This review aired on KBAQ March 25, 2013

“MUSICAL OF MUSICALS” FUNNY LOOK AT MUSICAL THEATER FOIBLES

“THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS”
Theater Works, Peoria Center for Performing Arts
Peoria, AZ

Peoria’s Theater Works crafts a wry and funny insider look at the musical theater’s foibles and hysterical absurdities in “The Musical of Musicals.”  The fast-paced show is filled with ribald laughter and it is performed by a farcical four-person ensemble and accompanied by a clever piano player and narrator who adds his own bits of innuendo and malarkey.  It helps to know every musical theater nuance but I attended with two people who posses just … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ March 18, 2013

PHOENIX THEATRE’S “LA CAGE AUX FOLLES” IS DELIGHTFUL ENTERTAINMENT

“LA CAGE AUX FOLLES”
Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix, AZ

“La Cage aux Folles” is a delightful entertainment extravaganza that explodes all over the Phoenix Theatre stage.  It’s a less formalized production than the recent Broadway revival but it’s still an outrageously fun and frolicking delight.

Director Michael Barnard attracted a superb cast who execute the various roles with style as they find amazingly subtle comic moments that adds much humor to the already hysterical Jerry Herman musical.  The familiar story is set in a St. Tropez nightclub where female impersonators … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ March 11, 2013

WINNING STAGING OF “SOUTH PACIFIC” AT GILBERT’S HALE CENTRE

“SOUTH PACIFIC”
Hale Centre Theatre
Gilbert, AZ

There are many weak local community theaters but one consistently distinguishes itself, Gilbert’s Hale Centre Theatre.  I have yet to be seriously disappointed at the Hale Centre and the current production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1949 trend-setting “South Pacific” is a winning staging of the classic show.

Rodgers and Hammerstein were well ahead of Broadway when they introduced the theme of racial intolerance into their musical.  The theme dominates most of the characters and their lives as American World War II soldiers … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ March 7, 2013

BROADWAY MUSICAL “MEMPHIS” IS A HIGH SPIRITED DELIGHT

“MEMPHIS”
Broadway Across America – Tempe, ASU Gammage
Tempe, AZ

On Broadway, “Memphis” was a high spirited delight.  After all, it won four 2010 Tony Awards including Best Musical.  The tour that plays ASU Gammage this week is a faithful re-creation of the rollicking Broadway original and it’s one of the best new musicals to play here.  It has an unflagging beat as the show explores racial prejudice in Tennessee during the early 1950s with pulsating vibrancy and pointed realism.  It was appalling how bigoted whites were toward Blacks … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ March 4, 2013

NOEL COWARD’S “PRIVATE LIVES” HAS ITS MOMENTS IN SSC STAGING AND ELAINE PAIGE CONCERT NEEDS WORK

“PRIVATE LIVES”
Southwest Shakespeare Company, Farnsworth Studio Theater, Mesa Arts Center
Mesa, AZ

“Private Lives” is a sprightly Noel Coward farce that looks at stuffy British morals in the 1930s and laughs at the silly snobbery that marks Coward’s affluent characters’ otherwise uneventful lives.  Coward’s commentary is always bright, funny, and, of course, sublimely sophisticated.

Southwest Shakespeare Company is reviving the play in a decent production staged by Don Bluth that too infrequently captures the necessary British nose-in-the-air snootiness that signals the … Continue Reading