items tagged with Don Denton

The Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse’s Jack Frost Saves Christmas is the most adorable children’s play I’ve ever seen. Okay, it’s also the only children’s play I’ve seen since... well, since I was a child. Still, it brought out the kid in me as I danced and sang along – at the appropriate, invited times, of course – and I wasn’t alone; the children in attendance at Saturday’s performance, including the two I brought along with me, laughed and danced and shouted exclamations of delight at the play’s proceedings.

I’ve never seen a production of Forever Plaid, but that didn’t seem to affect my enjoyment of the Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse’s production of the musical’s sequel, Plaid Tidings. Thanks to a quick recap of the events from its predecessor, it was immediately clear that this show would concern a 1950s vocal quartet that had died, but was sent back to Earth to perform a Christmas show in order to prove their Plaid-itude. Or something like that.

It's been more than 20 years since I read Harry Allard's series of "Miss Nelson" children's books, but it's hard to forget Viola Swamp, "the meanest substitute teacher in the whole world." Miss Nelson Has a Field Day, currently playing at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, features Swamp (Liz J. Millea) as the no-nonsense alter-ego of Miss Nelson, the kindly math teacher at Horace B. Smedley Elementary School. The show is as funny as I remember the books being, and judging from the laughter that was constantly erupting from the audience of mostly elementary-school students at Friday's matinee performance, I wasn't the only one who thought so.

Driving home from the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse on Friday night, after seeing the opening performance of the musical Joseph & the Technicolor Dreamcoat, I asked my husband, "Can you honestly think of anyone who wouldn't like this show?" We couldn't. And I still can't. With its appealing confluence of technical effects, engaging storytelling, musical styles, memorable characters, and lessons in forgiveness, humility, and hope, even those grudging types who would rather be dressed in bologna and tossed into a shark tank than see a musical can find something in Joseph to laugh at, mull over, be inspired by, or appreciate on a sensory level.

I've seen worse musicals than A Wonderful Life, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's new stage version of Frank Capra's film classic It's a Wonderful Life. I've even seen worse stage versions of It's a Wonderful Life, one of them, produced way back in 1987, at Circa '21.