17
Dec
2008
For the third year in a row, I've composed a list of 12 area-theatre participants who devoted their time, energy, and skills to numerous theatrical organizations and venues during the past year. And once again - happily and inspiringly - it hasn't been necessary to repeat names from one year to the next; local theatre, to the great good fortune of local audiences, never seems to run out of talent.
If you diagrammed the experience of the Riverbend Theatre Collective's As Bees in Honey Drown, it would look something like a roller coaster: There'd be an extended incline followed by a precipitous drop, several more inclines each followed by lesser drops, a few twists, and an eventual return to your point of origin. And as with a roller coaster, you might find yourself having a terrific time during Bees' ride, even if your enjoyment wears off quickly, and a few of its shakier moments give you a headache.
In a theatre weekend that found me attending a Rodgers & Hammerstein musical, a Kaufman & Hart play, a Shakespeare, and a pseudo-Shakespeare, I have to admit that, with the Riverbend Theatre Collective's presentation of Kimberly Akimbo, I was so psyched to see actors in modern dress screaming obscenities at one another that I could barely contain myself.
From the opening minutes of Elegies: A Song Cycle, the debut presentation by the Riverbend Theatre Collective, it's clear that the production is going to be beautifully performed. An uninterrupted, 90-minute collection of reminiscences by composer William Finn, the revue finds Allison Collins-Elfline, Patrick Gimm, Jackie Madunic, Dana Joel Nicholson, and Bryan J. Tank offering musical tributes to people (and pets) that Finn loved and lost, and they form an intimidatingly strong vocal ensemble, excellent in their solos and even finer in harmony.
Describing composer William Finn's Elegies: A Song Cycle, the first presentation by the Quad Cities' new theatrical company the Riverbend Theatre Collective, artistic director Allison Collins-Elfline says of the show, "It's quirky, it's fun, it's upbeat ... ."
