09
May
2016
As a child of the '60s and '70s, I favored rock groups such as Kansas. My older sister Shari loved pop music. For many kids, music was a way to escape the turmoil of those decades, and for Shari, it meant listening to Bobby Sherman or folk singer John Denver. Being the youngest, I sometimes teased her about the lameness of her music – and still do, for that matter. However, even for a precocious little brother, the music of Denver always struck a chord of enlightenment in my heart, and that's exactly what happened again at the Timber Lake Playhouse's opening-night performance of Almost Heaven: Songs of John Denver.
There's magic in the Timber Lake Playhouse's Peter Pan that reached my inner child and set him dancing. Even knowing that Rosie Upton's title character would fly, I still got chills when scenic designer Benjamin Lipinski's grand windows were flung open and the forever-young boy floated through them. And that thrill only took a break during the production's intermission, otherwise staying with me during its entire two hours.
Good gawd is the Timber Lake Playhouse's Hairspray fun. I went into Saturday's matinée with eager anticipation and left with a sense of thrilled enjoyment, floating on a cloud of happiness. Director Lili-Anne Brown's production of this musical based on John Waters' 1988 film is not only a helluva good time for us, but a rockin' wild ride for Amelia Jo Parish's Tracy Turnblad, as Hairspray's lead goes from overweight sideliner to local-dance-show star to racial-integration crusader in 1960s Baltimore.
