items tagged with Jenny Stodd

Five Extraordinary Ensembles

An actor friend of mine says he always wants to be the worst performer in everything he's in, because if the rest of the cast is doing stronger work than he is, that means the show is in really, really good shape. With that in mind, any actor worth his or her salt would be thrilled to be the worst performer among these five ensembles.

During the first few minutes of Smoke on the Mountain, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's current gospel comedy, the stage is only occupied by the Reverend Mervin Oglethorpe (Vaughn M. Irving), the devout, twitchy preacher at the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church. It's the summer of 1938 in rural North Carolina, and the good Reverend has a problem: He's arranged for the Sanders Family Singers to perform for his congregation, and with the service scheduled to begin, they're nowhere to be found.

By their very nature, biographical jukebox musicals such as Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story - currently being performed at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse - have to be a little glib. Given roughly two hours of stage time, how can book writers adequately detail a performer's personal and professional arcs without drastically simplifying the experience?

Anyone old enough to read this - anyone old enough to read - is probably too old to enjoy The Ugly Duckling at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse.