keep your eye out for the Coco Puffs cereal and its journey.  And what is the message that audiences will take away from THINGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME at the end of the evening? Kate Miller in her review of the play for The News-Herald in Northern Ohio wrote “THINGS delves into the divide between generations, looking at the perspectives of how our mothers approached love and relationships ‘back in the day’ versus how couples approach their life journeys now.  The wonderful revelation in the play seems to be that all three couples on stage get it right, despite their differing attitudes on the correct ‘order’ of how a couple should move into the different stages of a relationship.”

THINGS MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME continues at the Whitby Courthouse Theatre, 416Centre Street South, April 20-22 and 27-29, 2017 at 8 pm with a 2:00 pm matinee on April 22.  Tickets are available at the door before each performance or visit www.whitbytheatre.org for further information.  You may also purchase tickets at Lafontaine, 100 Brock Street South in Whitby or call 905-430-3774.