items tagged with Harrison Hilltop Theatre

Thursday's opening night performance of Sunday in the Park with George was far more of an emotional experience than I had anticipated. Prior to opening night, cast members posted Facebook messages saying rehearsals were moving them to tears, and chalking it up to their emotions being heightened by the experience of doing the show - as can often happen with a cast and crew - I didn't expected to be equally moved. I was wrong, with tears streaming down my face multiple times during the performance.

In the program's director's notes, Matthew Helton reveals that he stepped into the role of director for the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's production of Rent hours before the first rehearsal, not giving him enough time to do much more than reproduce the Broadway staging of the show. The replication is arguably forgivable, given his time constraints, but also unfortunate, as little of the performance possesses the mark of being the local theatre's own take on composer Jonathan Larson's work. That being said, however, the production lives up to and even exceeds expectations, due to the singing ability of its cast, and the high energy of its band.

If there's one word I'd use to best describe Playcrafters Barn Theatre's current production, it would be "nice." And while that can be taken as an unflattering adjective, for The O'Conner Girls I mean it as a positive one; I left the opening-night performance with a smile on my face, one awash with the sweet nostalgia and dash of humor that put it there.

Every good writer needs an editor. Composer/accompanist Derek Childs certainly needs one for his rock musical Tired American Dream, which debuted at the Harrison Hilltop Theatre last week. The opening-night performance, which lasted two hours with an intermission, had a few talented singers to boost Dream's simple plot, Childs' script has potential, and some of the songs have peppy melodies with sweet and memorable (if word-heavy) lyrics. But as a complete production, Dream felt too much like an early draft in need of revisions.

[Editor's note: On February 3, Harrison Hilltop producers Tristan Tapscott and Chris Walljasper announced the cancellation of the remaining performances for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf.]

As much as I like theatre, three hours in a chair can be a bit too much for me. The Harrison Hilltop Theatre's recent production of Long Day's Journey Into Night felt long, but mainly because the show's script is populated with lengthy, repetitious monologues. Its current production, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, is roughly the same length, but doesn't have the same plodding feeling. Perhaps it's because almost every line in the play seems weighty yet unpretentious, with an overall pacing quick enough to both keep and force your attention, lest you miss a sharp-tongued phrase.