And now for something completely different:
Springfield Theatre Centre’s Active and Creative Teen Theatre
troupe is giving us a play to think about this weekend: Boiling People in My Coffee, by Jonathan Yukich, a theater professor at New York
University. It runs Friday and Saturday, July 29 and 30, at the
Hoogland Center for the Arts.
The one-act play is directed by Eddie Van
Bogaert, who will be a junior at Rochester High School this fall,
and features a four-member cast of area teens: Molly Mathewson of
Athens, Daniel and Taylor Bapst of Rochester, and Mike Watts of
Pleasant Plains.
“This play is pretty edgy,” says
Van Bogaert, “and it’s probably the most ‘out
there’ show ACTT has ever done.” The play centers on
the death of a couple’s son and, says Van Bogaert, holds
“some interesting surprises.”
The teens had been looking at scripts,
searching for something challenging, difficult, something to really
dig into, and they found Yukich’s play, which has been given
43 productions at universities and high schools around the country
since 2001.
Preceding the play is a performance by the
teen improv group the Easily Amused Comedy Improv Troupe.
Another new play receiving a premiere this
week is Ken Bradbury’s The
Knollwood Stories. It’s being
presented in Jacksonville at the Studio Theatre, on College Avenue.
The play came about through a class Bradbury taught this summer at
Lincoln Land Community College. Twelve students interviewed 24
residents at the Knollwood Retirement Village and used 200 hours of
taped interviews to create the play, which will be performed at 7
p.m. Thursday and Friday, July 28 and 29, and at 2 p.m. Saturday,
July 30. The show covers such topics as school days, the
Depression, romance, World War II, and growing old.
The show, directed by Bradbury, also features
original songs. For tickets, call 217-245-1402.
On the other end of the theatrical
spectrum, the 40-year-old musical classic Fiddler on the Roof is
being given a solid production at the Little Theatre on the Square
through July 31 by an ensemble of actors led by Jack Milo as Tevye.
Milo’s performance is less the usual star turn and more in
tune with the character created from Sholom Aleichem’s original
stories. It works here, especially alongside Ann Borders as
Tevye’s wife, Golde, and Anna McNeely as Yente. Both bring
perfect comic timing yet imbue every word with an underlying sense of
seriousness. The show is beautifully designed, with sets by Nathan R.
Rohrer, lighting by Diane Kinkennon, and costumes by Kathryn Wagner.
Musical director P. Jason Yarcho is one of the best musical directors
around, and his small pit orchestra serves the score well. For tickets,
call 888-261-9675.
New Salem’s production of the
hit musical Little Shop of Horrors continues this weekend, with performances at
8 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. For fans of the show, this production is a
little different, but the vocals and the band are definitely worth
checking out. Grant Estes is the voice of Audrey II, but instead of
singing from inside the plant, he stands onstage with the band.
Watching him perform is a treat; in fact, the entire performance
feels like a show and concert, rolled into one. The two leads,
Vanessa Ferguson and Blake Long, have great voices and both are
fantastic in this production. A newcomer to the area, J. Nick
Dickert, a visiting professor of theater at Jacksonville’s
MacMurray College, directs. For tickets, call 217-632-5440 or
800-710-9290.
After seeing the play Broadway at Krannert
Center in Urbana a couple of weeks ago, I went back to see My Three Angels,
directed by William G. Martin. The 1952 French play was adapted the
following year for Broadway by Sam and Bella Spewack (in 1955, it
became a film, starring Humphrey Bogart). Like Broadway, this is another
seldom-seen play and one wonders why. Set in 1910, three convicts
on the island of Cayenne, French Guiana, come to the aid of a
family at Christmastime. It is hilarious, and tender, too. Dallas
Street, who played the lead role in Sunday
in the Park with George here last
year, is priceless as one of the convicts. Street, along with Peter
Davis and E. Wesley Parks, are having a ball in this one. The
repertory season (which includes Neil Simon’s Last of the Red Hot Lovers and Broadway) concludes this weekend. For tickets, call
217-333-6280.
This article appears in Jul 28 – Aug 3, 2005.
