THEATER REVIEW: The Producers

State College Community Theatre pulled out all the stops and talent for their production of THE PRODUCERS, the musical comedy hit by Mel Brooks and Thomas Meeham. The only flaw that I can think of was that it did not run long enough.

I have seen THE PRODUCERS several times, including a not so great version by a national touring company, but director Jason Poorman hit the perfect note. Everything worked together, from creative staging, workable sets (Jeff Maloney), costumes that helped to define character (Julie Snyder), energetic choreography (Molly Riva), and, most importantly, being able to hear the actors over an excellent orchestra. Thank you, conductor Michael Marini.

The show was so well cast that it is difficult to highlight any one person. Many members of the ensemble had a moment in the spot light, but since the program did not give credit to the individuals, I have to do what I can. 

Special applause goes to ‘Roger’s team’. I am not sure which actor played which part, but you all helped to make it a very funny bit.

The same goes for the Little Old Ladies, and what delightfully dirty old ladies they were. I loved that each stayed so well in character in scenes where they were not featured. Though, I do think that I noticed a very healthy beard on one during the “walker dance”. That was fun!

I am not sure where to start with the leads. Most of them we have seen in previous productions, but each brought a surprise to this performance.  

Ken Wozetek’s Max Bialystock tore up the stage. He dominated his scenes with the other actors, but his shining moment was his soliloquy “Betrayed”. That is the perfect example of “tours de force”.

 

It was impossible not to fall a little in love with James McCready as Leo Bloom. His panic attacks brought out the maternal feelings in all of us.

The part of Ulla gave Katie Kensinger another chance to play the sexy bombshell—and this time as a blond. I knew that Katie could sing and act, but her talents as a dancer were showcased well in this production.

Tom McClary is brilliant! His portrayal of Roger de Bris was so right; his effeminate Hitler brought down the house. His partner Carmen Giya was played by Eric Brinser. This is meant to be one of the “smaller” parts but Eric made it a stand out one.

I was really impressed by Steve Travis as Franz Liebkind. I know that I have seen him in other roles, but nothing prepared me for his voice, his movements, and, yes, his legs.

I am one of the people who feel nostalgic about Boal Barn and will miss going there in rain, heat, and cold, but if this is what the SCCT can do with a proscenium stage I cannot wait to see future shows.

Catch the final two shows today at 2pm and 8pm at the State Theater 130 W. College Ave., State College.  Arthur Miller’s The Crucible will be on stage at The State Theatre July 19-20 and July 26-27. (If I have one criticism the run time for their shows is too short.) Tickets can be ordered at 814-272-0606, or check out their website at www.scctonline.org. It looks like a good season.

BOOK REVIEW: Black Cross

Greg Iles books are consistently filled with edge-of-the-seat action and page-turning plots. I just finished one of his earlier books, Black Cross and I was exhausted by the time we had wiped out that Nazi camp.

Mark has just buried the grandparents who had raised him when an elderly rabbi came to the house to tell him the story of his grandfather’s secret role during the Second World War. What followed was an adventure that took us all on a breath-holding ride.

In Oxford University in 1944, Mark McConnell and his brother David are having a drink at the local pub. David has joined the British war effort as a fighter pilot.

Mark is a pacifist who wants nothing to do with the war. His medical degree combined with his degree in chemistry has made him important to the research that England is doing on nerve gasses. Evidence has been found that Germany has developed a gas that is deadlier than anything that has been used in the past. The Nazi commanders will have it ready for the Allied invasion at Normandy.

Mark is having trouble with his involvement in the research that could be responsible for millions of deaths. 

 

Meanwhile, Jonas Stern, a German Jew who has become a Zionist guerrilla fighter, has been arrested for crimes against His Majesty’s British forces in Palestine. Several of the British officers see Stern’s hatred of the Nazis as something that can be put to their use.

After some devious maneuvering, Mark and Jonas find themselves on a secret mission to a concentration camp deep within Germany where this new gas is being developed and tested on the prisoners of the camp.

With scenes from the camp as well as the preparation to capture the laboratory and a sample of the gas, Black Cross is an adventure story that will completely capture you.

Two things, besides his ability to craft a plot, make Iles one of my favorite authors. He develops characters that I can care about. Even his minor characters stay with you. That is important to me.

His surprising talent is his perfect use of language. He captures the speech pattern of his varied people in a way to make them believable, but more impressive are his descriptions that can be poetic. Here is how Mark tells of walking through Belgium and France years after the First World War:

He had stood awhile above the intermingled regiments of bones resting fitfully in shallow graves beneath the soil. And there, in whispers just beneath the wind that howled across the stark terrain, he heard the puzzled voices of boys who had never known the inside of a woman, who never had children, who had never grown old. Seven million voices asking in unison the unanswerable question that was an answer in itself:  

Why?

The Author's Notes thoroughly explain the use of nerve gas, an implement of war still being used today.  Greg Iles continues to make the case that there is nothing about war that is romantic.

THEATER REVIEW: Grease

 Millbrook Playhouse is celebrating 50 years of providing true professional summer stock theater in Mill Hall, Pennsylvania. This year's opening show was GREASE, which played to two weeks of sold-out audiences.

I was very proud of Bellefonte resident Jessica Brown as she made her professional acting debut. Jessica is a senior at Bellefonte High School where she was most recently seen as Ensign Nellie Forbush in South Pacific.

Director Michael Schloegl, who also was responsible for the terrific choreography, put together an ensemble that made the audience forget the big names from the movie version of GREASE.

It really was an ensemble cast. Each actor did his or her solo to cheers from the audience. When Johnny Haussener as Doody took the stage with “Those Magic Changes”, I thought that we had seen the scene stealer of the evening; but, then we had Sarah Michelle Cuc and Josh Millhouse with the delightful duet “Mooning”. 

Casey Shane and Erin Long as Danny and Sandy could do it all; they sang, danced and acted. All of the characters were so well defined. Jen Morris as Frenchy, Lizzie Harless as Marty, Brian Lose as Sonny, and Matt DaSilva as Kenickie were great. I am looking forward to seeing what other talents these young actors bring to Millbrook.

Talking about scene-stealers Richard Guido as Principal Miss Lynch is a solid one….but, then he usually is. The surprise of the evening was Timothy Hibbler. His transformation from Eugene, the nerd, to the super cool Teen Angel had to be seen to be believed.

photo courtesy of Millbrook Playhouse

For me the high light of GREASE is Rizzo. The actress playing the part has to be able to do two very different solos. Ayelet Firstenberg was more than capable. Her “Look at Me, I’m Sandra Dee” was tough and sarcastic and her “There Are Worse Things I Could Do” was heartfelt. Excellent job. 

Tonight is the final performance of GREASE.  Score a ticket if you can.  Come Blow Your Horn is currently playing in their Cabaret Theatre and Sound of Music opens June 28^th on the Main Stage. Check them out at www.millbrookplayhouse.org or call 570-748-8088 for tickets. It is worth the short trip to Mill Hall.

BOOK REVIEW: I Still Dream About You

Every now and then, I need a Fanny Flag fix. I have to admit her body of work ranges widely on my Like Meter. Some rank as “All-time- favorites”; some just get a “So-so”. I STILL DREAM ABOUT YOU hits about in the middle.

Maggie Fortenberry is a past Miss Alabama who is now working as a real estate agent. Her life is not happening as she expected. Her social life is limited, her love life is nonexistent, and the real estate market has fallen off thanks to a barracuda who works for a rival agency.

As a result, Maggie makes all of the arrangements to commit suicide. Her plans are perfect. Lists have been made to make sure that flowers are on her parents’ graves at each season and her money has been contributed to the proper charities. Her refrigerator will be empty; her beautiful wardrobe will be donated to the local thrift shop. All is ready.

Except, Maggie had not planned for life to get in the way. Each time that everything is set and she returns to her empty apartment, some problem that needs her personal attention seems to pop up.

The good thing is that Fanny Flagg has the base to introduce us to a list of interesting Southern characters and give us plot twists that keep the reader’s interest. Underlying all of Maggie’s dilemmas exists the tender/dark sense of humor that we have come to expect from Ms. Flagg. 

 

I STILL DREAM ABOUT YOU is not as good as Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café…..but then what is?

BOOK REVIEW: Still Alice

Believe me; I have read some frightening books in my time. I enjoy a good horror story now and then. Author Lisa Genova has written a novel that truly scared me. STILL ALICE, simply put, hit too close to home.
 

World-renowned linguists and Harvard professor in the field of cognitive psychology, fifty year old Alice Howland is proud of the life she has worked so hard to build. She and her husband John, also a professor at Harvard, have raised three children and collaborated on a successful book in their field.

Now she has become forgetful and easily disoriented. An excellent lecturer, she has started having trouble finding the right word. She gets lost in her own neighborhood. When the diagnosis comes back that she is in the early stages of early-onset Alzheimer’s disease her life, her husband’s life and that of her son and two daughters change drastically.

Alice tells her own story which makes her loss of self even more touching. The reader becomes aware of changes that Alice does not notice. Early in the book, Alice attends a class, sits in a chair and waits for the professor to show. After the required fifteen minutes, she walks out. Only the class and the reader realize that Alice was supposed to have been the teacher. 
 

The reader also picks up on her family’s reaction to the changes in Alice. Her husband seems to be the one who will not accept the fact of Alzheimer’s. Her children each come to the reality in different ways, but each with his or her own type of love. Some of her colleagues start treating her as if she were contagious.

This is Lisa Genova’s first novel. Ms. Genova holds a doctorate in neuroscience from Harvard University and is an online columnist for the National Alzheimer’s Association. This background plus a great deal of personal interviews and research made this a realistic account of the effects of early-onset Alzheimer’s. This is not to take away from the fact that this is a good read. The fictional characters are believable; the situations touching; and the story line strong.

I only wish I had read STILL ALICE before I watched my mother decline with this frustrating disease. So many of the signs were there and we did not recognize them. 
 

This should be a book be on every required reading list.

BOOK REVIEW: Looking For Jane

LOOKING FOR JANE, the most recent novel by Judith Redline Coopey, has just been released and it definitely lives up to her earlier works.

The year is 1890; the place is Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Fifteen-year-old Nell had been left on the doorstep of an orphanage as an infant. Nell was born with a cleft palate and has spent her fifteen years being teased by the local “mean boys” for her ugly looks and odd speech.

The nuns have decided to put her in service with one of the local farmers, but Nell is not impressed with the man or his beaten-down looking wife. Stealing a boat from the meanest of the gang of town boys, she heads down the river. By chance she finds a dime novel about the brave and wonderful Calamity Jane. Nell thinks that she has enough evidence to prove that Calamity Jane is her true mother, so she heads for Deadwood to meet this brave and noble person and be reunited with her family.

From this point Nell, and the reader, go on a ride across the central part of the United States, through the Badlands, and eventually to Deadwood, South Dakota. Along the way Nell is adopted by Soot, a large, lovable, mutt and Jeremy Chatterfield, a handsome Englishman whose ways of getting funds gets them into some potentially dangerous situations.

I was in love with Nell from the first paragraph. She has been put down by the nuns who raised her, teased by the locals, and has been very much on her own. Yet, she is courageous, patient, stubborn, kind, and ready to fight when she feels the need to protect herself or those she loves.

Her innocence mixed with a sense of practicability give a warm humor to the book. Ms. Coopey has a knack for finding the perfect voice for her characters. As I have often said, I read for characters first and then for plot. LOOKING FOR JANE is rich in both.

I would not admit this to anyone but my closest friends, but I finished the book, turned to tell my husband about it and could not speak. Nell had become so real to me that I had problems letting her go at the final chapter. If you have not discovered Judy Coopey and her strong women characters, try Redfern Farm a story of the Underground Railroad in Western Pennsylvania, or Waterproof, a novel after the Johnstown flood. You will thank me for introducing you to Nell and the others.