items tagged with Stephanie Moeller

New Ground Theatre’s current offering, Mr. Marmalade, is about four-year-old Lucy and her imaginary friends. Suicidal, coke-snorting, physically and mentally abusive imaginary friends. And it’s incredibly funny. One particularly dark scene during Thursday's performance, in fact, had me laughing so hard, for so long, that I was wiping away tears by the end of it.

The Reader's chief theatre reviewer, Thom White, saw and wrote about 52 area stage productions in 2011. I saw 39 and reviewed 12. Obviously, during our second-annual breakfast chat on the Year in Theatre, there was a bit to talk about.

There are so many smart line deliveries in the Prenzie Players’ Tartuffe that I could gush over each one here and still not have space for half of them. From Stephanie Moeller’s forceful proclamation “I’m timid!” to Jessica Sheridan’s delightfully wicked warning about being stuck with the unbearable title character “each day ... and night ... for life,” Friday’s performance had me cackling over and over again. I won’t, however, point to any more specific line interpretations, for fear of ruining the element of surprise. A large part of the production’s humor lies in hearing its words delivered in unexpected ways.

There are moments of magic in the Prenzie Players’ Romeo & Juliet, beginning with the first words heard in the prologue: “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where we lay our scene.” These lines are delivered in the midst of a sword fight that spreads across the acting space – the fighters freeze, ethereal music wafts in from above, and Adam Overberg delivers Shakespeare’s well-known introduction, setting the stage for this tale of ill-fated, star-crossed lovers. The moment is stunningly executed, and sets in motion an excitement for what’s to come.

The Playcrafters Barn Theatre’s take on the classic Robert Louis Stevenson adventure novel Treasure Island – adapted for the stage by Ken Ludwig – certainly kicks off with a dynamic start. Director, lighting director, and set designer Jennifer Kingry’s impressive recreation of a lightning storm is ominous and tense, as is the first scene aboard a pirate ship, and if the play’s pirates portray any sense of threat, it is in these opening minutes, as they snarl at and descend upon a perceived traitor and treasure-map thief. The storm ends, however, as does the scene, and the rest of the play lacks the excitement set up at the start.