PREVIEW: WAM Theatre, Lady Randy

WAM Theatre, Lenox, MA

www.wamtheatre.com/ladyrandy/

April 18 -May 5, 2019

The first main stage production of WAM Theatre’s 2019 season is the world premiere of “Lady Randy.” Written by and starring Anne Undeland, the play is an historical drama on the life of Jennie Jerome, mother of Winston Churchill. Performances will take place at Shakespeare & Company’s Bernstein Theatre.

Photo by Kristen van Ginhoven

The play was first developed by Undeland and director Jim Frangione at the Berkshire Playwrights’ Lab (BPL), making this a true collaboration of outstanding regional talent. From the start, BPL has been an essential part of creating “Lady Randy.” BPL’s mission is to give playwrights a safe and supportive environment so they can do their best work.

Undeland will play the title role, with WAM newcomer Mark Zeisler playing the roles of Winston Churchill and eight other characters. Undeland is well known to local audiences for her numerous one-woman shows throughout the Berkshires and VT. Zeisler has extensive credits on Broadway and in regional theaters across the country.

In 1875, the American heiress, Jennie Jerome, seemed to have it all. She had married an English lord; she was young, rich, and beautiful; and she had just given birth to Winston Churchill. “Lady Randy” takes its audience on a dizzying ride through the treacherous, kaleidoscopic sexual and political landscape of her marriage. This was a woman ahead of her time.

Undeland stated, “I hope that the audiences will connect with the production, the character, the story, the energy so that they themselves feel more human, more alive, more able to go outside and say ‘Why not?’”

For further information and to order tickets check WAM’s website at www.wamtheatre.com

REVIEW: Barrington Stage Company, The 8th Annual 10x10 New Play Festival

Barrington Stage Company, Pittsfield, MA

www.barringtonstageco.org

through March 10, 2019

by Jarice Hanson

What do ten playwrights, six actors, 2 directors, and one wiz-bang parody of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Modern Major General” song have in common? They all represent the fun, creativity, and whimsy of the ten plays in Barrington Stage’s 8th Annual “10 X 10 New Play Festival.”

Though described by Artistic Director Julianne Boyd as an opportunity to “escape from the cold winter months” the festival of short plays has a greater function. They may be the “warm up” for the summer season, allowing audiences to see the versatility that is the hallmark of Barrington’s seasonal offerings. The six very talented actors appear in different plays as completely different characters and yet, they capture the emotions that make us human and relate to the audience with energy and verve that highlight the human condition. The different plays move at lightning pace, but cover topics as diverse as sexual misconduct, same sex marriage and a veteran’s memories, faith, bravery, old fashioned chutzpah, parenting, memory loss, and a wedding in which everything goes wrong.

Photo by Emma Rothenberg-Ware

The talented cast includes Michael Fell, Sarah Goeke, DeShawn Mitchell, Peggy Pharr Wilson, Keri Safran and Robert Zukerman. Five of the plays are directed by Julianne Boyd, and the other five by Matthew Penn. The actors move sets on and off of the stage while lighting and music serve signal transitions and the mood of the next piece. There is not a single dud in the ten plays but there were some clear audience favorites. One was “Twas the Day After Christmas” by Steven Korbar, in which a tightwad attempts, for the 8th year in a row, to return an artificial Christmas tree to a department store the day after Christmas. The other was, “Cold Feet” by Brad Sytsma, in which a bride sits amid chaos as members of the family and wedding party implode as the actual service gets closer.

The “10 X 10 New Play Festival” also allows Barrington Stage Company to introduce the summer season to patrons in the playbill, and this season is notable for the number of World Premiers that will be shown on both the Boyd-Quinson Mainstage and the more intimate St. Germain Stage. BSC has become a leader in innovative interpretations of classic theatre and comedy, and has successfully introduced audiences to new ways of thinking and responding with plays that can be challenging and thought provoking. With the season’s kick off “10 X 10 New Play Festival” Barrington Stage Company once again shows that we’re in for something great this year.

PREVIEW: Music to Spring Ahead! Free Band Concert

Classical Condominiums, Springfield, MA

info@historicclassical.org

Don’t forget to turn the clocks ahead on Sunday, March 10, 2019. On that same day that heralds in spring, listen to an exciting Sci-Tech Band free concert, titled “Music to Spring Ahead,” at 2pm at Classical Condominiums, 235 State Street, Springfield.

The Sci-Tech Band are recognized young musicians from Springfield’s High School of Science and Technology. Music Director Gary Bernice will lead his group through an upbeat program. Bernice’s accomplishments are well known, as he has led the band program at Sci-Tech to award-winning performances and has amassed an impressive number of participants and followers.

The concert is sponsored by Historic Classical, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the legacy of the former Classical High School. The mission of Historic Classical is to keep the history and memories of the former high school alive by inviting the public to events at 235 State Street, the site of the old school where Classical Condominiums now exists, but still retains many of the architectural features of the historic building.

Spring ahead with the music! The venue is wheelchair accessible, and ample free parking is available in the adjacent Quadrangle Library/Museums parking lot to the right of Classical Condominiums. Spring ahead with the music. For more information, write info@HistoricClassical.org or call (413) 636-9550

REVIEW: Opera House Players, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

Opera House Players, Enfield, CT

www.operahouseplayers.org

through February 24, 2019

by Michael J. Moran

Forum was the first (1962) of many legendary Broadway shows with words and music by Stephen Sondheim, and it’s currently receiving an exuberant production by the Opera House Players, inventively directed by George LaVoice, that’s a must-see for musical theater lovers.

Photo by Emma Connel

With a book by Bert Shevelove and Larry Gelbart, the setting is ancient Rome, and the source material is several farces by Roman playwright Plautus. It tells the bawdy tale of how a slave named Pseudolus tries to win his freedom by helping his young master, Hero, win the affections of Philia, the girl next door (a brothel). The clean and simple set by scenic designer Francisco Aguas consists of three houses, belonging to Marcus Lycus (the brothel), Senex (Hero’s father), and Erronius (away in search of his two children, kidnapped 20 years earlier).

Pseudolus (versatile Dennis J. Scott) and the three nimble Proteans (Ray Boisvert, Donato DiGenova, and Frank Cannizzo), who play 30 different roles, set a buoyant tone for the show with an ebullient “Comedy Tonight.” Patrick Connolly, a lanky Hero, sings “Love, I Hear” with endearing innocence, a quality to which Mallory Wray as the hopelessly naïve Philia adds vocal glamour in their charming duet “Lovely.”   

Complications ensue when Lycus (canny David Leslie) reveals that he has sold Philia to the self-infatuated soldier of fortune Miles Gloriosus (hilarious Tim Reilly). But not before Pseudolus, having procured her from Lycus, tells Senex that she’s his new maid, prompting the delightful “Everybody Ought To Have a Maid,” deliciously performed, with Karen Anne McMahon’s soft-shoe choreography, by Pseudolus, Senex, his “head slave” (“I live to grovel”) Hysterium (high-strung Rick Fountain, a hoot when he later impersonates a dead Philia – don’t ask), and Lycus.

Whew! Sounds complicated. But it’s all in great fun.

Musical director Mark Cepetelli’s spirited four-member band sounds much bigger, thanks in part to the large orchestra pit and strong acoustic of the company’s temporary home in the Enfield Annex (formerly Fermi High School). Colorful period costumes by the ever-resourceful Moonyean Field put the crowning (or clowning) touch on this magical production.

REVIEW: Theaterworks, A Doll’s House Part 2

Theaterworks, Hartford, CT

www.theaterworkshartford.org

through February 24, 2019

By Stuart Gamble

 In 1879, Henrik Ibsen’s revolutionary, pro-feminist play “A Doll’s House” stunned its middle-class audience when the play’s heroine Nora Helmer opened the door and walked out on her husband and three young children. Now, 140 years later, playwright Lucas Hnath’s sequel, “A Doll’s House Part 2,” speculates on what happens after that iconic moment of a women’s battle against an oppressive existence.

It is now 15 years later and a middle-aged Nora returns. She is greeted by the Helmer’s faithful housekeeper/nanny Anne Marie. Understandably shocked by Nora’s sudden appearance, Anne Marie expresses both disbelief and a distant relief upon learning Nora’s reason to return. Soon, Nora also confronts her controlling husband Torvald, who is also visually shaken by Nora’s unexpected homecoming. Finally, Nora reunites with her daughter Emmy in a rather ironic mother-daughter first meeting.

Tasha Lawrence, Photo by Lanny Nagler

Tasha Lawrence’s Nora is a multi-layered characterization. Filled equally with fire and ice; her Nora is unafraid to let her feelings be known. Both sympathetic and frank, Lawrence shows the sound and fury of a woman who has boldly survived in a truly Darwinian way. Both warm and harsh, she confronts her accusers like a wrongly persecuted victim on trial who must defend her reputation and even her very reasons to exist.

The supporting cast performs equally as well with Lawrence. Amelia White’s Anne Marie nervously tries to quell Nora’s anger and newly-found freedom with disapproval and guilt for deserting her family. She even drops a few F-bombs that put Nora’s ego in its place. Sam Gregory’s Torvald at first appears rather doltish, but soon evolves into an equal sparring partner with Nora. Finally, Kira Player’s cold as ice Emmy, would have been better named Torvald Jr. for her passive aggressive insidious plan to silence Nora for good.

Director Jenn Thompson’s simple staging place actors merely confronting each other about Big issues. The production’s austerity is further emphasized by Alexander Dodge’s set consisting of two elegant chairs and three framed light panels that zap on and off at scene changes (courtesy of Phillip Rosenberg and Broken Chord’s respective lighting and sound design). Alejo Vietti’s elegantly simple costumes depict the rigidness of Victorian life.

One question lingers in this reviewer’s mind: Is a sequel necessary? And can it ever compare to the original? The answer is an unqualified Yes. The most relevant evidence is in Nora’s line to her daughter: “I’m not going to follow these bad [societal] rules, this is my chance to change the rules..”

A note to theatre-goers: This is the last Theaterworks’ 2018/19 play to be staged at its Pearl Street location. The remainder of this season will be performed at the Wadsworth Athenaeum’s Auditorium, while renovations take place at TW in anticipation of its 2019-20 season.

PREVIEW: Mt. Holyoke College Jazz, The Big Broadcast!

Chapin Auditorium, Mt. Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA

Saturday, March 2, 2019

www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/music/jazz

Brian Lapis, Photo by Dori Gavitt

The Jazz Ensembles of Mt. Holyoke College present the 14th edition of The Big Broadcast! on Saturday, March 2 at 2PM & 7:30PM. Created and directed by Mark Gionfriddo, the concert is a re-creation of a live 1940's radio show featuring the Mt. Holyoke College Big Band, Vocal Jazz, and Chamber Jazz Ensembles performing well-known tunes from the swing era and the American songbook. Once again, WWLP-TV meteorologist Brian Lapis is emcee.

Mt. Holyoke College music faculty member Mark Gionfriddo originally created this performance for a small cabaret group he directed, and incorporated it into the concert season. It has since been designated as a Signature Event at the College. Gionfriddo has worked at Mt. Holyoke since 1986. In 2006, he conducted the MHC Big Band during two episodes of the popular NPR radio quiz show Says You!. Gionfriddo is also well-known in the region as music director of the Young@Heart Chorus.

Music will include memorable pieces written in what is referred to as The Golden Age of Radio; i.e. Glenn Miller and others of that ilk. Accomplished fiddler Zoe Darrow will join the concert as a special guest.

General admission tickets are $25 premium front and center seating, $20 regular seating. Senior and student discounts apply. For information call 413-545-2511 or 800-999-UMASS. For online tickets, visit www.fineartscenter.com. Doors open one hour prior to each performance. Snow date is Sunday, March 3.

REVIEW: Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Scheherazade and American Women Composers

Springfield Symphony Orchestra, Springfield, Massachusetts

www.springfieldsymphony.org

February 2, 2019

by Jarice Hanson

Watching Maestro Kevin Rhodes conduct is always entertaining, and on Saturday night, he and the orchestra provided a program rich in musical texture and artistry.  Rhodes’ articulate and sometimes humorous introduction to each of the pieces helped connect the evening’s selections to cultural history and the evolution of women composers’ influence in composition and musical expression.

Joan Tower’s “6th Fanfare for the Uncommon Woman” opened the program with a pulsating, bright sound.  Though her six Fanfares collectively became known as a feminist retort to Aaron Copeland’s “Fanfare for the Common Man,” the “6th Fanfare” was written as recently as 2016, making Tower one of the two contemporary composers featured in the concert.   Tower’s “Sequoia” was a lovely contrast to the earlier piece, with its rhythmic expression of the majestic sequoia tree growing toward the sky.

A stunningly ethereal “blue cathedral” by Jennifer Higdon completed the contemporary works with a musical story created as a response to the grief she had about her brother’s untimely death.  Performed throughout the United States over 1,000 times last year, this piece integrated Chinese bells and musicians playing water-glasses (a glass harmonica) for a stunning sound that uplifted the heart.

Bal Masque, Opus 22, by Amy Beach was composed in 1894, and provided a link to the romantic style of Rimsky-Korsakov, featured in the second part of the evening’s fare.  In all of the evening’s offerings, many of the extraordinary musicians of the symphony had lush solos and demonstrated the exceptional quality of musicianship so prevalent in the SSO.

Based on the symphonic poem Scheherazade, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov composed a musical telling of the story of the Arabian Nights. Scheherazade, the concubine of a Khalif who slept with each wife and then killed them, told a story every night to forestall her own killing. In this piece, Maestro Rhodes energetically conducted as Concertmaster Masako Yanagita and her violin “told” the story while different sections of the orchestra picked up the theme for each of the four tableaux in the Suite.

The well-deserved standing ovation showed that the audience appreciated the artistry of the evening.  Notable too, was the number of very young audience members who seemed excited by what they had just heard, as well as the murmurs of audience members who were clearly moved by the evening’s entertainment.