Photo of Tour Company Cast courtesy of Bushnell, Hartford
by Don Church and Tony Schillaci – Critics On The Aisle
Hopeful and vibrant, “In The Heights” redefines the American Dream. The joyful message here is that it isn’t always leaving one place for another that identifies success, but by improving your environment with the support of friends, neighbors and family, success can blossom right in the hood where you live.
This feel good musical, with words and music by Tony Award-winning Lin-Manuel Miranda reflects contemporary urban life in the best sense of the word “neighborhood.” In this case it’s Washington Heights, the north end of Manhattan Island – that’s even farther uptown than Harlem – which has “different energy from anywhere else in the city”, according to Miranda.
Populated with immigrants from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Cuba and Ecuador, the essence of the barrio’s Latino flavor is reflected in the energetic melodic music that won Miranda his Tony.
Adding to the excitement and the joyful struggle of day-to-day life is the electric choreography of Tony Blankenbuehler who also won a Tony. The book by Quiara Alegria Hudes is chili-peppered with Spanish phrases and idioms, and director Thomas Kail keeps the show, and the large, multi-talented young cast, fast-paced and definitely in the moment.
Immediately likeable and immensely gifted Kyle Beltran as Usnavi raps the opening number “In The Heights” with such crisp enunciation that every lyric is sharp and clear. Miranda’s words as sung by Usnavi paint an instant picture of the vibe in the Heights, and the set design by Anna Louizos beautifully identifies the place as a melting pot of hard-working Nuevo Americanos under the shadow of the George Washington Bridge.
Standouts (in this first-rate, tour-company cast of all standouts) in addition to Mr. Beltran include soaring-voiced Arielle Jacobs as Nina, Yvette Gonzalez-Nacer as upwardly-mobile Vanessa, Isabel Santiago as the wise-cracking hair-burning Daniela, and Natalie Toro as the “I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore” Camila.
Shout-outs go to show-stopping David Baida who authentically reminded us of the guy who sold us shaved ice in San Juan; to Rogelio Douglas, Jr., who illustrated that ambition and determination can also be coupled with tenderness; to Shaun Taylor-Corbett – a good thing in a small package; to Elise Santora, who made us cry for Abuela Claudia; to Daniel Bolero who we wanted to “boo” but knew that as Kevin he was only a product of his upbringing; and to Genny Lis Padilla, whose bubble-headed charm was only matched by her tight jeans..
Another shout out to the fluid dancer who played Graffiti Pete – there was a substitution at the performance that we saw on January 5th, and it was unclear as to who played the part, so we’ll congratulate three dancers : Jose-Luis Lopez, Sandy Alvarez and Michael Balderrama!
In “The Club/Fireworks” and “Carnaval Del Barrio” ensemble numbers each dancer had a chance to showcase his/her exuberant talent. This is as much an inventive dance show as was “West Side Story,” although with a more joyful message.
Multiple accolades have been bestowed upon Lin-Manuel Miranda and “In the Heights” for its music – and for good reason. Most new musicals are one-note, one-mood pieces. All the songs sound alike; they aren’t well integrated with the book to further explore character or drive the plot. Not so with “In The Heights.” Miranda was influenced as a youngster by “Camelot.” “Man of La Mancha,” “Phantom,” “Les Mis,”,“Fiddler,”and he even played the Pirate King in “The Pirates of Penzance” in ninth grade.
Miranda not only knows how to write a song, but he knows how to end it – a technique that is also direly lacking in so many new musicals. His final notes punctuate the close of each number; there’s no need for the audience to wonder when to applaud.
Lin-Manuel wrote “In the Heights” when he was a sophomore at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. His sweetheart was going off to study in the Dominican Republic, and the day after she left he started writing the story of his angst, and finished it two weeks later. He also was unhappy that a show on Broadway by Paul Simon, called “Capeman,” depicted Latinos as knife-wielding murderers, much as “West Side Story” had done more than forty years earlier. “How specific a subset can you get?” he asked himself, and that spurred him on to write “In The Heights.”
Great theater is the hallmark of the Bushnell. And “In the Heights” exemplifies how it brings in the very best in fresh and exuberant theater. Nos gusto!
Don’t miss “The Lion King” 1/27-2/14. “Spring Awakening” 2/23-2/28. Buy tickets now at www.bushnell.org or call 860-987-5900.
Photo courtesy of Ruth Tefft, Spirit Of Broadway Theater
by Don Church and Tony Schillaci – Critics On The Aisle
What could be better on a cold winter’s night than to go to the Spirit Of Broadway Theater (SBT) in downtown Norwich, grab a glass of wine or some homemade cake, and sit in a make-believe Florida trailer park with a zany group of outrageous residents for two hours of hysterical laughter?…. Nuthin’!
The latest offering from SBT Artistic Director Brett Bernardini is “The Great American Trailer Park Musical.” This laugh-out-loud confection is as yummy as momma Janet Bernardini’s cherry cheesecake, and yes, the show does offer a bit of cheesecake too, in the character of Pippi, the pole-dancing stripper who comes to live in the Armadillo Acres Manufactured Mobile Home Park and reeks hormone havoc with the tenants.
Pippi (recent Hartt School graduate Meagan MacLeod) does not get a hearty welcome from the wacky narrators, a trio of singing trailer park gals – Betty (Maureen Pollard), Lin (Heather Ruley), and Pickles (Hayley Pearl Overturf). These three are the real stars of the show! What great performances! They’re onstage most of the time, and they sing their hearts out with silly words and melodic music by David Nehls, opening with “This Side Of The Tracks” (which they sing while tanning themselves with aluminum reflectors as they sit in folding chairs in front of their tin-can residences.)
The rootin’-tootin’-hootin’ book by Betsey Kelso is so irreverent and bawdy that only the most prudish and those lacking a sense of humor will fail to laugh out loud. It’s one of those shows that insults just about everyone, but with such toothless good natured winks that it ain’t offensive!
Whenever Hayley as Pickles opens her mouth you can almost see the air leaving her head, and teamed with the combat-boot-wearing Heather as Lin these two could carry a show on their own.
Even the pseudo-serious songs sung by Nicole Marion as Jeannie and Derek Corriveau as Norbert are peppered with good-humor so that they don’t drag down the show. After all, this is a frothy musical comedy, and there’s no room here for any thought provoking message to interrupt the dizzy doings.
When the handsome and sexy, Sharpie-sniffing Duke (Nick D’Angelo) arrives in Armadillo Acres singing “Road Kill,” neither critter nor human is safe from his dumb jealous rage. Nick’s portrayal is so perfectly “in the moment” that it’s easy to forget that he’s actually a fine actor and not some drugged-up nitwit that just happened to get onstage. Duke has about two watts burning, which is only one watt less than the rest of the musical’s characters.
Brett Bernardini has opened his closet of exquisite tackiness to dress the set and the actors. From faded plastic flowers, battered mailboxes, scroungy garbage cans and blown out tires, to the rattiest wigs ever seen in a theater, they seem just right for Armadillo Acres. Choreographer Lisa Foss works with Director Bernardini to keep the musical’s bouncy action lively and effervescent.
The unseen four piece orchestra is directed by Daniel Brandl, who doubles on piano and keyboard. Lighting director Glenn Michaud and his crew have done some fun stuff, especially with floor projections in the sequence called “The Great American TV Show.” The MC of this segment, Maureen Pollard, does her turn as Betty Springer, and she squeezes the audience like a lemon to get every laugh, giggle, roar, guffaw, titter and hooter from her lines. Titters and hooters? Yeah, it’s that kind of a show.
This is an ideal escape from tough times. For two hours you leave everything behind except the inhabitants of Armadillo Acres in forgettable Stark, Florida.
If you were planning to go south this winter don’t bother because the weather’s totally unreliable this year. We suggest you take all your vacation money and call box-office manager Ruth Tefft at SBT to order a big block of tickets before this show closes on February 7th. And this is one rollicking show that you’ll definitely want to share with friends. It’s the kind of bawdy adult humor and situations you get in live theater, but never on network TV!
Brett Bernardini told THE RESIDENT that he would like everyone to put on your trashiest duds, black out a tooth or two and join him for one helluva trashy time at Armadillo Acres! For tickets, directions and getting on the mailing list go to: www.spiritofbroadway.org. or call Ruth at (860) 886-2378.
(l-r) Paul Terzenbach, TJ Linnard, Ashley Robinson, Adam Barrie in "Shakespeare's R & J"
by Don Church & Tony Schillaci
“Romeo and Juliet” is still one of the most popular and frequently produced of Shakespeare’s brilliant and lyrical plays. Its most recent adaptation “Shakespeare’s R& J” is playing through December 20 at TheaterWorks in downtown Hartford through December 20th.
This powerful and inventive retelling of the classic love story has had critically acclaimed and successful runs both off-Broadway and on London’s West End. It’s been rightfully called “a vibrant, hot-blooded new adaptation of”Romeo and Juliet” that pulsates with an adolescent abandon and electricity” by The New York Times and an “exploration of passion and repression in both Shakespeare’s time and our own” by Variety.
Award-winning young playwright Joe Calarco’s vision of love and discovery still resonates with audiences around the world. This TheaterWorks production is notable for several reasons one of which is the unmistakable strong and creative direction by the multi-award-winning Rob Ruggiero.
This time out Ruggiero has four young, well-trained actors: Adam Barrie, a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon, has previously played Romeo; Ashley Robinson from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts has played Feste in “Twelfth Night,” Paul Terzenbach from The Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University has performed in three Shakespeare plays including Autolycus in “The Winter’s Tale” at Shakespeare’s Globe Theater in London; and TJ Linnard who earned his B.F.A from SUNY Purchase Acting Conservatory and has played Florizel in “The Winter’s Tale.”
All four of these talented actors are new members of Actors Equity Association (AEA) and are worthy of membership in this respected organization for actors and stage manager as witnesses by their mesmerizing performances at such an early stage in their careers.
Before the play began, TheaterWorks’ Artistic and Managing Director Steve Campo reminded the audience that in Shakespeare’s time, all parts were played by males. Calarco has revived the tradition here and added an invocative contemporary setting that heightens a sexual and repressive star-crossed love story for today’s audiences. The effect is electrifying. It’s based on the classic story of history’s most famous doomed lovers into a modern tale of teenage awakening and coping with adolescence.
The play explores youthful desires, vulnerability and burgeoning sexuality as four students at a strictly conservative religious preparatory school get their hands on the banned “Romeo and Juliet.” As the schoolboys secretly find themselves immersed in the tragic story of forbidden love, they assume the roles of all the play’s characters and the tale begins to blur with their own lives.
There is usually trepidation about listening to American actors struggle with Shakespeare’s powerful and beautiful verse, but here director Ruggiero saves the day, as usual, with his outstanding skill and talent to get every detail in a play letter-perfect.
He succeeds: the performers are successful at making the Bard’s poetry as understandable as everyday speech. And, for good measure, Ruggiero never fails to draw out great performances from his quartet of gifted and charismatic actors. They play multiple parts in the many quick seamless transitions revealing remarkable range at such a young age. The play and the actors are not to be missed.
Free seats for select performances of “Shakespeare’s R&J” are available to young people ages 16 – 18 thanks to Lincoln Financial Foundation.
Discounted parking is available to TheaterWorks’ patrons for $5 at CityPlace Garage (diagonally up Pearl Street from TheaterWorks) or the outdoor A & A Lot at the corner of Asylum and Ann Street, across from Mayor Mike’s Bistro.
For complete information and reservations, call TheaterWorks at (860) 527-7838, or visit TheaterWorks at www.theaterworkshartford.org.
by Don Church & Tony Schillaci – Critics On The Aisle™
Kathleen Thompson as Mabel and Bill Sorensen as Frederic in the CGSS Production of "Pirates Of Penzance".
One must-see musical theater event in Connecticut is the annual Connecticut Gilbert & Sullivan Society (CGSS) production that keeps alive the enjoyment of the comic operettas of this witty and satirical British musical theater duo of the late 19th Century. The timeless themes and points of view are still relevant for today’s audiences – it’s the very model of a modern major musical.
This year the CGSS’s rousing “Pirates of Penzance” was performed in Middletown High School’s magnificent new Center for the Performing Arts.
This fully mounted production was produced, directed and choreographed by CGSS Founder and Artistic Director Bob Cumming of Moodus. Among his many theatrical achievements, he directed the New York premiere of Strauss’ “Intermezzo,” G&S’s “Pinafore,” “The Pirates of Penzance,” and Victor Herbert’s “Naughty Marietta” for The Little Orchestra Society at Lincoln Center and on tour.
In this year’s CGSS show, Bob achieved another high standard of artistic and technical excellence with the show’s fine casting from leads to chorus members, and the superb production values. His expertise with Gilbert & Sullivan showed in the blocking and pacing of the performers of this tuneful action-packed production -and the successful coordination with the brilliant musical conductor, John Dreslin of Stonington, his twenty-second appearance with the company.
John always manages to take the show’s ‘pick-up’ musicians and, with a minimum of rehearsal time, within a minute into the overture they’re as good as a well-established symphony orchestra.
The ten principle players and the forty or so ladies, pirates, and police were all fully into every moment of the play whether they had a line, a song, or were there as onlookers. This brings
the whole show to life and fully engages the audience. We’ve seen Equity shows that didn’t reach this depth of characterization, control and concentration in performance. Again, it’s Bob’s strong and capable directing, with contributions from his co-producers Annlee Sortland and Leighton Phraner.
Heading the Connecticut cast of principals is Don Shirer (Westbrook) as the Major General, Hal Chernoff (Simsbury) as The Pirate King, Kathleen Thompson (Hebron) as Mabel, David Henderson (Middletown) and Cameron Phillips (Fairfield) as Samuel, Bill Sorensen (Guilford) and Jeff Soun Long (Middletown) as Frederic, Mike Reynolds (Meriden) as Sgt. of Police, Carol Connolly (New Haven) and Betty Olson (Glastonbury) as Ruth. Supporting roles were well played by Renée Haines (Southington), Katherine Yeager (Middletown), Marissa Lovely (East Hampton), Amanda Ziegler (Chester), and Katie Corbett (Plainville).
The stand-out performance of the evening was leading lady Kathleen Thompson as Mabel. As always she lights up the stage and fills it with her presence from her first entrance to her final scene. Kathleen is a superb actress, glorious singer, and a lovely dancer.
Don Shirer (The “very model of a modern major general”) was delightful. Hal Chernoff became a believable and delightfully roguish Pirate King. Bill Sorensen (Frederic) can always be counted on to give his all in the many different parts we’ve seen him play. His understudy, Jeff Soun Long, played a minor part the night we saw the show, and once again showed great potential for a long and successful stage career, as he did in his debut in last year’s G&S production of Patience. He’s a senior at Middletown High School while continuing to hone his theater skills and get the essential experience of performing in front of a live audience.
Founded in 1980, the CG&SS has made its home in Middletown since 1990, adding immeasurably to the city’s and the state’s cultural life. The annual performances are in the fall, and done with Broadway-quality orchestra, singers, costumes, sets and now with state-of –art sound and lighting equipment in the new and well-designed theater.
We are lucky to have so many professional Equity theaters in the state, but the CG&SS is a much-needed showcase for Connecticut’s talented non-equity singers, directors, designers, instrumentalists and stage technicians who make a living at other professions and others who are in school.
Don’t miss next year’s production – whatever it is. To get on the mailing list, contribute, or join in any capacity, contact the Connecticut Gilbert & Sullivan Society at www.ctgilbertandsullivan.org.
This review was published November 25 by The Resident, covering southeastern CT and southern RI. The writers, Critics On The Aisle ™, are members of the Connecticut Critics Circle, www.ctcritics.org.
This great and versatile artist has also taught acting at Yale, Columbia, Sarah Lawrence and Bennington, as well as at The National Theater Institute at the O’Neill Center in Waterford, CT; and has served as artistic director of the Actors Studio.
Estelle has also made her mark as a director, including plays with Al Pacino. Together they developed the reading-style staging for “Salome: The Reading,” a Broadway revival in 2003, and then took it to Los Angeles in 2006. And she was director of Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare on Broadway project that included “Romeo and Juliet,” “Macbeth,” and “As you Like it.”
We recently caught up with her in Seattle, Washington during the national tour of “August: Osage County.” The Seattle Times theater critic Misha Berson wrote: “In her masterful turn as a chain-smoking, cancer-riddled, drug-dependent Violet, Estelle Parsons is a one-woman firing squad.”
THE RESIDENT: “You graduated from Connecticut College in 1949. Did you do any acting there?”
ESTELLE PARSONS: “Oh yes, I wrote, directed – did all the class plays. There were only four or five of us in an acting class. Margaret Hazlewood came down from Hartford to teach us. I was also a singer and played piano in cocktail lounges, and after college sang with the Jerry Jerome orchestra. Before college I did community theater with the Tavern Players in Lynn, Massachusetts,” – her home state.
TR: “Later, after studying law at Boston University you became the first female political reporter [writing and on camera] on network television during your five years on NBC’s Today Show,” starting in 1952.”
EP: “Yes, but I wasn’t so keen on real life, so I went on the stage.”
(Her Broadway debut was as a singer/actress in “Happy Hunting” starring Ethel Merman in 1956.)
TR: “After you read or saw “August: Osage County” how did you get the lead part of Violet Weston?”
EP: “I never read it, I never saw it! Friends and the producers said I should play the part after it had been running in New York with Deanna Dunagan. So after I finally saw the play, I went and took the pages that Violet was in and read them,” and added, “I only memorize my part in a play.
“The play was specific, assertive, and dynamic,” She continued. “Tracy Letts is a rare writer with a style all his own. It rings true and is theatrically very exciting. But I’ve always been allergic to dysfunctional family plays. I couldn’t figure out why the audiences were laughing. The audiences get into it right away.”
TR: What kind of theaters are you playing on tour?
EP: “We’ve been playing in big theaters…old vaudeville houses. Twenty-six hundred, four-thousand seats! So I said to myself ‘If Jimmy Durante could reach the back balcony of this theater, so can I!’”
The Broadway and national tour of “August: Osage County” was directed by Anna D. Shapiro who attended graduate school at the Yale School of Drama
After directing the premiere of “August: Osage County” at the prestigious Steppenwolf Theater Company in Chicago and winning the Jefferson Award for Best Director, she took the play to Broadway with all but two of the original cast and won the Tony Award for Best Director of a Play, as well the Drama Desk and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Director of a Play. After reading some lines and a scene from the play for Anna,
Estelle said:
EP: “She was easy to get along with. She’s a very strong, dynamic woman.”
Estelle first played the lead on Broadway from June 2008 through May 2009 followed by the current national tour, which ends in May 2010.
TR: How do you keep up your energy through eight, three-hour performances a week?”
EP: “I’m nearly 82! So I do weights almost every day, swim laps, and I eat cereal for breakfast, salads for lunch, and lots of steamed vegetables and fish or chicken for dinner. When you get older you don’t want to eat so much.”
Estelle will be celebrating her birthday in Hartford on November 20.
TR: “Any advice for young people who want to go into the theater?”
EP: “Do they really want to go into theater? I think they want to go into TV and movies! It used to be that parents didn’t want their children to go into the theater. Now they are pushing them because they think that they’ll wind up movie stars! But it’s always about the work. Always be in front of an audience.
“You become a different person up there in front of people. Entertaining live people is what it’s all about.” And she advises young actors to head for Chicago because it’s a great theater town.
In 2004, Estelle Parsons was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.
“August: Osage County” is a rare opportunity to see one the greatest actresses of our time in a highly acclaimed play. Tickets: (860) 987-5900 or www.bushnell.org.
