Tag: community theatre

The Who’s Tommy. Absence of vocal clarity creates a cacophony of sound.

The Who’s Tommy. Absence of vocal clarity creates a cacophony of sound.

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Photo: Alan Dean.

Book by Pete Townshend and Des McAnuff. Music and lyrics by Pete Townshend.Additional music and lyrics by John Entwhistle and Keith Moon. Orpheus Musical Theatre Society

Tommy, can you hear me? Too often, we cannot hear your story with any clarity. Instead, we are bombarded with a cacophony of sound. Although we see interesting projections, bright lights and colours, we cannot distinguish the words, whether spoken or sung.

Despite — or perhaps because of — the high decibel level of the Orpheus Musical Theatre Society production of The Who’s Tommy, there are only a few occasions when there is any vocal clarity in musical numbers or speeches throughout the rock opera.

While director Michael Gareau’s production is well conceived and, there are some excellent moments, particularly in the early sequences, presentation is frequently dogged by ongoing sound issues. Additional confusion is created when the young and then the adult Tommy sit cross-legged rocking repeatedly in a movement most often associated with some forms of autism. (The catatonic state that is supposed to be Tommy’s situation is more usually described as involving no motion at all.)

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Hello Dolly!: Suzart Production puts on good show in the face of last minute problems

Hello Dolly!: Suzart Production puts on good show in the face of last minute problems

Photo courtesy of Suzart Productions
Photo courtesy of Suzart Productions

Hello Dolly
Book by Michael Stewart
Music and lyrics by Jerry Herman
Based on The Matchmaker by Thornton Wilder
Suzart Productions
Directed by Sue Fowler Dacey

Kudos to Suzart Productions for their dedication to the show-must-go-on principle at the heart of show business.

Just a week before opening night, the leading lady fell ill. What do you do when you have no understudy to play Dolly Levi in the musical that revolves around her every move in the business of matchmaking/meddling?

Some companies might have postponed the show. Not Suzart.

Musical director (vocals) Holly Villeneuve stepped into the massive role at the last minute. The cast and crew, particularly the costume department, who made a new wardrobe for the new Dolly, and leading man Gerry Jacques, went into high gear. Hello Dolly opened on May 26 as scheduled and delivered a creditable production that gave no indication of the crisis.

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Phoenix Theatre runs rampant in the high school “staff room”.

Phoenix Theatre runs rampant in the high school “staff room”.

This Phoenix Theatre production called Staff Room (by Joan Burrows) is a mild crowd pleaser, definitely aimed at a niche audience. A cast of ten actors playing 55 roles carried out a non-stop whirlwind evening of skits , monologues, dialogues or exchanges with multiple actors of varying descriptions.  Each skit was an individual performance but all were linked by the fact that they all took place in the staff room of a high school where the teachers, administrators, cleaners and related employees were all involved in the business of this institution of learning. Joel Rahn responsible for media relations, stepped out on the stage before the curtain went up and asked us point blank: “How many people were/are school teachers“? A lot of hands went up. I gather that If he asked the question it was important, and we soon realized why.

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Orpheus Shines With A Chorus Line

Orpheus Shines With A Chorus Line

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Photo. Alexander Vlad for Alan Dean

In a theatre community where claims to professionalism are sometimes  suspect, Orpheus stands out like shining beacon. It wears its  community-theatre label proudly and without pretension. And it often  puts to shame some of the tacky touring productions that have lumbered   across Canada (and into the NAC) in recent years.
All of which is a preamble to declaring that this organization’s new  production of A Chorus Line is another worthy achievement. It remains  true to the sensibility of the legendary Broadway original, which was  conceived by its first director, the late Michael Bennett, as a   bittersweet valentine to the kids in the chorus line, the ones we tend
to take for granted when we watch a stage musical, but who supply the  essential support system for any successful show.

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A Chorus Line: A production that leaves much to be desired.

A Chorus Line: A production that leaves much to be desired.

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Photo: courtesy of Orpheus Musical Theatre

This is the emblematic hit Broadway musical which stages the work taking place within the chorus line before the curtain rises on the Broadway show! Showing the audition process is a fascinating concept. It brings us into the workings of musical theatre, stripping away the drama, the glitz and the glamour by taking us into the disappointments, the heartbreak, the tough work, the anxiety, the personal encounters that have led to the final moment in front of the choreographer who will finally decide who stays and who goes.

The show has a huge cast of 28 actors some playing several roles. They include ballet dancers, tap dancers, strippers, singers, actors, comedians, serious actors but most of them dance and sing, especially the individuals vying for spots on the chorus line. The task is daunting and because each dancer takes on a special meaning within the show, A Chorus line depends on excellent performances from each member of the cast, especially those who have solo numbers or who are dancing in small groups.

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Suzart Spelling Bee A Mixed Bag

Suzart Spelling Bee A Mixed Bag

Photo Suzart After Dark
Photo Suzart After Dark

There are some likeable moments in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, but this inaugural production in Suzart’s new After Dark series still leaves you wondering why the show collected several Tony awards and lasted more than two seasons on Broadway.

Its main merit lies in the few good performances that do take shape and in further revealing the exciting possibilities that the new Live On Elgin holds for Ottawa’s  cultural life.

The show, which involves some audience participation, essentially chronicles the progress of a spelling bee in words and music. But Elaine McCausland and her cast are delivering more of a staged performance than anything resembling a proper  production. To be sure, the nature of the material might suggest that it’s ideal for an intimate venue like this, but the end result lacks the imaginative vigour that represents this enterprising theatre company at its best.

Still there is pleasurable work from Liam Gosson as Leaf Conneybear, an amiable young contestant with a knack from conquering his insecurities and managing to come through at the last minute with the correct spelling at each round, and Jay Landreville, smug and self-satisfied, as an opponent named Barfee. Rachel Duchesneau has some nice moments of vulnerability as Olive, who’s travelled to the spelling bee by bus, Adam Goldberg is very funny as the increasingly frazzled vice-principal entrusted with giving contestants ludicrous examples of sentences employing words to be spelled correctly, and Axandre Lemours supplies benign comic menace as the guy whose involvement in the bee is part of his community service.

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Hosanna: a powerful and touching production from TotoToo theatre

Hosanna: a powerful and touching production from TotoToo theatre

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Photo.  Maria Vartanova

When Hosanna by Michel Tremblay first appeared in French in 1973, it was often considered a metaphor for Quebec’s search for identity during the Quiet Revolution. Today, some 43 years after its explosive debut, it is more likely to be viewed as the gay equivalent of the rocky relationship between George and Martha (played by Elizabeth Taylor) in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf.

The play has a similar intensity and similar expressions of cruelty and, ultimately, of an enduring love that transcends the bitterness and squalor of daily life. Hosanna offers a more hopeful ending, but both plays deal with stripping away pretence and the layers of falsehood to come to a core of truth.

In the TotoToo Theatre production of Hosanna, directed by Jim McNabb, Barry Daley, in the title role, and John Collins as his biker/stud partner capture every emotion and connection in their fine and well-contrasted performances.

Daley, as the flamboyant, grotesquely made-up drag queen in his intentionally tawdry Cleopatra gear, and Collins, more subtle and withdrawn, in leather jacket, boots and jeans, are a terrific team — as they were in a previous TotoToo production, Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen.

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Anne of Green Gables: Orpheus offers a spirited production of this musical adaptation of the novel

Anne of Green Gables: Orpheus offers a spirited production of this musical adaptation of the novel

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Photo courtesy of Orpheus Musical Theatre.

Seems we just can’t get enough of Anne Shirley, that spunky young redhead who packs her overheated imagination and drama queen ways along with her clothes when she moves from a Nova Scotia orphanage to a PEI farm. This time around Anne is portrayed by Caroline Baldwin, and Orpheus couldn’t have asked for a better one in its production of the musical adaptation of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s beloved novel. Baldwin’s a skilled vocalist, her delivery easy, full and nuanced. Her acting is on par with her singing: the actress is a woman, but the character we see is a young girl and one who’s endlessly interesting and entertaining as she learns about herself, family and community.

While Baldwin shines in this spirited production, her fellow cast members for the most part aren’t far behind. Gilbert Blythe is played with conviction by Storm Davis who transforms himself into a youngster smitten with Anne and who, while easily cowed, inevitably pops back up for another go at whatever he’s after. Davis needs to let loose more when singing: his vocal constraint works against his ability.

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Glorious: Linden House Theatre Triumphs Over An Inferior Play

Glorious: Linden House Theatre Triumphs Over An Inferior Play

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Photo: Maureen O’Neil

What do you do if you take on a play that is essentially a one-joke piece?

If you are Ottawa’s Linden House Theatre company you attempt to paper over the cracks and smother the deficiencies with a superior production of Peter Quilter’s comedy, Glorious!

So you do have to applaud actress Janet Uren for her success in delivering a warmly human performance of a real-life figure named Florence Foster Jenkins, an aspiring concert-hall diva who seemed impervious to the realities of her appalling singing voice.

We’re subjected to various displays of uncertain pitch, strangled high notes and faltering technique in the course of the evening. And initially we do get some some amusement from our initial encounter with that voice and from the scarcely veiled horror displayed by Kurt Shantz in the role of a young pianist who, until then, has no idea of what he’s getting into when he applies to become Florence’s accompanist.

But this is a comic situation that is subject to the law of diminishing returns. Keep attempting to ring more fun out of Florence’s awful singing, and the well runs dry.

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Next to Normal: Indie Women productions triumphs at Centrepoint!!

Next to Normal: Indie Women productions triumphs at Centrepoint!!

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Photo: Mike Heffernan.  Skye MacDiarmid, Derek Eyamie, Jeremy Sanders.

Singer-actress Skye MacDiarmid, repeats her amazing portrayal as Diana, a bipolar mother suffering from a combination of affective disorders including depression and PTSD as the result of the early death of her son Gabe. MacDiarmid again takes over the stage this time in the Centrepoint studio, just as she did last year at the Gladstone theatre. Her strong acting skills, her dramatic voice, and her immediate burst of talent carries us off to a realm of theatre that makes the reality of the situation much easier to watch. The script is down to earth, the characters are down to earth, and we find great strength in watching this family drama, as it unfolds around a subject matter that is not easy to watch but that keeps us deeply involved.

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