Dia de los Cuentos

 

There were a lot of happy, excited children at the opening performance of the new B Street Theater Family Series production, “Dia de los Cuentos.” I had a great view of one little guy, about 5 years old, who sat and watched intently, clapped enthusiastically, talked back to the performers and just about turned himself inside out with delight at the parts that he liked.

“Dia de los Cuentos” (a day of stories) is the 161st original play written by B Street (46 in the Family Series alone) and the first collaboration among B Street writers Buck Busfield, Jerry R. Montoya and David Pierini.

It celebrates Mexican-American folk tales, in celebration of California’s Latino influence. The four stories (a fifth was removed from the production due to union restrictions on length for theater for young audiences) dramatized the myths and fables that remain at the heart of Latino culture.

The multicultural ensemble cast — Nestor Campos Jr., Amy Kelly, Joel Ledbetter, Dena Martinez and Armando Rivera — worked well together and nicely engaged the children in the audience.
Scenic design by Samantha Reno consisted of a few pieces, mostly two large staircases, that were able to be moved around to represent several scenes and sites, with the addition of a table here, a bed there and a few other pieces.

Costumes by Paulette Sand-Gilbert were over the top and brightly colored, to appeal to children. Perhaps the most clever and most colorful was a parrot costume for Dena Martinez, giving her not only a very colorful costume, but gloves that resembled claws, so that when clutching a branch, she looked for all the world like a parrot on her perch.

The stories began with “Pepito the Mouse” (author credit to Montoya), which explains how the tradition of the tooth fairy came to be. Rivera took the lead as Pepito, a mouse who causes his father (Campos) to lose a tooth. His ingenious solution to help his father continue to eat food started the practice of taking teeth from under the pillows of sleeping children and replacing them with something else of value.

“The Legend of Popocatépetl and Itzaccihuatl” (written by Pierini) is a mouthful and even after hearing “Popocatépetl” many times throughout the play, I’m still not sure I can pronounce it as fluently as the cast.

This play explains something that many mountainous locations take for granted, that a beloved mountain peak (like Mount Tamalpais) is really the sleeping body of a princess or a prince. Popocatépetl (Ledbetter) is in love with Itzaccihuatl (Martinez), but goes off to war against the Aztecs, hoping to return victorious, to ask her father (Campos) for her hand in marriage.

But a jealous young man (Rivera) carries the message that Popocatépetl has been killed in battle, thinking that if he professes his own love to Itzaccihuatl she will marry him instead. His plan backfires and in a Romeo and Juliet-like finale, not only is Itzaccihuatl lost, but Popocatépetl as well.

Rivera becomes a B’rer Rabbit-like bunny in “Rabbit and Coyote” (by Busfield), a zany crowd-pleaser filled with slapstick comedy and chase scenes as the clever rabbit outwits both the wily coyote (Kelly) and the hunter (Campos) looking to have hassenpfeffer for dinner. It explains why coyotes howl at the moon.

The show closes with “The Parrot and the Firewood,” with Martinez as a wonderful parrot, owned by a mean old woman (Kelly) and her very sweet, hen-pecked husband (Campos). How the parrot makes life better for the husband offers an unexpected twist, that will have children cheering and  adults laughing.

These shows are designed for children 5 and older, and judging by my little 5-year-old friend in the front row and the two retired women sitting next to me, it is certain to delight all ages.

A Flea in Her Ear

There’s a whole lot of laughing going on at the Woodland Opera House by an audience enjoying George Feydeau’s farce, “A Flea in Her Ear,” directed by Rodger McDonald.

This frenzied and hilarious comedy relies on the razor-sharp characterizations of a top-rate cast and the crisp direction of MacDonald (who also plays the libidinous doctor, Finache).
The play was written in 1907, at the height of La Belle Epoque, a period that ended with World War I, in which life was peaceful and the arts flourished. The current production was translated from the French by Barnett Shaw.

The story, told in three acts, is set in Paris at the turn of the 20th century, when Raymonde, wife of Victor Emmanuel (Analise Langford Clark) begins to suspect her husband may be getting a little romance on the side, since their previously active and apparently quite satisfying love life has suddenly come to a screeching halt. (This suspicion is the “flea in her ear.”)

(As an aside, I will mention that the printed program for this production is extremely frustrating. Actors aren’t listed in order of appearance, or alphabetically or, it seems, even in order of importance. Most characters are not called by name by the other characters, and when you have a character named “Raymonde” who turns out to be a girl, and a character named “Camille,” who is a boy, your head can go spinning. (They say you can’t tell the players without a program, but in this production, I had difficulty telling the players even with a program!)

But I digress. Back to the show. Raymonde confides in her best friend, Lucienne (Kirsten Myers), who suggests that her friend play a little trick on her husband to see if her fears are confirmed. She suggests that Raymonde send him an anonymous letter from a secret admirer, offering to meet him at the local seedy hotel, Le Coq D’or (“door,” not “di-or,” as some in the cast insist on calling it) for a little rendezvous.

Raymonde likes the idea, but knows that her husband will recognize her handwriting, so Lucienne writes the letter for her. As Lucienne is married to a hot-tempered and passionate Spaniard, Don Carlos Homenides de Histingua (Gabe Avila), we can see what is coming when all of the mixups occur in Act 2.

Standouts in this production include Steve McKay as Victor Emmanuel and, later, his doppelganger, the Coq D’Or bellhop Pochel. His transformations — which involve both quick costume changes and personality changes from the prim and proper Victor to the laconic and confused Poche and back again — are wonderful.

Another outstanding performance is by Brent Randolph as Camille Chandebise, Victor’s nephew who suffers from a speech impediment leaving him unable to pronounce consonants. I don’t know how long it took Randolph to perfect the impediment, but he does it eloquently, broadly and impeccably, giving long speeches that are all but unintelligible until he is given a little instrument to insert in his mouth to correct it. When he loses it later, in mid-harangue, and immediately switches back to his old impediment, it’s brilliant.

McDonald himself, always wonderful, does not disappoint in this role. The women, Clark and Myers, carry most of the first scene and are prim and proper and somewhat soft-spoken so one had to strain to understand them. There was none of that problem with MacDonald, who confidently strode in the door and took over the stage, and we could all heave a sigh of relief knowing we were in excellent hands.

Gil Sebastian plays Victor’s best friend Romain Tournel, smitten with Raymonde and delighted when she turns up at Le Coq D’or, thinking she is finally going to give in to his amorous advances.

Avila, costumed in the bright red and yellow of a Spanish soldier about to do battle and wielding a long sword, is in stark contrast, both visually and temperamentally, to the rest of the cast. He makes the most of the chance to be outrageous.

Tim Gaffaney is Ferallon, the manager of Le Coq D’or, who spends most of the second act kicking Victor/Poche in the backside.

The meat of the show occurs in Act 2, which is reminiscent of the second act of “Noises Off,” with so many coming and going, so many things going wrong, and so many misunderstandings, so many doors. It will leave the audience breathless with laughter, especially the diversion while the set crew changes back to the first-act set in the brief stay-in-your-seat second intermission.

So when all the world is a hopeless jumble and the raindrops tumble all around, leave your troubles outside and come to the Woodland Opera House for a good two hours of fun and laughter.

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Andrew Lloyd Webber was only 19 years old when he was asked to write a piece for a local school choir, to sing during an Easter service. He asked his friend Tim Rice (then 22) to write the lyrics, and the two settled on the Genesis story of Joseph and his coat of many colors. As originally performed by those children, the work was only 15 to 20 minutes long.

After a number of additions, changes and performances by amateur companies, the full production of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” opened on Broadway in 1982. Now it has returned to the Sacramento Community Center Theater.

The show, the retelling of the beloved Bible story, is full of all those things that make for a fun musical – sibling rivalry, betrayal, fratricide, deception, slavery, seduction, imprisonment, execution, and famine. A natural for a fun evening.

The new production, under the direction and choreography of Andy Blankenbuehler, is a lively, energetic 90 minutes of nonstop singing and dancing. In creating a version of the musical more to 2015 tastes, Blankenbuehler has eliminated a children’s chorus, present in many productions (since this was essentially a children’s story that is told as a dream of the lead character) in his cast and has replaced them with scantily clad women and bare-chested men, which the audience didn’t seem to mind at all.

Though there is a graphic seduction scene it is done so tastefully that even the little 3-year-old sitting in front of me wouldn’t realize what was going on, so it’s quite kid-friendly.

In this day of digital effects, one does not have to have expensive sets to create an elaborate setting. The actual set pieces for this show (designed by Beowulf Boritt) are curtains, moveable blocks and steps, but the projections on the “walls” and in one instance the costumes of the performers are pretty spectacular and make you forget that there are actually no impressive sets on the stage. All are enhanced by the lighting design of Howell Binkley.

But if there were savings on the set, there was none in the costumes of designer Jennifer Caprio, especially the coat of many colors itself (particularly in its second appearance) and the costume of the Pharaoh.
Leading the cast are newlyweds and former American Idol contestants, Ace Young as Joseph and Diana DeGarmo as the narrator.

It is DeGarmo who keeps the story flowing in the most demanding role of the show. She’s energetic, cute and funny and has a set of pipes on her that rocks the house, though it tended to be shrill, which hurt my ears.

Young is a fine Joseph, looking tall and handsome with a charisma that charms the audience. He gets the opportunity to display his voice in the solo “Close Every Door.”

But the supporting cast actually make more of an impact. Brother Reuben (Brian Golub) takes the lead in “One More Angel in Heaven,” a salute to country and western music, while brother Simeon (Paul Castree) shines in “Those Canaan Days” (a parody of French ballads) and Judah (Max Kumangai) heads up “Benjamin Calypso.”

The show stopper, though, is always Pharaoh’s song, “Song of a King,” sung by Ryan Williams in the manner of an Elvis Presley. Williams gyrates and thrusts his hips, courts the audience and pays homage to the King of Rock and Roll. His encore is built into the song and the audience loved it.

There is stunningly precise choreography in several numbers. Particularly outstanding is “Canaan Days,” with the antics that go to divvying up a rat into 11 portions to serve for dinner.

The show’s final number is the ballad “Any Dream Will Do,” a beautiful duet between the Narrator and Joseph, and it set up the finale, “Megamix” with all the cast dressed in white. It seemed to be as long as the entire second act and had the audience clapping and bouncing along with the cast.

This show is always fun and this production does not disappoint.

Ideation

When Aaron Loeb’s “Ideation” premiered at the San Francisco Playhouse in 2013, critics called it everything from “a demonically dark comedy” to a “psychological thrill ride,” a “taut locked-room mystery,” a “gripping satire” and both a “corporate farce” and a “corporate thriller.”
Capital Stage’s production, adroitly directed by Michael Stevenson, proves that this very funny play is indeed all that.

Loeb, senior vice president of Kabam, a free-to-play video game company in San Francisco, writes plays as his second profession and has earned seven Emerging Playwright Awards. He explained that his video gaming experience, combined with his wife’s work as an international human-rights lawyer at San Francisco’s Center for Justice and Accountability, is the inspiration for this Glickman Award winner for Best New Play of 2014.

It is difficult to talk of the specifics of the plot, since they are better revealed in their own time, but the setting is a generic corporate office, with set design by Jonathan Williams, featuring a conference room table designed and built by Marc Foster.

As the show begins, Hannah (Carrie Paff) in her red power suit, is setting up for an important meeting that is about to take place. While it is obvious that Hannah is the brains of the group about to discuss a thorny corporate problem, she is “just” a woman and has to play her cards very carefully.

She first butts heads with Scooter (Russell Dow), an office boy hired because he is the son of one of the corporation’s board members. Scooter believes the work for which he was hired is beneath him and wants to be part of the serious discussion, leaving Hannah with the problem of how to handle this upstart who has no respect for her authority.

The trio of Brock (Jason Kuykendall), Ted (Peter Mohrmann) and Sandeep (Jimmy Sidhu) arrive, fresh from a trip to Crete, in high spirits, laughing and high-fiving about the complicated deal they have signed that will make the stockbrokers rich while causing financial difficulties for Greece. Laughter and good-ol’-boy hilarity ensues.

The dialogue comes fast and furious, and don’t try to figure out what is going on — it may be irrelevant at this point. The beauty of Loeb’s script is how he crafts the action to slowly build tension. Just when you are horrified at what you are hearing, a new element is added and the picture changes completely, and then the paranoia begins and the story evolves even more.

This play needs skillful hands to make it work, and in this cast, Stevenson has that in spades. Kuykendall’s Brock is a Don Draper-like alpha male, arrogant, sure of himself and a take-charge guy. His subtle body language changes throughout the play are brilliant.

Mohrmann is at his finest as the blustery Ted who is the numbers guy, who wants to get on with the discussion so he can get out of the room and make it to his daughter’s soccer game in time. By the same token, he realizes the enormity of the ethically ambiguous project they are tasked to design; his thoughts about it ultimately change everything.

Sidhu is the Indian Sandeep, here on a work visa, who is committed to seeing the project through to completion, though he is having second thoughts and realizing that to disagree with his colleagues risks his legal standing in the country.

Patrick Murphy is the disembodied voice of “J.D.,” the CEO who has demanded a completed project plan in 90 minutes and puts additional pressure on the committee members, all of whom are obviously terrified of incurring J.D.’s displeasure.

“Ideation” challenges the audience to weigh their moral values against global responsibility. Do the needs of the many outweigh the desires of the few — and whom can we really trust when we are making these decisions?

This is a top-notch production of a play that makes you laugh, cringe and question all at once.

5 Songs

Jack Gallagher is the busiest Renaissance man whom you may never have heard of.

This three-time Emmy Award-winning playwright and comedian has played every comedy club in America (or so it seems from his bio), was a regular at The Improv in Los Angeles, appeared in movies, co-hosts the popular nationally syndicated public television show, “Money Track,” starred in his own sitcom (“Bringing up Jack”) and had a recurring role on “Curb Your Enthusiasm.”

He’s been on a number of talk/variety shows, including “The Tonight Show” (with both Johnny Carson and Jay Leno) and “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” He was even the host of the California Lottery’s “Big Spin” from 1996 to 1998.

Yet, all I knew of him was that he was the friendly guy in the old Crystal ice cream commercials.

Gallagher’s new show, “5 Songs,” is the fifth show commissioned by the B Street Theatre, where it opened this past weekend and will run for the next six weeks. It is outstanding.

The central theme is the music of our lives, how sometimes it only takes a few notes of an old song to transport us back to another time and place, with memories that may be pleasant or may be unpleasant, but you can’t escape the story that accompanies that particular song.

The walls of the B Street Main Stage theater, by scenic designer Meg McGuigan, are lined with titles of songs that have special meaning to Gallagher. The audience is given a choice of four from a list of seven or eight. Each of the four sections of the audience selects a song, Gallagher selects the fifth, the rest are removed and the show is on.

Your show may be quite different from mine, as it will change every night, depending on the songs chosen.

With the accompaniment of Tommy Dunbar on guitar, Gallagher begins to reminisce about his memories connected to each particular song. The first song opening night, for example, was Phoebe Snow’s “Poetry Man,” which evoked a visceral reaction and then led to a lengthy description of what it is like to be the opening man for such names as Snow, Dolly Parton, Paul Simon and Tony Bennett, among many others, living life on the road and being the guy nobody wanted to see because everyone was there for the headliner. Some experiences were very bad; some were not so bad (and Bennett, apparently, was the best).

Gallagher has an easy delivery that makes the audience feel as if they were sitting in his living room listening to this delightful man tell them stories from his past.

The most poignant of the songs discussed was “Danny Boy,” which brought up stories of his complicated childhood, his relationship with his parents and how their idiosyncracies shaped his life and turned him into the parent he has become to his two now-adult children. It a beautiful piece and anyone who shares some of the experiences he describes will be moved to tears.

Junior Walker’s “What Does It Take?” opened the door to Gallagher’s memories of his first job, working 13 hours a day in an ice warehouse at age 15, and of developing a work ethic that has followed him the rest of his life.

This is a two-act show, the second act being much shorter than the first, but the time flies by and when it ends, you wish you’d had a chance to hear what he had to say about the songs that did not get selected.

It was a delightful evening spent with a likable guy, who makes doing something very difficult look very easy.

But I missed the ice cream.

Nunsense

Dan Goggin apparently enjoyed his Catholic school upbringing so much that he decided to honor those wacky nuns of whom he was so fond. He penned a cabaret show called “The Nunsense Story,” which opened for a four-day run and was so popular it was extended to 38 weeks.

Encouraged, he expanded his original concept into a full-length comedy called “Nunsense,” which opened off-Broadway and ran for an unbelievable 10 years, the second-longest running off-Broadway show (after “The Fantasticks”). By the time it ended its run, it had been translated into 26 different languages and had seen more than 8,000 productions worldwide. It has even spawned five different sequels.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of this show, the Sacramento Theater Company is bringing it back to the Pollock Stage.

The story involves the Little Sisters of Hoboken — who once worked in a leper colony in the south of France — who are now living in New Jersey, after having been ousted by Protestant missionaries.

While several of the sisters were out playing bingo with a bunch of Maryknolls, their cook, Sister Julia, Child of God, accidentally poisons 52 of the nuns with her tainted vichyssoise. The remaining sisters managed to bury all but four of the departed when they ran out of money and discovered that the Mother Superior took some of the funds raised to buy a flat-screen TV. So the four remaining are being kept in the freezer (“blue nuns,” you might say) and the health department is beating at their door.

They have decided to put on a show to raise the rest of the money so they can finally bury their fellow sisters … and thus is the set-up for the rest of the show. In a somewhat strange explanation, the nuns feel their frozen sisters can’t get to heaven until their bodies are buried … which isn’t what I learned in Catholic school, but let it pass — it’s a plot device.

While the material may be somewhat dated and the jokes real groaners, this two-hour farce kept the audience in stitches and praise was heaped on the show as people left the theater, so it’s obviously a humor that people still enjoy.

Heading the nuns is the marvelous Lucinda Hitchcock Cone, an STC favorite. Her Sister Mary Regina is strongly in command, except for that little episode at the end of Act 1 which gives the perpetual understudy, Sister Robert Ann (Gina Coyle), her moment in the spotlight as she reminisces about what it was for her “Growing up Catholic.” It is a beautiful and poignant song about changes in the Catholic Church, which Coyle delivers beautifully.

Miranda D. Lawson is the Sister Mary Hubert, Mistress of Novices, the second-in-command who, in previous productions of this show that I have seen, has delusions of grandeur and desperately wants to be No. 1, though in this production the two women seem to have a good relationship. Hubert’s “Holier than Thou” is the show-stopper of the evening.

Kiki Burns and Bella Coppola are double-cast as Sister Mary Leo, the novice. Burns played the role on opening night. She is very sweet and wants to be the first ballerina nun. I’m not sure what the Little Sisters of Hoboken are doing with a Daughter of Charity cornette, but Mary Leo dons the headpiece and dances for all the world like The Flying Nun.

Rounding out the gang of five is Sister Amnesia (Amanda Goldrick), who can’t remember who she is but who ultimately comes up with the solution for the burial of the blue nuns just in the nick of time.

Some of the material is mildly offensive (I didn’t like the song about the leper colony) but there is no denying that the audience loved it.

Stop Kiss

Acme Theatre Company has never shied away from controversial material, and with its production of “Stop Kiss” by Diana Son, directed by Betsy Raymond, the company has done it again.

Raymond explains that the play is a 360-degree love story, “one that plops us down in the middle of the action and invites us to explore in all directions. This play jumps backward and forward in time within a period of months, pivoting around a kiss and an assault, both of which challenge Callie and Sara’s lives.”
We watch the relationship between Callie (Danielle Schlenker) and Sara (Eden Tomich) develop from acquaintance to friendship to something deeper. It is a story told with sensitivity and one that anyone who has ever fallen in love can identify with.

Schlenker and Tomich give polished, adult performances through which we understand their growing affection for one another and feel heartbreak at the gay bashing that changes the lives of both forever.
Callie is a traffic reporter for a New York TV news station. She rides around in a helicopter and confesses that she isn’t really a journalist. She lives in a spacious, if perpetually messy, apartment.

One of her good friends is George (William Forkin), a former boyfriend to whom she often turns for a meal, a date, words of comfort or for casual, friendly sex.

Into her life steps Sara, whose cat Callie has agreed to board. Sara is an elementary school teacher from St. Louis who is new to the city and eager to be shown around. She left her family and former boyfriend back in Missouri to take a job in the Bronx. She is focused and loves a challenge. She is Callie’s exact opposite.
The women quickly become friends, a friendship that gradually morphs into a different kind of attraction. Schlenker and Tomich handle the relationship adroitly as we watch the approach/avoidance as both are feeling attracted, but both afraid to voice (or act upon) their feelings. The sexual tension comes in the form of gestures started, but not completed, meaningful looks, statements started, but not finished.

The deepening rapport between these women is touchingly restrained. Their faces during a sleepover date when Sara asks Callie to share the couch bed with her in hopes of luring the cat out of hiding convey their feelings clearly.

Callie finally decides to confess her feelings while the women are walking alone in a park at 4 a.m. and gives Sara a kiss. Rather than being a “happily ever after” kiss, as it would have been in normal romance, the kiss turns into a nightmare for the women, and displays the ugliness of violence as well as the tenderness and joy of a first kiss.

This play was written in 1998, and while it has a fresh feeling that is sadly relevant to today, there are things that make it feel dated. As Callie is giving her statement to the police detective (Andres de Loera-Brust), the detective is looking for the salacious, and seems to be blaming the women for provoking the attack. I would hope that this insensitivity would not be the case in a city like New York today.

DeLoera-Brust gives a good performance as someone who is trying to be sympathetic while at the same time barely hiding his own prejudices about the situation.

(There is also a scene where Sara is taking vinyl records from a bag and discussing them, which is not relevant to the plot, but which is somewhat jarring in this digital music era.)

We watch Calllie’s feelings for Sara deepen during the latter’s hospitalization, when she comes to accept and admit publicly her feelings for Sara.

Forkin, as Callie’s casual boyfriend, and Ricky Houck, as Sara’s ex-boyfriend, give restrained performances as the confused men who are trying to wrap their heads around the relationship between their former girlfriends. (Forkin has some wonderful lines, i.e., when he hears that Sara won her two-year teaching job in the Bronx by placing first in a contest in St. Louis, he asks, “What did the loser get in this contest?”)

Also in the cast, giving fine performances, are Tina Simson as Mrs. Winsley, witness to the attack, and Eliza Buchanan as the sensitive nurse who cares for Sara. She is the only person who really understands the feelings between the women and gives Callie the opportunity to be more open about her emotions.

Before seeing this play, I wondered about its relevance to such a progressive community as Davis and whether it was as important to be performed here as, perhaps somewhere in the Midwest. However, during the question-and-answer session following the show (there is one after each performance), I realized that maybe we aren’t quite as enlightened a community as I thought we were.

While no one was judgmental of the two female characters, some of the questions seemed to rise out of an unawareness of the level of hatred against the gay community, and perhaps this play is one way of raising the awareness to different levels.

Congratulations to all involved in the presentation of this important work.

Anything Goes

 

A patron stopped me on my way out of the Jean Henderson Performing Arts Center at the conclusion of Davis Musical Theatre Company’s new production of “Anything Goes.”

“If you weren’t having fun during this one,” she said, “you should check your pulse because you might be dead.”

I agreed. This sparkling, toe-tapping, high-kicking, silly musical by Cole Porter (with book by P.G. Wodehouse and Guy Bolton), directed by John Haine and choreographed by Kaylin Scott, is a delight from start to finish.

And guess what? DMTC has an orchestra! They’ve been telling us for years that they did, but now they have put the musicians front and center at the top of the simple, but attractive ship deck designed by Steve Isaacson. Hearing them with no stage floor to muffle their sound was wonderful, and we found out what a really good band they are.

It’s a dream cast. Everyone is first-rate, even 15-year-old Anthony Swaminathan, a member of DMTC’s Young Performers’ Theater, who is one of the ship guests, but also comports himself well in the role of a reporter at the start of the show.

Adam Sartain is the blow-hard Wall Street banker Elisha Whitney, with an eye for the ladies and a taste for good spirits.

Billy Crocker (Andy Hyun) is Whitney’s best boy, who sneaks aboard the ship to woo his girl Hope (Katherine Tracy) away from her stuffy fiancé Evelyn Oakleigh (Joel Porter). It’s nice seeing the talented Hyun in such a big part and he sings, acts and dances up a storm. He handles the rather difficult and odd song “All Through the Night” like a pro.

Tracy plays the dutiful debutante well, allowing her true feelings for Billy to slowly rise to the surface.
Her mother, the stuffy socialite Mrs. Evangeline Harcourt, is played by Cyndi Wall, who has the best disdainful glance ever.

As for Joel Porter, he’s just a delight as the pompous Brit, marrying American aristocracy, but gradually finding his taste turning to the dynamic Reno Sweeney (Chris Cay Stewart), who is more his age and who brings new life into his predictable routine. Their duet, “Let’s Misbehave,” is a highlight.

Stewart is a dynamite Sweeney, an evangelist-turned-nightclub singer. The role was originally written for Ethel Merman and, even if you didn’t know that, you would guess from just listening to the songs. Stewart makes the role her own and shines throughout, particularly when her religious roots come out for “Blow, Gabriel Blow.”

Mike Mechanick is con man Moonface Martin, Public Enemy #13, disguised as a minister, who has some of the best lines in the show and delivers them perfectly, to the delight of the audience. His “Be Like the Blue Bird” is not to be believed.

His girlfriend Bonnie is given a wonderful performance by Jessica Arena, who lit up the stage at every entrance. The character of Bonnie was a minor one in the original 1934 production but expanded for the 1962 revival and how lucky we are that Arena was given the expanded version to play. She is a real firecracker who is such fun to watch explode.

Costumer Jean Henderson has outdone herself for this production. From the various skimpy costumes for Sweeney’s “Angels” to Reno’s dazzling Act 2 gowns, everything was perfect, even the ingenious disguises for Billy, as he tries to keep from being picked up as a stowaway.

And for DMTC regular audience members, have a good time playing the DMTC version of “Where’s Waldo,” spotting favorite Mary Young among the passengers.

This is a wonderful way to start the 2015 theater year.

The Fantasticks

A small number of lucky people had the good fortune to attend the opening of “The Fantasticks” at Wyatt Pavilion on Friday night. 

This engaging production, with book and lyrics by Tom Jones and music by Harvey Schmidt is directed by Kathryn Morison and features Elio Gutierrez as El Gallo, Giana Gambardella as Luisa, Matt Skinner as Matt, Roberto Aguilar as Luisa’s father Bellomy, and Jason Moscato as Matt’s father Hucklebee.  The traveling players are Matthew Benitez as Mortimer and David D’Olimpia as Henry. Edward Sukla is the Mute.

Music is listed as being provided by keyboardist Vuthithor “in” Chinthammit, who, not surprisingly, has no bio in the program.

“The Fantastics” is the world’s longest-running musical, having run an amazing 42 years, from 1960 to 2002 or 17,162 performances.  It re-opened off Broadway in 2006 and continues to run today.  It was awarded the Tony Honors for Excellence in Theater in 1991.   

This is a popular show for high schools, and community theater since the set is minimal and the cast is small, but that should in no way minimize the impact of the simple story of a boy and a girl being tricked into falling love by their fathers, falling out of love, going out into the world and returning home again after negative experiences.  They learn that if they want to find their hearts’ desire, they should look no further than their own back yard.

The small, intimate setting of the Wyatt Pavilion is perfect for this intimate show.

From the moment Elio Gutierrez makes his entrance as the narrator El Gallo (a role made famous by Jerry Orbach), singing the iconic “Try to Remember” and inviting the audience to use their imagination and follow him into a world of moonlight and magic. you know that you are in for something special. The charismatic Gutierrez is smooth and confident, with a sly hint of larceny about him from time to time. He dominates whenever he is on stage.

Gambardella is the innocent 16 year old Luisa, in her full-petticoated virginal dress designed by award winning Costume Designer Roxanne Femling.  Gambardella’s voice is beautiful as she sings about her dreams (dance till 2 o’clock, wear her hair unfastened, and to be the kind of girl who is kissed on the eyes).  She wants “Much More” out of life

Skinner’s Matt is a young man head over heels in love with the girl next door, whom he can only see over the unseen wall (mimed by Suela) the fathers built in a faux feud designed to make their children fall in love with each other, because the way to make children do what you want them to do is to tell them “no.”

Moscato and Aguilar give engaging performances as the two scheming fathers, eager for their children to be married to each other.

When the fathers decide it’s time for the young people to fall in love, Hucklebee tells Bellomy of his plan to end the feud by having Luisa "kidnapped" by a professional so that Matt can "rescue" her and appear heroic.

Things don’t quite go as planned, however. They meet with El Gallo, who is to arrange for an abduction.  Discussion is made about what kind of abduction the fathers want. The fathers decide not to stint themselves, but do it well and settle on a “first class rape.” 

D’Olimpia and Benitez  as, respectively, ancient ham actor Henry and hangdog death-scene specialist Mortimer, hired as the would-be abductors, capture the audience with their antics.

Matt foils the abduction attempts, but exposure of the plot changes the relationship between Luisa and Matt and each decides to leave home and go out into the world, separately, to seek their heart’s desire.  Returning later, dejected and emotionally injured, the children realize that everything they wanted was each other, only now they understand it more deeply.

This is a delightful production that deserves a wider audience than it got on opening night.

Kate: The Unexamined Life of Katharine Hepburn

There is a moment in theater that I just love. It doesn’t happen very often, but when it does, it’s magical. It’s that moment when the actor on stage has so engaged the audience and they are giving him or her such rapt attention that you can almost feel the silence.

Most of the time you hear people moving in their seats or other soft, unobtrusive noise. But in the magical moment, you can literally hear a pin drop.

I heard that moment several times at the opening-night performance of the world premiere of “Kate: The Unexamined Life of Katharine Hepburn” by Rick Foster, now at the Sacramento Theatre Company, under the direction of Peter Sander.

Janis Stevens so embodies the character of Katharine, and gets more and more inside her as the play progresses, that by the last quarter, there is no longer any doubt about who is sitting on that stage talking to you.

It’s all Mitch Agruss’ fault.

The Grand Old Man of Sacramento Theater (whom some may remember from his television days as “Captain Mitch”) was watching a Katharine Hepburn interview a while back, when it hit him that Hepburn would make a great character for his friend Janis Stevens, who already had won critical acclaim for her one-woman shows such as “Vivien” (about Vivien Leigh) and “Master Class” (about Maria Callas).

So he contacted their friend, playwright Rick Foster (who had written “Vivien”), with his idea. Stevens was intrigued, Foster did some research on Hepburn, and now it has come to life on STC’s Pollock Stage.

The time is New Year’s Eve, 1999, and the setting is a bleak attic, where Katharine, age 92, sits in a wheelchair and begins speaking with the audience. She explains that she entered the “undiscovered country” of old age at age 90 and now, at 92, she’s trying to create a map for how the rest of her life should go.

Joining Stevens is Marty Parker in the small role of the long-suffering Mr. Rotterdam, a non-speaking role, but he is there to help Miss Hepburn and to be bossed around by her. Playwright Foster says we don’t know if he is a stage hand or a personal assistant or something else, but it is up to the audience to decide for themselves who he is.

As she begins her soliloquy, Katharine reflects on her family, who she assures us were perfect (though she also remarks sadly, several times, that she never made her mother proud and that her mother never saw any of her movies).

The Hepburns were the stiff-upper-lip New Englanders who were so detached from their feelings that after their oldest son Tom took his life when Katharine was 13 (she found the body), his name was never spoken in the family again, after his funeral. In fact, Katharine took Tom’s birthdate, Nov. 8 (coincidentally the date this play premiered, and the birthdate of Janis Stevens!) as her own for many years as a tribute to her brother, who still haunts her 92-year-old self.

She shares with the audiences her various romances with Howard Hughes (“yes, that one,” she says, coyly) and others, but saves her heartfelt feelings for Spencer Tracy, with whom she spent 27 years (and then would not attend his funeral out of respect for his wife). The ache of his loss is still visible on her face when she discusses him.

We get a picture of a surprisingly insecure Katharine, who pushed herself to step outside the box. She was the first artist to buy a property (“The Philadelphia Story”) for herself and go head-to-head with the studio bosses and not only win their battles, but an Oscar to boot.

The performance of Janis Stevens in this role is one you will long remember. She exudes Hepburn’s indomitable spirit without trying to become a caricature. She doesn’t just play Hepburn, she is Hepburn.

Treat yourself to this once-in-a-lifetime performance. You won’t be sorry.

My Fair Lady

 

They could have danced all night. 

Under the capable hands of choreographer Ron Cisneros, the cast of Davis Musical Theater Company’s production of “My Fair Lady” danced around Covent Garden, the Ascot Races, and an Embassy ball, and they got Alfred P. Doolittle to the church on time.

Directed by Steve Isaacson, this production brought the DMTC faithful to their feet with a standing ovation at the end of the show.

This is a show that has a special place in Isaacson’s heart because it was his first memory of music.  He remembers the iconic album cover of Al Herschfeld’s drawing of George Bernard Shaw as God manipulating the puppet strings of Rex Harrison, manipulating the puppet strings of Julie Andrews.  “For years I thought God looked like George Bernard Shaw,” he says.

Isaacson’s love of this Lerner and Lowe musical is apparent in every scene.

It had been Jori Gonzales’ dream to play Eliza and her dream comes to life as she dons the rags of the flower girl Eliza, later struggling to learn her vowels, and finally making a triumphant appearance at an Embassy ball, ultimately finding her voice and pride in herself as a woman. Gonzales has a beautiful voice and one loves to float along on her high notes.

John Haine takes a little adjusting to as Henry Higgins, but once one realize he is only going to use a barely perceptible British accent and can concentrate just on his performance, he does a beautiful job. Better no accent than a bad accent.  This Higgins has little concern for the rules of social conduct, cares little for his appearance (rumpled, ill-fitting trousers), and treats everyone badly, but his fun side comes out in the classic “I could have danced all night” and his petulant confrontations with his mother (the always delightful Dannette Vassar).

Richard Kleeberg is Higgins’ sidekick, Col Hugh Pickering, without whom Eliza might never have consented to subject herself to Higgins’ relentless elocution lessons.  Kleeberg is a blustery Pickering, with Arthur Sullivan-like mutton chops.  But he is the eternal gentleman, who (almost) always treats Eliza with dignity and respect.

Eliza’s father, Alfred P. Doolittle, the dustman who is not above selling his daughter to Higgins–but not for too much money, because too much would change his life, is given a royal treatment by the marvelous Brian McCann. McCann is always a delight to watch on stage and he does not disappoint in this production.

Scott Scholes is the lovesick Freddy Eynsford-Hill, so enamored of Eliza that he prefers to spend all of his time “on the street where she lives.” Scholes brings a clueless innocence to the role and a tenor voice that is outstanding.

Higgins’ housekeeper, Mrs. Pearce is given a fine performance by Catrina Ellis.  Mrs. Pearce is critical of much of what Higgins does, but she is a loyal employee and follows his directions to the letter.

“My Fair Lady” must be a costumer’s dream (and nightmare!), with all those elegant gowns for the ball, fun costumes for the dustmen of Covent Garden and the spectacular black and white costumes for the Ascot races.  Jean Henderson does a wonderful job with this show and Ascot, in particular, is memorable.  Eliza’s white gown and red coat for the Embassy ball are dazzling.

Isaacson also designed the sets, which are utilitarian, though not outstanding.  Higgins’ study, with its elevated “library” is quite nice and the steps entering the ball look steep enough that one is glad there is a bannister for the women in high heels to hold onto!

“My Fair Lady” is a classic piece of American musical theater and DMTC has served it up in good shape for the Davis audiences.  

The Miracle Worker

I will admit to having some concerns when I learned that Emily Jo Seminoff was going to be playing Helen Keller in the Woodland Opera House production of William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker.”  I have watched Ms. Seminoff move from talented child actor into adult roles and I wondered if she could pull off the role of the young Keller child.

I need not have worried.  This talented young lady made the role her own and her age and height were irrelevant  She was Helen Keller.

Every bit her equal in the role of Annie Sullivan, the young woman hired to teach Helen, was Patricia Glass, whom Opera House faithful may remember as Miss Tweed in the recent “Something’s Afoot.” Glass’s Annie is full of spunk and fire and, despite her inexperience, is willing to fight for her pupil. She is passionate about giving Helen every chance to fulfill her potential, despite her handicaps.

(I once had a friend who was blind and deaf and who insisted she was not “disabled,” but merely “handicapped, like in golf.”)

The intense battle scenes between Helen and Annie, as the latter attempts to teach her pupil manners and to try to get her to understand the concept of “words” were wonderful and must have left both actresses exhausted.

A scene in the Keller dining room in particular, which ends act 1, owes much of its effectiveness to set designer John Bowles, who has created such a solid set that bodies falling against walls or doors or knocking over tables and chairs works so well that nobody so much as shakes and the furniture withstands the abuse it takes.

The whole set by Bowles is a marvel, on that small opera house stage, since it is designed on several levels, including an upstairs bedroom, and a downstairs area later used as a detached cottage where Annie and Helen spend 2 weeks alone together.  While things are cramped, they still all work wonderfully.

The supporting cast all handle themselves well.  Richard Lui as Captain Keller, who loves his daughter, but, along with the rest of the family, makes too many allowances for her bad behavior, which undermines Annie’s work with the child. He is frustrated that Annie doesn’t have her under control in a matter of an hour or two on her first day.

Sara Wieringa gives a lovely performance as Helen’s mother Kate, whose love for her daughter is palpable, even as she fears some guilt over Helen’s condition.  She vacillates between wanting to support Annie, but hating to see Helen suffer under Annie’s stern hand.

Anthony Raddigan makes a striking, sardonic James, the only person  in the family who sees that Annie’s approach to the girl is vital to her progress.

In smaller roles are Emily Delk as Aunt Ev, Melissa Dahlberg as the maid, Viney, and Belle, a specially trained and certified Assistance Dog from Canine Companions for Independence , who plays Helen’s dog Lacey, and handles herself very professionally on stage.

The audience is taken on such a roller coaster of emotions in this production, directed by Dean Shellenberger, that when Helen finally “gets” the notion that things have words and words have meaning, there was a lot of sniffling and wiping of eyes in the audience.

Annie Sullivan went on to live with Helen Keller until her (Annie’s) death in 1936.  Helen’s list of accomplishments as an author, lecturer (she eventually learned how to speak), and political activist is impressive.  She was one of the founders of the ACLU, campaigned for women’s suffrage, labor rights, and birth control. She died in 1968 and was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1971.

One wonders what might have happened to that blind, deaf, out of control little girl if there had not been an Annie Sullivan in her life.

Grapes of Wrath

John Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” is celebrating its 75th anniversary. The Sacramento Theatre Company, the oldest professional theater company in Sacramento, has chosen the Steinbeck classic to open its 70th season, a season dedicated to “Legends, Epics and Icons.”

STC gives us a powerful production, with all of the emotion of the original book, thanks to a talented cast and the original period-style music of Sam Misner and Megan Pearl Smith of Davis, who also appear as several characters throughout the show.

The adaptation of Steinbeck’s story is by Frank Galati; it won a Tony Award for best play of 1990.

“The Grapes of Wrath” is an epic tale of one family’s enduring spirit in the face of incredible hardship. Set during the Great Depression, the play follows the Joads, a family of tenant farmers who are driven from their Oklahoma home to California due to drought, economic hardship and agricultural changes incited by the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Was there ever a more perfect time for the revival of this story? The climatic change was the yearly dust storms that rolled across The Plains, killing off crops and making the soil uncultivatable; the migrant workers of the 1930s were “Okies,”coming from Oklahoma to California on the promise of farming work, as welcome then as are today’s Mexican migrant workers; and haven’t there always been heartless bankers ready to foreclose on a family’s mortgage in order to line their own pockets?

Kirk Blackinton is Tom Joad (the Henry Fonda role in the 1940 movie), recently released from prison after killing a man in self-defense, and returning home to find that his family homestead is abandoned. With the house slated for demolition by the mortgage holder, the family has packed up and decided to move to California, where they have hopes of jobs and better living conditions.

As the play progresses, Tom, a good man, who at first just wanted to reunite with his family and resume his life, becomes more and more filled with rage as he and his family are beaten down by a system that seems to target the poor for extra punishment. There are messages here for the revolutions we see around the world today.

En route home, Tom meets Jim Casy (Kurt Johnson), a preacher who has lost his faith and now is a wanderer, getting help where he can. Casy becomes the moral voice of the piece, Johnson giving a flawless and riveting performance.

Heading up the Joad family are Matt K. Miller as Pa Joad and Laura Kaya as Ma Joad. Miller’s character is stoic and subdued while Kaya’s character is the heart of the piece, fighting for her children and hanging on to the belief that if they just work hard enough, things will be better.

Granma Joad is played by Vada Russell as a crusty old woman, devoted to her ailing husband (Phillip Ryder). Ryder later appears as the mayor of Hooverville.

Alissa Doyle is “Rose of Sharon,” the newly married, newly pregnant young daughter, who endures more tragedy than most people many years older, with the desertion of her husband and the death of her baby. In the end it is she who brings a semblance of hope to everyone. It is a delicate and lovely performance.

Misner and Smith each take several roles, including adding music to the piece. Misner is particularly moving as the “Man going back,” giving up on the promises of a better life in California.

Smith gives a marvelous performance as a 1930s version of a born-again Christian. She also appears as other anonymous members of various groups that the Joads meet along their journey.

The young Joad children are from the STC Young People’s Company, each role double-cast. Opening-night performances were by Owen Larson (alternating with Elliott Thomas West) as Winfield Joad and AJ Welker (alternating with Haley Finerman) as Ruthie Joad.

Likewise, Arcadia German alternates with Sydney Christoffersen in three other roles.

We really want things to improve for the Joad family, for something promised to actually come to pass, but it never does. However, the important thing is the family love and loyalty that binds them and their indomitable pride and dignity, which appear unsquashable.

Hello, Dolly

Well, hello, Dolly.  It’s so nice to have you back in town!

Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi (Lisa Quoresimo), the lady who “arranges things” (like furniture and daffodils...and lives) has marched onto the stage of the Woodland Opera House and taken possession.

This production of the Jerry Herman/Michael Stewart musical based on the book by Thornton Wilder was directed by Cheryl Watson, with choreography by Staci Arriaga. Quoresimo gives Dolly energy and heart as she sets her cap for the curmudgeonly “half-millionaire” Horace Vandergelder (Steve Mackay) and in the process manages to pair up a few other couples as well.

Dolly is coming back to life after a period of widowhood and is searching for a “sign” from her previous husband Ephram that it’s OK to marry again.

Mackay is a low key misogynist who appears to want a replacement for his deceased wife only as someone who can clean the house. (“It takes a woman all powdered and pink / To joyously clean out the drain in the sink”)

At the same time he is determined to prevent his niece Ermengarde (Devon Hayakawa) from marrying the love of her life, Ambrose Kemper (Cameron Turner) because he feels the young artist will not be able to provide a steady living and that Ermengarde is too immature to be married.

Hayakawa’s character has very little to actually speak, but she whines beautifully.  I have been impressed with Hayakawa whenever I’ve seen her on stage and she does not disappoint in this role which is perfect for her.

Vandergelder owns a hay and feed store and his two employees are chief clerk Cornelius Hackl (Eddie Voyce) and Barnaby Tucker (J. Hunter LaMar). Both are excellent, especially Voyce, who commands the stage whenever he is on it. 

The two men, who have never left Yonkers, decide to blow up some tomato cans in the basement of Vandergelder’s store to make it uninhabitable for a day, and go off on an adventure in New York, while their boss is marching in the Fourteenth Street Association Parade.  The thirty-three year old Cornelius vows not to come home again until he’s kissed a girl.

“The girl” turns out to be Miss Irene Molloy (Dani Barnett) who runs a millenary shop with her clerk, Minnie Fay (Emily O’Flaherty).  The women, convinced Cornelius and Barnaby are eccentric millionaires, spend the day with them. O’Flaherty, a 9th grader at Emerson Junior High, nicely balances a giggily young girl with a more mature woman in her performance.  I would not have guessed that she was so young.

Mollie Smith is perfectly cast as Ernestina Money, the girl in the bizarre outfit, hired by Dolly to annoy Vandergelder and set him up for her own eventual conquest.

Most of Act 2 takes place at the Harmonia Gardens restaurant, “the fanciest place in New York.”  The choreography for the waiters has always been one of the most memorable parts of “Hello Dolly” and this production is no exception. Head waiter Rudolph (Spencer Alexander) prepares his service crew for Dolly Levi's return: their usual lightning service, he tells them, must be "twice as lightning". The waiters in this production are up to the challenge and the “Waiters’ Gallop” is something to behold.

Dolly makes her entrance to the title song resplendent in a gorgeous sequined red gown.  Kudos to costume designer Denise Miles.

The orchestra does well, under the capable hand of James Glica-Hernandez, and congratulations to the program people for getting (almost) all of their names in the program.  (Sorry, strings!)

By now, “Hello, Dolly” is a beloved old war horse that is a sure fire audience pleaser, and the Woodland Opera House gives her all the respect that she deserves.

Shrek

 The Davis Musical Theater Company has opened a lively, splashy, thoroughly enjoyable production of “Shrek, The Musical,” directed by Steve Isaacson and with choreography by Ron Cisneros. This is a show that is sure to be a hit with audiences of all ages. In fact, the full house on opening night was a nice mixture of children, parents and older adults, all laughing and applauding enthusiastically.

Based on William Steig’s book “Shrek!” and the DreamWorks animated film, this is the story of everybody’s favorite ogre, with the message that everyone is worthy of true love. It is filled with familiar nursery-rhyme characters, double entendres, great costumes, fun dance numbers, and more belch and fart jokes than I’ve ever seen in one show before.

This is not an instant stage classic that we will be seeing again for decades, nor does it have memorable music (except for the closing number, Neil Diamond’s “I’m a Believer”). But for what it is, it delivers.

Essential to the success of any production of “Shrek” is an actor who can convincingly become the title character. DMTC is blessed with the talented Kevin Caravalho, who is so convincing you’re surprised to discover there is a real man under all that padding and green make up. I would be hard-pressed to think of any actor who could do better with this role. This production is worth seeing if only for Caravalho’s performance.

Fortunately, Caravalho is backed up by a host of equally talented performers. There is hardly a weak link in the massive cast. Shrek’s sidekick is Donkey, played for all the broad comedy the role requires by David Ewey, despite some costume problems opening night (it’s hard to hold your ears on straight when you have hooves, not hands, to work with!) Despite the costume malfunction, Ewey was consistently funny, worming his way into curmudgeonly Shrek’s heart, whether the ogre thinks he wants a friend or not.

Travis Nagler is the diminutive Lord Farquaad, scheming to make Princess Fiona his bride so he can become king and steal her kingdom. The actor does well playing the role on his knees, with fake legs dangling in front of him. He is even able to dance.

Jessica McKillican plays an enthusiastic Fiona, thrilled to be released from the prison where she has spent her entire childhood, confused about who Shrek really is, but eager to meet her intended husband to be … and also hoping to keep her own secret hidden. No shrinking violet, this heroine is equal to Shrek in every way.
Lizzie Carey and Mia Piazza play Fiona at young and teen ages and the transition from one age to the next is done flawlessly.

Jonathan Kalinen is very funny as Pinocchio and his growing nose was hilarious. My only problem with him is that his high pitched voice sometimes made it difficult to understand him.

This is also a three-generation production, with Mary Young playing several roles, including Mama Shrek, who sends her young son off to live on his own. Daughter Wendy Carey Young is Gingy, the Gingerbread man, and Lizzie Carey is Wendy’s daughter and Mary’s granddaughter

There are some outstanding dance numbers in this production, particularly by the Duloc Dancers in incredible costumes rented from the Theatre Companyof Upland. 

Fiona also does a wonderful dance number with the Pied Piper, played by Tomas Eredia, and his rats.

The marvelous dragon (her name is Donisha, Director Isaacson tells me), was designed and built by River City Theatre Company and lent to DMTC by Granite Bay High School. She swoops and flies and turns in circles on stage and is amazingly believable.

This is another winner from DMTC and should be popular with everyone. Kids in particular will love the bright costumes and the chance to see a “real” dragon. By the end of the show, everyone will want to give the lovable ogre a big hug.

Tribes

What does it mean to “hear”?

Can you hear if you are deaf, by understanding the world around you through lip-reading or sign language? Can you be deaf to those loudly speaking around you, though your hearing is just fine? Can you hear with your eyes, reading what others are signing?

These are some of the questions explored by playwright Nina Raine in her powerful play, “Tribes,” now at Capital Stage in Sacramento, under the direction of Jonathan Williams.

It is the story of a dysfunctional Jewish British family, headed by parents Christopher (Lol Levy), a retired academic, and Beth (Jamie Jones), a wannabe writer. Their grown children are , Daniel (Benjamin T. Ismail), who is writing a thesis arguing that language doesn’t determine meaning; Ruth (Elizabeth Holzman), an aspiring opera singer; and Billy (Stephen Drabicki), just home from university.

Sylvia (Brittni Barger) is the woman who enters their lives and turns long-held perceptions on their head.

As the play begins, the family is seated at the table, engaged in an argument. There are actually several arguments going on, each seemingly nastier than the next.r whines continually that he can’t find any good nuts in the nut dish, while Daniel is upset because Ruth is dating a man nearly her father’s age. Daniel is also upset that all of his grown children are still living at home with their parents and repeatedly asks when they are going to move out.

Daniel whines continually that he can’t find any good nuts in the nut dish, while Christopher is upset because Ruth is dating a man nearly her father’s age. Christopher is also upset that all of his grown children are still living at home with their parents and repeatedly asks when they are going to move out.

The F-word is sprinkled liberally throughout the play.

Through all the cacophony of the arguments, Billy sits calmly, reading, his back to the audience. Through dialog of the others, we learn that Billy is deaf, but he is proficient at lip-reading. In fact, we learn later, he knows nothing of sign language, because his parents didn’t want to raise him to be handicapped.

This becomes a major theme of the play when Sylvia, who is losing her hearing, enters the picture and attempts to teach him how to sign. Billy begins to realize that life can be lonely and frustrating when he has to rely on lip-reading, but that his social life opens up significantly when he becomes part of the signing community.

The actor playing Billy is crucial to the emotional arc of this play and Drabicki, who played the role in the Canadian premiere of the play, is perfect. A hearing-impaired actor himself, and member of the New York Deaf Theater and the Association of Musicians with Hearing Loss, he embraces the conflicting emotions of a deaf man living in a hearing world and the complicated relationships within his own family.

I found that I wondered how difficult it must be to learn to speak with a British accent when one is hearing-impaired.

Barger, as Sylvia, beautifully conveys the strain she is under, as the child of deaf parents who is now, in her adulthood, losing her own hearing. She becomes the translator for both the hearing and deaf members of the family.

As Billy moves deeper and deeper into the signing world, this production adopts a beautiful artistic quality, as the words that are projected on the wall to translate for non-signers in the audience have an almost choreographed quality to them.

Other members of the cast are equally strong, with Ismael’s Daniel outstanding as he fights the voices in his own head and displays his own mental problems, though his love for his brother is painfully apparent.

One scene particularly displays the worlds in which each brother is living, when Christopher turns on the radio to help drown out the voices in his head and Billy begs him to turn it off because it causes buzzing in his ear through his hearing aids.

Director Williams has molded a complex family whose emotions, whether they are loving or angry, are over the top and which shows each member in his or her own little tribe, keeping the others out.

By the end of the play, we might all be questioning how we relate to others, and whether we are really communicating as clearly as we think we are.

The Ladies Foursome

Everyone has secrets. That seems to be the takeaway message from the very funny Norm Foster play “The Ladies Foursome,” now making its American premiere at the B Street Theatre, under the direction of David Pierini.

Foster is Canada’s most-produced playwright, with B Street staging several of his plays for American audiences. He has had more than 40 plays produced on professional stages and has been compared to American playwright Neil Simon. He is a master of writing everyday dialog and finding the meat of very simple situations, like friends meeting for a round of golf.

The current production is not a female version of Foster’s “The Foursome” — which also premiered at B Street — but it did inspire the current comedy, following four women as they navigate the ups and downs of life on the links.

Three friends meet for a memorial 18-hole round of golf in honor of their friend, from whose funeral they have just come. Catherine died suddenly of a freak accident. The four women have played golf together every week for the past 14 years and believe this is the perfect way to honor her memory.

Margot (Amy Kelly) is a successful businesswoman, a workaholic whose dedication to her business has lost her both her husband and her daughter. She’s the down-to-earth, practical one who tells it like it is. She really hates golf, “but where else can you drink this early in the morning and people think it’s normal?”

Tate (Tara Sissom) is a stay-at-home mom of three, locked in an unhappy marriage to a physician. Her hormones are raging, but her sex life leaves a lot to be desired. Tate has unfulfilled dreams and fears she may have “frittered away her life.” She is the most empathetic of the group. It is she who thinks that “something” should be said before they tee off, and then wonders if it’s going to be religious and if that means she should remove her visor.

Connie (Melinda Parrett) is a popular local news anchorwoman who has no lack of sex in her life. She’s tall and beautiful and knows it. She’ll flirt with anyone, anywhere, and throughout the game we learn a lot about her sexploits, yet she never discusses her big secret.

For this memorial round they are joined by Dory (Shannon Mahoney), another of Catherine’s friends, a stranger to the other three, but someone who apparently has known the deceased quite well, as Catherine spent two weeks each year in the wilderness at the Lake Arrowhead Inn run by Dory and her husband.

As they play through each hole (great kudos to the sound effects person!) they discuss life, love, men, sex and careers. They even discuss religion “God’s a man. The Bible says He rested on the seventh day. A woman wouldn’t rest on the seventh day. She’d say ‘I need to reorganize that closet.’ ”

Dory’s relationship with Catherine (whom she calls Cathy, though the other women thought their friend hated to be called Cathy) was quite different from the other three and she seems to know a lot about her that the others never realized.

There are a lot of laughs in this tightly written, fast-paced comedy, and tucked among the laughs are secrets that will be revealed before the end of the play. There is a dark side to the comedy, which gives the play its depth.

The strongest character in the play is Catherine herself, the relationship each of the women had with her, and the effect she had on their lives.

This is a delightful play that will have audiences laughing heartily and perhaps fighting back a tear or two as well.

DMTC at 30

Things are busy at the Jean Henderson Performing Arts Center as the Davis Musical Theater company prepares for its 30th Anniversary Gala, to be held on Saturday, August 23 at 6:30 p.m.

“Last night we had a Young Performer’s Theater committee meeting in the women’s dressing room, the cast of “Shrek” was rehearsing the big tap number on stage, and in the lobby, singers were rehearsing for the Gala,” laughed Jan Isaacson, who added that set building and painting for the upcoming production of “Shrek” were also taking place on the dock in the afternoon.

The gala anniversary evening, at only $15 per ticket, will include hors d’oeuvres and a light dinner catered by Symposium Restaurant, followed by an evening of musical theater songs and highlights from dozens of productions that have been offered by DMTC over the years.

“I found people who performed from the beginning of the company,” says Jan, “so it will start off with ‘Oklahoma’ in 1987. Joe Anthony is coming back to perform ‘Oh what a Beautiful Morning.’ I picked selected songs from different decades. Mary Young is going to do ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’ from ‘Gypsy.’ Jay Joseph lives in Las Vegas and he’s coming back to sing ‘Buddy’s Blues’ from ‘Follies.’ The pièce de resistance of the evening is going to be Ben Bruening’s half hour movie tracing our history from the very beginning to now.”

Mayor Dan Wolk, a long time supporter of DMTC will present a proclamation congratulating DMTC on its 30th anniversary and thanking the company for its commitment in making performing arts accessible for all in the Davis, California region.

"I am so delighted about presenting this proclamation to Jan and Steve Isaacson and DMTC. As someone who is an alum of DMTC, has been a performer in a number of musicals, and who recognizes the importance and joy of community theater, this celebration has particular meaning to me,” Mayor Wolk said.

Bob Bowen, Promotions Manger for the City of Davis. laughs ''If someone had told me, back in 1984, that DMTC would be around for 30 years, I'd have thought their gaffer's tape was wound too tightly, Having produced my fair share of theater, I know how demanding and stressful it is to raise money and produce theater in Davis. For DMTC to produce a series of adult and children's shows - every year, and for more than a quarter of a century - is a testament to the their passion and energy for theater."

Statistics show that many community theaters which get off the ground and achieve some sort of success generally begin to peter out around 30. The founding members start to get older and can’t do what they did 30 years before, the younger members don’t have the dedication. Ultimately they call it quits, throw a big party to celebrate a long and productive life.

At 30, the Davis Musical Theater is just hitting its stride. Last year their house was amazingly 91% full and they expect to equal or surpass that this year. The company appears to be healthier than ever with exciting plans for the future.

DMTC produces six Main Stage musicals and five Young Performers Theater musicals annually. That’s more than one hundred performances on the DMTC stage each year. What keeps things so vibrant and alive?

“There’s a real sense of family about the group,” says actress Dannette Vasser, who joined in 1997. “There’s not the backstage drama that you sometimes find in other theater groups. It’s a very comfortable place to be. Everybody gets along and a lot of that is due to the atmosphere Jan and Steve foster. They’ve created this to be a family place, where all different members of the community can work together to put on a show.”

“I consider DMTC my musical theater home,” says Mary Young, who has been with the company since she followed choreographer Ron Cisneros to Davis and performed Lady Thiang in the company’s second show, “The King and I.”.

Mary, who lives in Roseville, never thought she would ever drive to Davis to perform but once she started she “just never stopped.” “It has a lot to do with Jan and Steve. They are such good human beings,” she said. “I had a really bad car accident a few years ago and Steve just put me in the next show. Didn’t make me audition. It was my road to recovery. Physical therapy, mental therapy. What better place to go and just play.” Young will be performing "Everything's Coming Up Roses" from "Gypsy" at the anniversary show.

Young’s daughter Wendy was in the fourth grade when her mother joined the company, and she literally grew up with DMTC. “She was one of the children in 'King and I,'” Young said, “and I remember washing black hair dye out of her blond hair.”

Young has had an opportunity to perform with not only her daughter but also her grandchildren on the DMTC stage. In fact, the upcoming “Shrek” will feature 3 generations of Youngs. “I haven’t been able to perform with all three of my grandchildren,” she says, “But it’s on my bucket list.”

She remembers when DMTC moved from the Veterans' Memorial Theater into a small theater they built in the Davis Commerce Park on Second Street, near Sudwerk ... and being escorted out to the Port A Potties during evening rehearsals.

People who started at the Second Street theater were like “the survivors, ” laughed Marguerite Morris, who joined DMTC out of high school in 1985 at age 19 to play Hodel in “Fiddler on the Roof.”

That was the show, Steve remembers, where Pat Piper bought the very first DMTC season ticket (she would later become DMTC’s first lifetime season ticket holder.)

Morrison remembers the difficulties working in that small theater and the company’s eventual move downtown to the Varsity theater.

The landlord of the Second Street facility eventually raised the rent so high that DMTC had to think about finding a new place to perform. Bob Bowen, who met Jan and Steve while all were in the Davis Players, proved a valuable friend.

'When they built their first theater in rented space over on Second Street, I got involved. I also got involved when they approached the city for a loan.

'Since DMTC still owed money on that loan, we negotiated a deal for them to use the newly renovated Varsity Theater, beginning in January 1993, so they would remain viable. I acted as their Varsity landlord until the Davis City Council changed the Varsity back into an art film theater.'

“One of the things that makes me want to do shows there is the people,” said Morris. “ I’ve made excellent long term friendships there. It’s a family.” Morris herself will be singing the Mother Abbess' "Climb Every Mountain" from "The Sound of Music" at the gala performance, one of her favorite roles.

Morris’ daughter Rachel performed in 8 shows, when she was 9-11. “There is always a tight knit group of kids as well as adults. There’s no real age barrier. A lot of the older kids take younger kids under their wing and show them the ropes.”

John Ewing, who joined as an actor in the late 1980 and moved on to become a designer and director and member of the Board of Directors, has a slightly different take on why he has stuck around. “One thing I like about DMTC is they’ve always been really great about being open to anybody, they always had open auditions. I get a real thrill out of taking something from nothing and creating a show for an audience. The great thing about the way DMTC does their shows is that so many ordinary people, not necessarily pursuing theater as a career, have the opportunity to experience it. You can’t get that anywhere else.”

Ewing points out that people come and people go, but he most values the ones who have stuck around, people like Lenore and Gil Sebastian, who were in the very first show Ewing did and are still around.

“I’m excited about Saturday’s Gala, that people who performed years and years ago have been invited back to perform again.”

As the company has grown, the expertise of the Young Performer’s Theater (started as “DMTC’s Children’s Theater” in 1987) both in its performers and its parents has grown and become an essential part of the DMTC family.

Jen Nachmanoff is a mom who came to DMTC because her daughter Sophia wanted to perform.”I’m a ceramic artist and have learned how to paint here at the theater, so I’m now a painter too. I didn’t know how to paint before I came here, but I’ve learned on the job. So I help with the scenic artistry. We find out we can do things we never knew we could do.”

Jen oversees the decorative tiles on the wall (continuing the work begun by Jeni Price). She helps families create tiles and has been overseeing the design and firing. I’ve only been here three years, but it feels like forever. It’s the volunteers who make DMTC.”

Children in the Young Performer’s Theater learn all aspects of theater, not just performing, and kids as young as 10 now run the light board for main stage shows. “They’re focused, they’re mature, they know what they’re doing. The kids who run the light board are phenomenal,” said Steve proudly.

Lighting is a big part of every production, and an aspect which the audience, for the most part, is unaware. Someone told me once that if the audience doesn’t notice the lights, the lighting designer has done her work well.

On October 18, 1985, when DMTC opened its first show at the “Old Theater,” which had no walls, insulation, heating or air, Steve remembers chaos on opening night, when Diane Wershing was running the lights. There had been no time for lighting rehearsal.

“I remember going to the theater for opening night and HOPING that they had hung lights,” Wershing said, “Luckily, it was a show that I knew inside and out, so as long as someone was going to hang the lights and hook up something for me to control them with, I figured I could wing it. I was hoping beyond hope that there was something for me to work with, and lo and behold there was. A little 6-dimmer board that I could hold in my lap in the back row of the audience. I ran the lights from there.”

More recently, in the final performance of “South Pacific,” the 10 year old light board just died. Light board operator Mia Piazza turned on the board and there was no response. They were faced with having to cancel a show that was sold out. But they were able to turn on the house lights and the work lights, and Steve went out to face the audience. “This was going to test how good a salesman I am. I explained that our light board died and someone in the audience cried out ‘the show must go on!’ We did the whole show with just the work lights on and the house lights on. When we finished a scene and we’d cry out ‘scene!” It was like a recital. The audience loved it!”

One thing that separates DMTC from many theater companies is it has been and remains an all-volunteer organization, and everyone works on everything. Actors know when they audition that they will be expected to help build sets or help in some other way.

“Except for the piano player we’re still all volunteer,” said Jan proudly. “We have the best volunteers around. People love it here. They’re here because they want to be here. It’s not a paid job. I always say we must be doing something right.”

They even have a complete all-volunteer orchestra. Nikki Nicola and Pam Thompson both get all the musicians. “We had 26 for ‘Les Miserables,’” Jan pointed out proudly. “We never have to worry about the orchestra. Ever. People ask ‘how do you get your musicians to volunteer.’ I tell them they all get a free cookie and a drink at intermission. The ushers go down, take the orchestra order before the show gets started, at intermission they bring it down there. They love not having to get dressed up.”

Steve adds, “Other music directors ask ‘how do you get them to volunteer?’ I say....uh...ask them?”

Costumer Jean Henderson has been with the company for 17 years and for her recent 70th birthday, a surprise party was held and she was told the theater had been renamed for her. “It came as a complete surprise,” she said. “I was so shocked.”

Henderson loves the DMTC family. “I don’t like to be with just old people. I like the diversity of age, I get to know what’s going on in the world. I’m not the retirement home kind of person.”

One of her new roles, since DMTC got a liquor license, is to handle the bar before the shows and at intermission. “People like being able to take the drinks into the theater. I try to find something that will represent the show.” For “Peter Pan” she found a drink that used Cpt Morgan rum. “We had ‘Barricade lemonade’ with vodka and sparkling water for ‘Les Miserables,’ a Spamarita for ‘Spamalot,’ and a Fa-Gin for ‘Oliver!’.

As the company has aged, the shows have gotten bigger. On April 14, 2012 DMTC’s second performance of “Titanic, the Musical” opened exactly 100 years to the minute of the sinking of the great ship. Ludy’s Main Street BBQ recreated the last 11-course meal served on the great ship, as a fundraiser for over 50 patrons.

Thanks to donations by many patrons, the company was able to buy mirrors for a spectacular production of “A Chorus Line” in April of this year

In June, Steve directed “Les Miserables,” the show he had dreamed of directing since he first saw it in 1988. The production was described by one patron as “the best night I’ve had in this theater.”

Though the Davis Musical Theater Company does not always get the respect or the attention it has earned, the fact is that they have outlasted every single theater company in Davis, that they are the longest-running, year-round, non-professional musical theater company in California, and that the quality of productions has continued to improve every year over the past 30 years, as evidenced by their loyal audience (40% of which comes from Davis and 60% of which comes from other areas). The company has proved that they are indeed doing something right.

As DMTC start its new season, the company is deserving of a hearty bravo! for a job well done

La Cage aux Folles

The Music Circus is closing out its 2014 season with a sparkling production of Harvey Fierstein and Jerry Herman’s musical, “La Cage aux Folles,” directed by Tony Spinosa and choreographed by Dana Solimando.
“La Cage” was a big hit in 1984, when it won six Tony awards (it had been nominated for nine). Revivals in 2004 and 2010 both won Tonys for Best Revival; it’s the only musical that has won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical twice and the only show that has won a Best Production Tony Award (Best Musical or Best Revival of a Musical) for each of its Broadway productions.

A scaled-down London production was produced in 2008 and it was this scaled-down show that opened on Broadway in 2010 and is what is being presented on the Music Circus stage.

The story is based on a 1974 French film of the same name and focuses on St. Tropez drag club owner Georges (Brent Barrett) and his longtime partner Albin (Alan Mingo Jr.), who stars as “Zaza” in the club.

The two have raised a son, Jean-Michel (Michael Lowney), now 24, who is Georges’ biological child whose mother abandoned him at birth. It is Jean-Michel’s announcement that he is engaged to be married — to a girl (“where have we gone wrong?”) — that sets the action of this comedy in motion.

It seems Jean-Michel’s fiancée Anne (Julie Kavanagh) is the daughter of the head of the “Tradition, Family and Morality Party,” whose stated goal is to close the local drag clubs.

Jean-Michel wants to bring Anne’s parents home to meet his own parents, but he wants to bring his real mother into the house and relegate Albin, whom he finds an embarrassment, to anywhere other than the family home.
The stage is set for comedy, tragedy and emotion.

This revised version of the show has some noticeable differences from the original, specifically in the tempo and genre of some of the familiar songs. “A Little More Mascara,” for example, was written as an up-tempo Broadway musical-sounding song, but in this version it is more a bluesy number. Likewise, there are dialog changes and plot points that make no sense (why are Anne’s parents spending the night, when in the original they were only coming for dinner?).

But these are minor complaints from someone familiar with the original version, which won’t be noticed by newcomers to the show.

There are wonderful performances in this production. Barrett is very strong as Georges. The actor has a very long theatrical history and he is the glue that holds the show together.

Mingo seemed to take a while to get his engine revving. He was perfectly fine as Albin, but there was initially little chemistry with Georges and he didn’t hit his stride until Albin’s signature “I Am What I Am,” a very powerful song of pride and defiance that closes Act 1 and brought cheers from the audience. Act 2 was his. From the moment he stepped onto the stage dressed as a woman, and introducing himself to Anne’s parents as Jean-Michel’s mother, his performance was golden.

Lowny is an uptight spoiled brat as he heartlessly tosses aside the only “mother” he’s ever known in order to impress his future in-laws, but he’s head over heels in love and has lost his head. Thank goodness he finds it before the end of the show.

Reggie DeLeon is the “butler/maid” (there seems to be some confusion about which he/she is), and plays the part in a much more subdued fashion than most actors I’ve seen in this role, but he is very funny anyway.
Kevin Cooney is M. Dindon, the uptight one-man moral majority. Watching him loosen up a little was a delight.
Mme. Dindon (Heather Lee) is a repressed political wife who seems only too happy to learn of the relationship between Georges and Albin and seems thrilled to be able to let down her hair for once. Literally.

Barbara McCulloh is Jacqueline, owner of a famous restaurant by the same name. One is never sure if she’s a good guy or a bad guy, but McCulloh plays her to the fullest and has a nice duet with Albin.

“Les Cagelles,” the dancers at the club (Brian Steven Shaw, Steven Wenslawski, Adam Lendermon, Steve Schepis, Thay Floyd and Christopher Shin), nearly steal the show in every one of their dance routines. However, I miss the days when there were more dancers and there used to be one or two girls mixed in with the guys, and the audience didn’t know who until the big reveal at the end.

This nicest thing about this musical has always been that it is a simple love story where the lovers happen to be of the same gender, and watching the Music Circus audience leap to their feet to applaud that is very refreshing.