REVIEW: Playhouse on Park, Five Guys Named Moe

Playhouse on Park, West Hartford, CT
www.playhouseonpark.org
through February 27, 2022
By Stuart W. Gamble
 
Sometimes thinly plotted music revues can be just okay. Playhouse on Park's production of "Five Guys Named Moe" does not fit that description. This production, both directed and choreographed, by Brittney Griffen is simply wonderful. Full of lively, upbeat, charming tunes sung, danced, and acted by a fabulous ensemble cast, POP's current production is a surefire antidote to the winter blues and COVID-related dread.

Clark Peters’ musical features the greatest hits of composer Louis Jordan. The story begins with Nomax (Marcus Canada) sitting alone by a vintage radio with a bottle of scotch on hand, singing the bluesy “It’s Early in the Morning”. Troubled by romantic angst, Nomax is suddenly visited by Five guys named Moe, who are seen from behind a sheer curtain, also revealing a music ensemble of top-notch musicians on percussion, piano/keyboard, trumpet, bass, reeds, and trombone.

"The Five Guys..." includes Eat Moe (Arnold Harper), Four-Eyed Moe (Jacquez Linder-Long), Big Moe (Darren Lorenzo), Little Moe (Devin Price),  and No Moe (Josh Walker). These extremely talented actors/singers/dancers work beautifully together. Their timing (both musical and comedic) is seamless, moving from banter of songs to fancy foot work. Kudos to the guys in what is a fine display of a truly ensemble performance. Although Canada has the less flashy role, his pitch-perfect tenor resonates the central character’s emotional dilemmas.

The score’s 25 songs, which are utilized to try to persuade Canada's character Nomax into changing his bad habits (mainly drinking and smoking to excess), are all finely sung by the superb cast. Personal favorites are “I Like ‘em Fat Like That” featuring all the Moes, the call-and-response “Caledonia” led by Lorenzo, and the Act I closer and sing-along Calypso “Push Ka Pi Shi Pie”. Most impressive is Harper’s hilarious “Ain’t Nobody Here But Us Chickens” (complete with plumage) and his utterly heart-rending solo “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying” sung in a sparse Paris Café designed by James F. Rotondo III.

"Five Guys...s" is a breath of theatrical fresh air. The music (fine work by Music Director Dexter Pettaway Sr.) and performances are ably supported by Vilinda McGregor’s period costumes (especially the sequined blue jackets) and Marcella Barbeau’s mood-enhancing lighting design). "Five Guys..." reminds us of the monumental contributions of African-American musicians and performers, as we celebrate Black History Month in February.

Project Proposals: Public Art at the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA)

Two public art opportunities are currently in circulation across MA. 

The graphics and social media toolkits for both the Making it Public free course for artists seek skills in working with municipalities to respond to Calls for Public Art, and Newell Flather Award for Leadership in public art that offers $5,000 of unrestricted funds to two publicly nominated public art leaders.

Share the above information with artists, and public art leaders in your networks in whatever ways are most accessible.

Any questions, contact:

Kamaria Carrington, NEFA

1000 Washington St., 2nd Floor

Boston, MA 02118 or 

kcarrington@nefa.org

617-865-1837

www.nefa.org

Preview: Westfield Athenaeum and MOSSO. Chamber Music Series

The Westfield Athenaeum will present a three-concert chamber music series, beginning Thursday, March 10, at 7PM, with Musicians of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra, known as MOSSO, providing the music. MOSSO violinist Beth Welty is bringing her ensemble, The Aryaloka Quartet to the Athenaeum to kick off the series. Guy McLain, Executive Director of the Westfield Athenaeum, will offer a pre-performance talk at 6PM, which is free to ticket holders.

Violinists Mark Latham and Beth Welty, violist Noralee Walker, and cellist Sandi-Jo. Malmon will perform William Grant Still’s Lyric String Quartet; Charles Ives’ String Quartet #1 Op.57 “From The Salvation Army: A Revival Service”; Beethoven’s String Quartet in C major, op. 59 #3; and an additional piece TBA.

McLain, said “We’re thrilled to bring classical music back to downtown Westfield, and we look forward to working with MOSSO to make that happen”. He said two additional concerts are planned for Thursday, April 14, and Thursday, May 12.

Beth Welty of MOSSO said, the members of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra have fond memories of their many summer performances at Stanley Park, and we’re glad to return to Westfield and the Westfield Athenaeum. We chose an eclectic program to open our Westfield season, including a classic by Beethoven, a work from a major 20th century New England composer, Charles Ives; a work from an important African-American composer, William Grant Still, and a contemporary selection that most audience members will know.

Tickets are $20 and must be purchased in advance at the Athenaeum during business hours, or online at https://www.westath.org/

Audience members will be required to wear masks.

MOSSO is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization, which is not a subsidiary or affiliated with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra Inc. MOSSO was organized by the musicians this year to produce and perform concerts in Greater Springfield and Western Massachusetts, and to date, they have presented their musicians in pop-up concerts throughout the area. For further information visit www.SpringfieldSymphonyMusicians.com

The Westfield Athenaeum, located in downtown Westfield, serves as the cultural center for the city. In addition to an active public library, the Athenaeum features an art museum with regular exhibits of regional artists, and a history museum, documenting the history of Westfield. For information on the Westfield Athenaeum: www.westath.org

PREVIEW: The Bushnell, What the Constitution Means to Me

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT
www.bushnell.org 
January 26-30, 2022

Cassie Beck

Heidi Schreck's Tony Award-nominated play and Pulitzer Prize finalist "What the Constitution
Means to Me" will play for a limited week-long engagement for seven performances.

Cassie Beck will star in the Hartford performance on the National Tour of the play directed by Oliver Butler. Beck (the film "I Know What You Did Last Summer") will be joined by Mike Iveson, and high school students Jocelyn Shek and Emilyn Toffler in the role of the debater.

This boundary-breaking play breathes new life into our Constitution and imagines how it will affect the next generation of Americans. Fifteen-year-old Schreck earned her college tuition by winning Constitutional debate competitions across the United States. In this hilarious, hopeful, and achingly human new play, she resurrects her teenage self in order to trace the profound relationship between four generations of women and the founding document that shaped their lives. 

Schreck’s timely and galvanizing play became a sensation on Broadway where it received two Tony Award® nominations among countless other accolades. The New York Times hailed the piece as "not just the best play on Broadway, but also the most important. 

REVIEW: Close Encounters with Music , “The Roaring Twenties”

Close Encounters with Music, Great Barrington, MA 

www.cewm.org

December 12, 2021 

by Michael J. Moran 

Since the second live concert by Close Encounters with Music at the Mahaiwe was subtitled “Berlin, Paris, New York,” an ingratiating account of the 1924 Gershwin classic “Fascinating Rhythm” by tenor William Ferguson and pianist Ieva Jokubaviciute was an apt and delightful opener. CEWM Artistic Director and cellist Yehuda Hanani then introduced the program with his trademark humor and erudition, gleefully quoting Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” to characterize the vocal and instrumental music of the 1920's.

Pianist Renana Gutman next brought dazzling dexterity to the almost shockingly modern-sounding 1927 “Five Jazz Etudes” by Czech composer Erwin Schulhoff, who perished in a Nazi prison camp in 1942. American Samuel Barber’s 1927 cello sonata followed, a “sunny piece,” in Hanani’s words, “without an ounce of cynicism,” written when the composer was just seventeen. Hanani and Jokubaviciute were expressive in the opening “Allegro ma non troppo,” tender and mercurial in the central “Adagio,” and visceral in the “Allegro appassionato” finale.

For the second half of the concert, Ferguson and Jokubaviciute were joined by mezzo-soprano Heather Johnson in a wide-ranging selection of more and less familiar songs by composers active in all three cities during the 1920s. While projected translations of the French and German lyrics would have been helpful, both singers enunciated their texts so clearly and acted them so skillfully that their meaning always came through in the Mahaiwe’s plush acoustic.

Highlights included: Johnson’s incisive “Supply and Demand” by Hanns Eisler and Bertolt Brecht, her sensuous “Speak Low” by Kurt Weill and Ogden Nash, and her dramatic “La Vie en Rose” by Marguerite Monnot and Edith Piaf. Ferguson’s varied trio of chansons by Francis Poulenc, his powerful “Bilbao” by Weill and Brecht, and his lively rendering of Dave Frishberg’s hilarious “Another Song about Paris” were a fitting tribute to the recently deceased jazz master; and Jokubaviciute’s exquisitely sensitive and versatile pianism throughout the program.

Next up for CEWM is a “Folk and Baroque” program, featuring guitarist Eliot Fisk, contralto Emily Marvosh, and Hanani, at St. James Place in Great Barrington on February 26, 2022.

All Mahaiwe events require proof of vaccination and a photo ID for entrance and masking inside the theater. 

REVIEW: It's a Wonderful White Christmas at Pemberly! Or...3 in 1 Winter Weekend

It's a Wonderful Life, Hartford Stage, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordstage.org

through December 26, 2021

Irving Berlin's White Christmas, Colonial Theater, Pittsfield, MA

www.berkshiretheatregroup.org

through December 23, 2021

Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Playhouse on Park, West Hartford, CT

www.playhouseonpark.org

through December 19, 2021

by Lisa M. Covi

The end of the year brings some a yearning for familiar traditions and home. Three theatrical experiences offer satisfaction and delight with a heaping dollop of holiday joy.

Photo by T. Charles Erickson  

As a self-professed “It's a Wonderful Life” fanatic, I was both satisfied and surprised by Joe Landry's adaptation into a Radio Play at Hartford Stage. The production delivered treasured humorous moments and extended the sentimentality of this morality tale. As a radio play, the cast included new characters; the actors who read multiple roles on the stage that evokes a 1940's Hartford studio. This storytelling device provides delightful juxtapositions: Freddie Filmore as the announcer performs several scenes between the scheming Henry Potter and bumbling Uncle Billy channeling each character with change of hat. Jennifer Bereilles alternates between the flirtatious Violet Bick and earthy Ernie the cab driver among other roles. The audience was captivated by the interactions between the radio actors who were also able evoke pathos from the story. For someone unfamiliar with the film, the pace of the story may be initially hard to follow. It may be an inadequate substitution for bringing your kids to “A Christmas Carol.” However, Act II adds a dramatic element of direct action as the depiction of George's wish come true sweeps away the radio elements adding costuming, blocking and lighting as they assume the trappings of a traditional play. The choice to add endearing Spanish phrases by Geraldo Rodriguez to George Bailey's dialog and the casting of Shirine Babb as a darker skinned actor playing both Mary and Joseph (the angel's supervisor) creates some multicultural inclusion to the depiction of small town life. The audience also appreciated the local color provided by the performance of radio commercials for now defunct G. Fox department store, and reference to local resident Mark Twain.

Photo by Emma K. Rothenberg-Ware

The Berkshire Theater Group's production of “White Christmas “at the Colonial Theater also has as point of departure, a classic film set after World War II. However, this production sticks more closely to the original musical theater format. Veterans Wallace and Davis find themselves at a Vermont Inn at Christmas and decide to put on a show with the Haynes sisters to save the faltering business and honor their Commanding Officer, the owner, Henry Waverly. Cast and crew delivered an energetic experience that set toes tapping, audience joining in and holiday joy spilling out after the curtain call. The dazzling musical numbers, costumes and props channeled many of the film's choices and transported us to studio productions that showcased and celebrated theatrical show business. Although Michael Wartella and Michael Starr gave strong individual performances as Wallace and Davis, the plot lacks some momentum in Act I. Fans of the number “Sisters” will be delighted that Judy and Betty Haynes are played by real-life sisters Alanna and Claire Saunders. The final number of Act I turns around the pace with “Blue Skies.” This show-stopper has the costumes and choreography of a Fosse/Verdon piece and the synchronized tap dancing support the strong melody but spare lyrics of Irving Berlin. Allison Briner Dardenne's vocals as Martha Watson add to the upswing of energy in Act II especially with the sisters in “Falling out of Love Can be Fun.” Among the stellar ensemble, Aliah James, Kelly Sheehan who have speaking parts and newcomer Joel Douglas gave impressive contributions. This production delivers a classic show with the caliber of performance that meets the higher bar for Broadway musical theater recent years have raised.

Photo by Meredith Longo 

The most traditionally dramatic of the three productions is the 2016 play by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon, “Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberly” now at Playhouse on Park. Two years after the events in Jane Austen's “Pride and Prejudice” finds Miss Mary Bennet, and married sisters Elizabeth, Jane and Lydia spending the 1815 holiday at the Darcy's estate. There are resemblances and differences to film and television productions in the actors portrayals. More importantly, the cast succeeds in immersing us in both Austen's world where women chafe against social restrictions and captivate with the familial relations among almost every character. The story is familiar, a comic romance among Mary, played by Sydney Torres who has since come of age and Arthur de Bough played by Ted Gibson, a relative of Darcy's newly returned from Oxford. In modern style, this young couple are the nerdiest in their set, preferring books and the life of the mind to preoccupation with emotion and status of their times. Elizabeth Darcy (Dakota Mackey-McGee) has erected a Christmas tree, a rare German tradition in Georgian England, Jane Bingley (Kristin Fulton) is expecting her first child and Lydia Wickham (Laura Axelrod) creates havoc and worry arriving sans husband. Another modern touch is the changing relationship between old friends Darcy (Griffin Stanton-Ameisen) and Bingley (Karim Nematt) who have adapted to a less conventional Bennet marriage and learned from past mistakes. The talk-back after the Sunday matinee confirmed the cast and director's great enthusiasm for the material and their exuberance of returning to live theater after the pandemic hiatus. The blocking of the production for audience seated on three sides of the stage provide opportunities for various actors to showcase their movement and self-expression in careful English dialect. Set design, costumes and hair make for a faithful period depiction. You need not be a Jane Austen fan to enjoy the production; it may also be a humorous salve to many of us facing familial drama of our own during the December holidays.

All three productions are enjoyable and well worth the time and money for live theater. I would recommend them as traditional introductions to different genres for younger people, some of whom were in attendance. In fact, these classic stories performed with such care and feeling would be appropriate for multiple viewings.

REVIEW: Hartford Symphony Orchestra, Tchaikovsky & Grieg

The Bushnell, Hartford, CT

www.hartfordsymphony.org

December 3-5, 2021 

by Michael J. Moran 

For their third “Masterworks” weekend of the season, HSO Music Director Carolyn Kuan surrounded a holiday stalwart by Tchaikovsky with two popular favorites by Grieg to celebrate the orchestra’s recent return to live performance in a festive atmosphere. Like last month, she paused after the opening piece to welcome late arrivers and thank the audience (all masked, like most of the musicians, including Kuan) for their presence to enthusiastic applause.

That opening piece was the familiar first suite from Grieg’s 1876 incidental music to Ibsen’s play “Peer Gynt,” imaginatively preceded by two selections from the less familiar second suite. A dramatic “Abduction of the Bride & Ingrid’s Lament” was followed by a turbulent “Peer Gynt’s Homeward Journey,” a limpid “Morning,” a poignant “Ase’s Death,” a delicate “Anitra’s Dance,” and a blazing “In the Hall of the Mountain King.” 

 

The last four numbers of Act I offered a bracingly different perspective on Tchaikovsky’s 1892 “Nutcracker” ballet than the better-known suite drawn mainly from Act II. A sparkling “Clara and the Nutcracker” led into a hair-raising “Battle” scene between the Mouse King and his troops of mice and the Nutcracker and his army of gingerbread men, a colorful “Journey through the Snow” by Clara and the victorious Nutcracker (now transformed into a handsome Prince), and an exuberant “Waltz of the Snowflakes.” The HSO played with glowing conviction, but the percussionists had a field day with their huge array of instruments, visibly swaying to the music’s pulsing rhythms. 

Gabriela Martinez

The concert closed with a stunning account of Grieg’s famous 1868 piano concerto by rising young Venezuelan-born pianist Gabriela Martinez. She brought commanding technical finesse and interpretive depth to a forceful opening “Allegro molto moderato,” a melting central “Adagio,” and an alternately energetic and radiant finale. Orchestra and conductor were fully committed partners. 

An overhead camera helpfully projected an enlarged soloist’s-eye view of the keyboard onto a screen above the stage so that everyone in the Belding Theater could see the grace, dexterity, and power with which Martinez’s flexible hands manipulated the keys. 

The HSO’s next “Masterworks” program, “From the New World,” will feature guest conductor Jeri Lynne Johnson and pianist Michelle Cann on January 14-16, 2022.