With its whopping cast size and an equally daunting song list, Guys & Dolls doesn't seem like the best choice for a rookie director. But that didn't stop local actor Jason Platt from taking the helm of Quad City Music Guild's first summer offering, and making a darned good run of it. To be sure, the Thursday-night preview show either needed a few major cuts to shave off at least 20 minutes of the two-hours-and-50-minute (including intermission) run time, or a quicker musical pace set by music director Charles DCamp. However, the lead vocal performances were phenomenal, the female dance numbers were great fun to watch, and the set design and high-quality costumes effectively represented New York City, circa 1940.
As a frequent theatre-goer, both professionally and preferentially, it's refreshing to see familiar material presented in a different way. Such is the case with the Clinton Area Showboat Theatre's production of Rent. Director Patrick Stinson and his cast abandon most of the conventions of the Broadway production, creating their own interpretation and consequently instilling more fun into this musical story of Bohemian life in New York's Alphabet City.
It doesn't feature a question mark, but the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse's Whodunit... the Musical may still not have the right question in its title; after viewing Saturday's performance, I was instead asking myself, "What is it?" The show's book, for the most part, is a straightforward murder-mystery, the majority of its songs make for a bright and cheery musical, and the climax and dénouement are straight out of drawing-room farce. It's an identity crisis bigger than the mystery afoot in the show's plot.
The Prenzie Players' current production, Cyrano de Bergerac, is costumed in nothing but black and white. Yet that lack of visual variety counters the abundance of color in the performances of the cast, which add shades of nuance to what could be presented as cut-and-dried "good" and "bad" characters. The actors' portrayals make it possible for audiences to feel sorry for the villain, to fall for our hero's rival in love, and even, to some degree, to occasionally dislike the tale's namesake.
As I watched Friday's performance of Any Number Can Die at the Playcrafters Barn Theatre, I tried to remember that there was (probably) a time when Fred Carmichael's script was considered hilarious. As a spoof of murder mysteries of the 1920s, this 1965 work may originally have been fresh, poking fun at the plays that audiences were used to seeing. Now, though, with so many comedies poking fun at murder-mystery clichés - and with one seemingly presented each year by Playcrafters - the jokes at the expense of the clichés have themselves become cliché. Still, Carmichael's script and Playcrafters' production of it are amusing enough to make the show at least tolerable.
Saturday night's performance of Marvin's Room marks the first time I'd seen a Richmond Hill Players production. When previously invited to see one of their shows, I cited reasons not to attend, mostly balking at the seemingly long drive out to Geneseo. I spent much of Saturday's intermission chastising myself for not making the shorter-than-expected trip sooner.
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 anything at which the Prenzie Players excel - and the theatre group excels at quite a few things - it's the ability to convey the meaning of Shakespeare's words to those who may have trouble following the dialogue and, therefore, the plot. (I.e. me.) And that strength is all the more important in the Prenzies' current undertaking, Troilus & Cressida. While watching the opening-night performance, I rarely understood what exactly was going on by way of what was said. But thanks to the passion behind how it was said, I was neither bored nor disinterested.Subscribe & Listen to Reader Podcasts
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