16
Jan
2012
I adore the movie version of Grease, and think it's one of the few musicals in which the film is an improvement on the original stage version. The theatrical musical is less cohesive in terms of the timelime's flow, forcing the audience to fill in the gaps between scenes, and I kind of hate that about it - unless a stage production transcends the script's weakness, in which case, like the movie, I love it. However, while I did not hate Friday's performance of Grease at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, I didn't exactly love it, either.
The Harrison Hilltop Theatre's The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is both outrageously hilarious and poignantly touching. I laughed harder than I've laughed in a long time during Thursday's opening-night performance, and I wasn't alone in offering up hearty guffaws, with the capacity crowd cackling with delight throughout the evening's entertainment.
It's been more than 20 years since I read Harry Allard's series of "Miss Nelson" children's books, but it's hard to forget Viola Swamp, "the meanest substitute teacher in the whole world." Miss Nelson Has a Field Day, currently playing at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse, features Swamp (Liz J. Millea) as the no-nonsense alter-ego of Miss Nelson, the kindly math teacher at Horace B. Smedley Elementary School. The show is as funny as I remember the books being, and judging from the laughter that was constantly erupting from the audience of mostly elementary-school students at Friday's matinee performance, I wasn't the only one who thought so.
No show that opens with 10 sharply dressed, great-looking, terrifically talented performers dancing a spirited tap number can be all that bad, which is a good thing for Holly Jolly Christmas, the musical revue currently playing at the Circa '21 Dinner Playhouse. Considering, however, that the production has no loftier purposes beyond entertaining crowds with familiar holiday tunes and spreading a little yuletide cheer, I think audiences could be easily forgiven for turning to their theatre-going companions after the curtain call and saying, "Well, that was nice... but what the hell was it?"
SUGAR
