17
Aug
2009
As the title character in the Timber Lake Playhouse's Buddy: The Buddy Holly Story, Chris Froseth is a spectacularly confident dork. With his slender frame, curly mop of brown hair, and iconic horn-rimmed glasses, he nails the physicality to perfection, and his cascading drawl and thrilling rock vocals are oftentimes uncannily similar to Holly's. Yet what's even more impressive is how completely the actor seems to capture the singer/songwriter's gawky yet fantastically determined spirit.
DISTRICT 9
If you can't pull off grandeur in a show that's pretty much known for grandeur, you're much better off shooting for ingenuity and invention. So, for those curious how the modestly scaled Clinton Area Showboat Theatre was going to house the extravagantly scaled Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, the happy answer is: with considerable wit and smarts, thank you.
On Thursday night, I attended Quad City Music Guild's preview performance of Seussical, and if you include St. Ambrose University's 2008 production of the one-act Seussical Jr. - and I most certainly do - it was the third time I'd seen this show in as many years. (Eldridge's Countryside Community Theatre produced its version in the summer of 2007.) If theatres would only oblige, I'm reasonably sure I could see it, and without any complaint, every year for the rest of my life.
JULIE & JULIA
G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA
David Lindsay-Abaire's Rabbit Hole won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for drama, one year after winning a Best Actress Tony Award for Sex & the City star Cynthia Nixon. A movie adaptation is currently being filmed, starring Academy Award winners Nicole Kidman and Dianne Wiest.
FUNNY PEOPLE
Following Saturday's presentation of Thesmophoriazusae - this summer's annual Genesius Guild send-up of an ancient-Greek comedy - I had the chance to say hi to its adaptor/director, Don Wooten. I congratulated the Guild founder on the sensationally silly 75 minutes that he and his cast had just delivered, and during our conversation, another patron came up to Wooten and told him that this Aristophanes goof was the most enjoyable season-ender she'd seen in decades.
Neil LaBute's Bash - the debut presentation from the newly formed Phoenix Theatre Company - finds three of the author's short plays performed in succession, and in the middle of its first offering, actor Chris White rises from his chair, walks to its back, removes his suit coat, and then sits down again. In movie parlance, this is what would be known as Bash's "action scene."
