items tagged with John Donald O Shea

As the lights rise on the Harrison Hilltop Theatre's presentation of The Odd Couple, neither Oscar Madison nor Felix Ungar is on stage, though it's clear from the trash-strewn décor that we're in Oscar's living room. Four of the duo's pals are in the midst of their weekly poker game, and eventually one of them calls out to the off-stage kitchen, asking Oscar if he's in or out. Oscar replies, yet before we see him, his voice - moderately high-pitched and a little strangled, and with distinct East Coast cadences - is unmistakable. Oh my God!, you think. Steve Buscemi!

Chris Walljasper isn't exactly a new face in area theatre, as the actor (and recent co-founder of Davenport's Harrison Hilltop Theatre) appeared in Genesius Guild's and Opera@Augustana's Patience last year summer, the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story this past winter, and, most memorably, Carousel and A Year with Frog & Toad for Rock Island's The Green Room.

Yet it's entirely conceivable that audiences for the Playcrafters Barn Theatre's Promises, Promises will watch his performance and, on the drive home, ask one another, "Who was that guy?", because Walljasper is delivering the sort of terrifically engaging and endearing musical-comedy turn that makes you wonder why you haven't seen even more of him.

In Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, the storytelling and language are already so musical that the decision to adapt the author's tale into a musical seems a little redundant. But as redundancies go, the musical version of Little Women is actually pretty good, and under the direction of Bob Williams, Quad City Music Guild's take on the show is pretty damned good - marvelously designed, staged, sung, and (apart from two glaringly inappropriate performances) acted. Alcott purists may gripe, and not without cause, but it'd be hard to gripe about Music Guild's presentation of the material, and, I think, impossible to gripe about the portrayal of Erin O'Shea, whose stunningly radiant turn as Jo March seems reason enough for the existence of a Little Women musical.

If you peruse your program before the Quad City Music Guild's current production of Once Upon a Mattress, you'll see that Joe Urbaitis plays a character named Prince Dauntless the Drab. While watching the actor, it probably won't take long for you to decide that Urbaitis is colossally miscast in the role, as his inventive, fearlessly funny performance in this musical comedy is anything but drab.

In his director's notes for the Countryside Community Theatre's presentation of The Fantasticks, William Myatt writes that he was honored to helm the production, but also concerned, as Tom Jones' and Harvey Schmidt's minimalist musical wasn't originally intended for a 900-seat venue such as North Scott High School's Fine Arts Auditorium. "Would a show of such intimacy be swallowed by the size of the North Scott theatre?" asks Myatt in his program notes.

Well, if Friday night's happy audience response didn't already convince him, allow me to answer Mr. Myatt: "Nope."