Cincinnati
Once upon a summertime, there wasn't much theatre in Cincinnati. No longer. Summer began raucously with the regional premiere of Hedwig and the Angry Inch (closed June 23) at Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati (ETC). Todd Almond, a 1999 grad from the University of Cincinnati's College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) who's been working in New York as an actor, cabaret singer, and composer, was back in town to play the title role. For the "Inch," ETC assembled an all-star band of Cincinnati musicians from bands with regional and national reputations, including The Ass Ponys and The Afghan Whigs. Music directing was another CCM grad ('93), Philip Solomon, formerly of the Impotent Sea Snakes and now a New York performance artist.
New theatre is also cooking in Cincinnati this summer as three local companies premiere new works. Since last fall, the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival (CSF) has been workshopping Joseph McDonough's A Chance of Lightning, a comedy created (in the mode of Shakespeare's own company) specifically to use CSF's five full-time actors. The show received a full staging June 7-24. The low-budget but ambitious Know Theatre Tribe continues its relationship with playwright Kevin Barry; his play about a playwright infatuated with a young athlete, Track & Field (June 15-30), is his fourth work staged by KTT. And New Edgecliff Theatre is launching Southern Discomfort (June 21-July 1), a dark comedy about three generations of dysfunctional Southern women, by Randall David Cook.
Elsewhere in the region, Actors Theatre of Louisville has announced its 2001-2002 season, opening with Tina Landau and Adam Guettel's Floyd Collins. Also scheduled: an adaptation of Dracula, The Piano Lesson, A Tuna Christmas, A Christmas Carol, Noël Coward's Hay Fever (staged by frequent ATL guest director, Ann Bogart), Macbeth, and Art. The 26th annual Human Festival of New American Plays will be March 6-April 7, 2002.
In Indianapolis, the Indiana Repertory Theatre next season offers two world premieres, Looking Over The President's Shoulder and Sister Carrie, in addition to Amadeus, The Color of Justice, A Christmas Carol, Art, Agnes of God, Julius Caesar, and Ah, Wilderness!
Rick Pender
Atlanta
The farewell for one and possibly two of the Alliance Theatre's directors came this spring with the season finale of Art (closed June 10). Outgoing Artistic Director Kenny Leon made his exit in Art, playing Yvan with so many grimaces and so much bowing and scraping that his comrades seemed to keep Yvan around strictly for their sadistic jollies.
Conversely, Tom Key and Chris Kayser were at the top of their game as Marc and Serge, making their blood feud over Serge's taste in art engaging, even as their fury impaled the core of their friendship. How refreshing director David Bell made Yasmina Reza's repartee between men over something other than women and sports, in what may be Bell's last staging at the Alliance as new Artistic Director Susan V. Booth organizes her own operation.
A bickering Victorian trio on safari unraveled in Synchronicity Group's On the Verge (closed June 17) in Grant Park's Beam Theatre, steered by Holly Stevenson as a delicious female parody of an old coot prospector. Circuitously directed by Rachel May, Verge coalesced in an extended 1955 finish that allowed Kathleen Wattis and John Benzinger to enchant as goofy prom partners.
Director Tim Habeger continues to reinvent Tennessee Williams, following his all-black The Glass Menagerie with a stark A Streetcar Named Desire at the Shakespeare Tavern (closed June 3). Patricia French was vividly matter-of-fact as a survivalist Blanche, acutely manipulating Mitch (Jeffrey Watkins) until she unequivocally rejects him. Turning "I have always relied upon the kindness of strangers" into a shot of triumph, French combusted real sibling affection and friction with Agnes Lucinda Harty as Stella, and there was some heat with a miscast Dikran Tulaine as Stanley.
Highs and lows alternated in Sonny Goff's direction of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown at Marietta's Theatre in the Square (closed June 17). Never making the material too precious were Rebekah Bay as a steely Lucy, Jeff McKerley as a nicely glum Charlie Brown, and a major new musical player in Christopher Ryan as a Snoopy both demonic and demonstrative. Successful as both comedy and Gothic cliffhanger is director Randee Trabitz's mix of genres in Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep at Actor's Express (May 17-June 30). Accomplished comedians as well as actors, David Crowe and Hugh Adams also play well off each other to rich comic reward.
At the Georgia Tech Ferst Center for the Arts, Atlanta Lyric Theatre's Carousel (closed May 6) was dramatically inert but musically lush, with solid deliveries from leads Adelia Thompson and Daniel Britt.
Dave Hayward
St. Louis took a leaf from Kansas City's book and inaugurated its own free St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, with civic activist R. Crosby Kemper III leading the way in bringing the eastern edge of the state up to date in terms of classic theatre the way he did on the west, though Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II first accomplished it in 1943.
Romeo & Juliet, directed by PJ Paparelli, was the inaugural, running June 2-17 in Forest Park, and, despite weather problems that made a full run-through impossible until opening night, it went off almost flawlessly, with good crowds and strong reviews. A couple of recent Juilliard graduates, Sean McNall ('00) and Jennifer Ikeda ('01), were the title characters, with veteran local actors like Joneal Joplin, Jerry Vogel, and Susie Wall bringing their experience to bear in older roles. Michael Milligan stole opening-night honors with a rowdy, breezy portrayal of Mercutio that delighted the crowd of more than 2,000. Dorothy Marshall Englis, usually seen at the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis, designed costumes, Christopher Pickart did an outstanding set and Ann Anderson designed the best theatrical sound ever heard in Forest Park, where the Muny subsequently opened its 82nd season June 18, with seven musicals to run over the following eight weeks.
The Kansas City Shakespeare Festival (also free) opened June 19, with The Tempest and Twelfth Night to continue until July 15. While Shakespeare was dazzling St. Louisans in Forest Park, Stages began its 15th season of book musicals with a sprightly Damn Yankees in the Kirkwood Civic Center Theatre. Peggy Taphorn was strong as Lola, the Devil's delightful disciple, bringing a tantalizing aura of sin to the staid suburb of Kirkwood. Bill Lynch was sulphuric and funny as Mr. Applegate, and there was strong work from Amy Griffin, Michele Burdette Elmore, Whit Reichert, and Tom Murray. Michael Hamilton directed stylishly, avoiding the temptation to take silly liberties with the book by George Abbott and Douglass Wallop, and Dana Lewis added charming choreography in the style of Bob Fosse's original.
Joe Pollack
Eve Ensler's The Vagina Monologues (closed June 17) recently returned to Utah; local activist Babs DeLay joined actors Sherry Parker Lee and Starla Benford on stage at Salt Lake City's Jeanne Wagner Theatre. But, no doubt, there were some disappointed folks: first, because a ticket to one of the eight performances proved nearly impossible to acquire; and second, because the play is not all that controversial. Apart from the title, some strong language, and a few graphic descriptions of abuse and mutilation, the monologues are a witty, poignant opportunity to share what it means to be a woman. The play's first incursion into Utah was Ensler's performance during the January 2000 Sundance Film Festival, which created very little stir in upmarket Park City. But the March 2000 performances in Moab, a small, Southern Utah resort town, sparked an aborted attempt to establish a review board to control offerings at the Moab Arts and Recreation Center. The show, nonetheless, sold out, just as it has in Salt Lake City. Since DeLay is president of Salt Lake's Rape and Recovery Center, it is no coincidence that the first performance is a benefit for the center.
After a three-year absence from Salt Lake's theatre scene, TheatreWorks West offered the regional premiere of Diana Son's Stop Kiss (closed June 10) at the new black-box CenterStage in the Gay and Lesbian Center of Utah. Fran Pruyn ably directed this story of intolerance; Brandie Balken as Callie and Melanie Olmstead as Sara showed the range necessary—both before and after the ill-fated kiss that brings them such violence. Tickets have already gone on sale for another hate-crime investigation; The Laramie Project (July 18-Aug. 12) will be produced by Plan B Theatre Company and performed in the Salt Lake Acting Company Chapel Theatre.
Other summer fare is not as provocative. Oklahoma (1943) and The Sound of Music (1958) will run in repertory (June 13-Sept. 1) at the 2,000-seat outdoor amphitheatre Tuachan, located against red-rock cliffs in Ivins outside St. George. These two musicals are the first and last collaborations of Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. Both shows are missing the famous Tuachan flood effect, but directors Derryl Yeager and Tim Threlfall have still used many special effects, including horses and wagons, to fill the huge stage.
Claudia W. Harris
The last hurrahs of the 2000-2001 pre-summer season included a well-drawn production of Art, Yasmina Reza's award-studded comedy of connoisseurship and friendship at The Cleveland Play House (closed June 10). Play House Artistic Director Peter Hackett guided a trio of veteran Play House personalities—Andrew May, Murphy Guyer, and Mike Hartman—in this popular actors' tour de force about cultural preferences and male bonding.
Two productions whose reach exceeded their grasp were City of Angels at the Halle Theatre of the Jewish Community Center (closed June 10) and The Alchemist at Bad Epitaph Theater Company (closed June 17).
Book writer Larry Gelbart's labyrinthine plot of the 1989 mega-Tony award musical includes 15 actors playing almost twice as many characters through 40 scene changes. Coupled with Cy Coleman's jazzy score and David Zippel's clever lyrics, this edgy satire, a musical spoof of the movie industry set in 1940s Hollywood, is a monumental challenge to present. Director Rohn Thomas' overly ambitious production shone only intermittently. Noteworthy amongst a cast of fluctuating abilities were Keith Gerchak as the tyrannical movie tycoon, Frank Kosik as a fictional Latino cop with an attitude, and Sheri Levy Gross as the loyal Girl Friday, twice over. The voluptuous Tonja Walker Davidson of soap opera fame ("One Life to Live" and "General Hospital") added flair to twin portraits of the cheating and greedy wife.
Despite the arcane language, Ben Jonson's 400-year-old farce about the many guises of greed has a decisively contemporary ring. Unfortunately, both language and message were largely indecipherable in director Lawrence Nehring's mangled production, featuring an undistinguished cast of 12 who sacrificed subtlety and wit for a manic shouting match.
On a more positive note, Cleveland theatre's leading lady, Dorothy Silver, delivered the performance of a lifetime as the mercurial opera diva Maria Callas in Master Class at the Beck Center for the Arts (closed June 10). Distinguished actor and director Reuben Silver directed his wife and a peerless supporting cast in Terrence McNally's 1996 Tony Award-winning play. Theatre anywhere doesn't get much better.
Fran Heller
The dot-com collapse. Mardi Gras riots. An earthquake. The departure of arts-friendly corporation Boeing. There's no doubt that 2001 is going down into the history books as a particularly bad one for Seattle, as our "Best City" Hubris is squarely clobbered by a whole bushel of Nemesis.
Seattle theatre, it seems, is just as prone to disaster. First there was the extensive damage caused to the venerable 5th Avenue in the wake of the Feb. 28 earthquake, where the tremor caused over $80,000 in damage. (Essential repairs have been made for the theatre to continue their season, but renovations and repair work continue.) Then late on the night of May 20, a fire gutted the Speakeasy Café, Seattle's first Internet café, which also contained the popular performance venue the Speakeasy Backroom.
Starting upstairs and fueled by some recently varnished hardwood floors, the fire destroyed the 78-seat venue, which has housed film series, live music, and theatre work by companies including One World, Ursa Major, and Live Girls! Most recently, it was the home for three months to Mike Daisey's phenomenally successful solo show 21 Dog Years: Life at Amazon.com. The building's owners are waiting to see if insurance will make it worthwhile to invest in a rebuilding of the space.
Then, in an incident without any clear cause (though February's earthquake may have been a factor), an extensive brick façade of the building housing Fremont's Empty Space Theatre collapsed on Wed., May 23. While there was no internal damage to the theatre, the company, which was in final rehearsals for Great Men of Science, found itself locked out of the theatre while the building's structural integrity was examined. With the show set to begin previews on June 1 and opening on June 6, there was more than a little concern.
Fortunately, the building was declared sound by Saturday noon, and both tech staff and actors were able to get back to work. Both previews and the show's opening went up without a hitch, and Seattle's artists crossed their fingers and shared hopes that they've seen the last of this year's uncommonly bad luck.
John Longenbaugh
Westchester Broadway Theatre in Elmsford currently presents High Society (through July 28). Director-choreographer Alan Coats has cast the talented Cristin Mortenson as Tracy, a good actor and fine singer whose patently false blond wig distracts from her performance. Unfortunately, Kurt Peterson is woefully miscast as the suave Dexter. Peterson has a booming voice that one can easily live with, but he appears far too mature for the role. His acting is far from subtle as well, undermining his credibility.
Howard Lawrence and Diana Pappas, on the other hand, are very well suited to their roles as Connor and Liz. Mr. Lawrence has that average guy look with plenty of charm and singing talent. Steve Geyer is miscast as the blue-collar George, Tracy's intended. Not for a moment is he believable in this somewhat thankless role.
The Helen Hayes Performing Arts Center in Nyack kicked summer off with A Chorus Line under Troy Garza's faithful restaging of Michael Bennett's original direction. This A Chorus Line was energetic, human, and generally entertaining. Certain performances are vibrant.
Elisa Heinsohn's Cassie, Patric A. Creelman's Al, and Renee Bonadio's Diana stood out in the overall ensemble and not just because of their meatier roles. The only curious casting was Jenny-Lynn Suckling as Sheila, the worldly, buxom "woman" among "girls." Suckling is a long, thin drink of water, and strains a bit to maintain a hard-boiled attitude through her performance.
The Schoolhouse in Croton Falls had a field day with The House of Blue Leaves (closed June 10) under Pamela Moller Kareman's direction. Keith Barber's ordinary, workingman appearance fit as Artie. Sarah Baker had a heyday with Bunny, maintaining her nearly non-stop jabbering effortlessly. Jill Jackson was a curiously lucid Bananas. Laurie Calahan used the stage like she owns it as the Head Nun and Carey Macaleer beamed as the Little Nun. Garth Bardsley's choice to make Ronnie patently insane, however, was less interesting than if he had underplayed it for the sake of ambiguity.
E. Kyle Minor
"You can ruin our costumes, knock down our sets, but you can't destroy our play." That was the message artistic director Gregory Boyd delivered to Houston's Alley Theatre company in the wake of the flood caused by tropical storm Allison during the weekend of June 9-10. Water entered the Alley through the downtown pedestrian tunnel system, submerging two basement-level floors. The flood caused extensive damage to the 296-seat Neuhaus Arena Stage, the costume, scene, and props departments, and rehearsal hall.
"I know it sounds corny," Alley spokesperson Jennifer Garza told Back Stage, "but the show must go on—that's become our motto." Because electricity and phone service in the entire theatre district were still disrupted more than a week later (Garza spoke via cell phone), the Alley is closed and has canceled remaining performances of The Devil's Disciple. But the world premiere of Horton Foote's The Carpetbagger's Children, starring Hallie Foote and Jean Stapleton, has been moved a few blocks west, to Stages Repertory Theatre (and extended through July 8).
Garza said the company is still digging out and assessing the damage, but it expects to partially resume its "Summer Chills" program, beginning July 20. "If people want to see what happened, we've posted photos on our web site (www.alleytheatre.org)," she added. "And it also allows people to contribute if they wish."
The Alley was not the only theatre district venue damaged by the storm. Jones Hall, home of the Houston Symphony Orchestra and the Society for the Performing Arts, was heavily damaged, largely destroying the organizations' belowground offices and the symphony's music library and several precious instruments. The nearby Wortham Center, home to the Houston Grand Opera and the Houston Ballet, also suffered extensive damage. Some shows were delayed, and the ballet company lost costumes worth several hundred thousand dollars.
The flood, which took many lives and cost many millions of dollars in damages, was a stark reminder of the darker side to Houston's nickname: the Bayou City.
Michael King
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland opened its full summer season June 15 with the first of three Shakespeare plays, The Merchant of Venice. The two others in the outdoor season, continuing through Oct. 7, are Troilus and Cressida, which opened June 16, and The Merry Wives of Windsor, which opened June 17. The three are presented in rotating repertory on the festival's open-air stage in the 1,200-seat Elizabethan Theatre.
Of the summer crop, The Merry Wives of Windsor gains much from Ray Porter's lecherous Falstaff, a listing hulk sinking under his own vices as he pursues two virtuous Windsor wives.
These join plays in the festival's 600-seat Angus Bowmer Theatre and 140-seat Black Swan. In the Bowmer are Shakespeare's The Tempest; Enter the Guardsman, a musical adaptation of a Molnar play; Life Is a Dream, by Pedro Calderon de la Barca, adapted by Laird Williamson (through July 8); and Oo-Bla-Dee, by Regina Taylor. After Life Is a Dream leaves, Chekhov's Three Sisters will join the Bowmer schedule, July 25-Oct. 27. This will be the last of 11 productions in the season.
The Trip to Bountiful, by Horton Foote, left the Black Swan schedule June 24 to make room for Two Sisters and a Piano, by Nilo Cruz, which opens July 3 and runs through Oct. 28, the end of the season. Also in the Black Swan is Fuddy Meers, by David Lindsay-Abaire, also through Oct. 28.
This is the final season for the Black Swan, which opened in 1977. A new, larger theatre is being built adjacent to the Swan, to open in 2002. The Swan will become rehearsal space. Many of the nation's drama critics will get a preview of the theatre under construction when the American Theatre Critics Association holds its annual conference in Southern Oregon July 10-15. They will see OSF plays, an original show, Eat TV at the Oregon Cabaret Theatre in Ashland, and will visit the Craterian Ginger Rogers Theater in nearby Medford.
Some will take a post-conference trip to Portland, at the north end of the state, to meet with theatre representatives there July 15-17.
Alvin Reiss
Across the state, the annual assortment of outdoor dramas is well under way. There are 15 of these summer productions running this year. The two oldest and most successful are Paul Green's The Lost Colony and Kermit Hunter's Unto These Hills. The Green drama, which chronicles the first English settlement in the New World, plays on Roanoke Island from June 1-Aug. 24. Hunter's play about the tragic history of the Cherokee is performed in Cherokee, June 13-Aug. 25. These two productions are expected to attract nearly 150,000 people.
Other significant productions include Horn in the West at Boone, Sword of Peace and Pathway to Freedom in Snow Camp, From This Day Forward in Valdese, Strike at the Wind in Pembroke, and Worthy is the Lamb at Swansboro.
Not all the summer action is under the stars. Sanford's Temple Theatre is having a highly successful run of the bouncy Pump Boys and Dinettes. The bad news for Temple audiences is that longtime guru, Tim Morrisey, has announced his retirement, effective in August. A national search is underway to replace Morrisey, who has made the Sanford operation a major player in the Triangle theatre scene.
Out west, three shows continue through July 1. The Blowing Rock Stage Company opens its annual summer season with I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change; down the road a piece, Flat Rock Playhouse is offering Bye Bye Birdie; still in the west, the Southern Appalachian Repertory Theatre in Mars Hill stages the boisterous Noises Off.
In Asheville, the newly transplanted Blue Shirt Theatre Ensemble presented The Fatherhood Project, a theatrical and multi-media celebration and examination of the issue of fatherhood in America, at the Be Be Theatre (closed June 17).
William Hardy
As a concept, keeping body and soul together usually implies staying alive. Daphne R. Hull turns this concept on its ear in her play Eulogy, which recently received its professional premiere at Detroit Repertory Theatre (closed June 24). In Eulogy, the body and spirit of Nonie Benner, the main character, frequently part company, although Nonie is very much of this world.
Nonie is, therefore, played by two people: The spirit, called Nonie, is played by Barbara Busby and does the preponderance of the talking and walking. The body, called Woman in Bed, is played by Shirley Benyas, and spends most of her time in a nursing home bed.
Bodies may age and become feeble, but minds are made of more durable stuff. Just as Nonie is more than a nameless woman in bed, there is more to the title of Hull's play than a single word. The full title is Eulogy: What I Would Have Said, Given the Gift or Articulation. And Eulogy does give Nonie Benner the gift of articulation. "Yes, that's me; what a sight I am," says Busby, as she watches Benyas sleeping. Benyas may be silent in many scenes, but that doesn't mean she isn't acting.
As visitors and nursing home workers come and go, Nonie (both of her) reminisces. That's risky; talking is rarely as satisfying to an audience as seeing something happen, and the more the past is discussed, the less room there is for anything to happen in the present. Roads with potential are left untraveled; most significantly, there is a mean and thieving nurse's aide who, in what is essentially a comedy, ought to get her comeuppance but never does.
Detroit's Wayne State University was the site of a four-day regional gathering on African-American theatre convened by the African Grove Institute for the Arts (AGIA), a national organization whose mission is to support black theatre. Participants from nine Midwestern states met to share ideas about marketing, funding, developing talent, building audiences, and making black theatre more viable.
Over the next 10 or 12 months, AGIA plans similar gatherings in other regions to form permanent state chapters. Long-term, AGIA is planning a national convention in 2004 in Savannah, Ga.
Martin F. Kohn
Phoenix's Valley Youth Theatre's next step to prominence was well publicized, even covered by a local television crew. Their first production to mix adults performers with youth was of the musical Oliver! The show was brimming with a cast of 52, including a majority of exuberant children, each getting their moment to shine on the Herberger Theater's Center Stage. Director Bobb Cooper and choreographer Robert L. Harper took the teeming mass and plugged them into the song-filled tale. Ordinarily, while a group that large might have become more of a traffic problem than an ensemble situation, both were able not only to keep everyone in line and in their places, but also managed to get some rather impressive moments from them musically, choreographically, and textually. While there were rough moments in the show, especially technically, this was an enjoyable retelling.
Phoenix Theatre will open its Fourth Annual New Works Festival on July 20 with a new play by world-famous Phoenix resident Dale Wasserman titled How I Saved the Whole Damn World. The play will premiere July 20 and 21 in the Phoenix Theatre Little Theatre space. Three additional plays will follow: Gary Bonasorte's Killing Real Estate Women will be presented July 27 and 28; David Van Asselt's Dreams of a Gored Bison will be presented Aug. 3 and 4, and Richard Warren's Crazy Days of Summer will be presented Aug. 10 and 11.
Mark S. P. Turvin