It's been real...

Readers of all kinds,
        What an interesting social experiment this has turned out to be. Throughout the semester this has been one hell of an experience for me. I don't believe I have ever attended so many GW shows in a single semester, and the rewards are immense. Thank you to all of those who helped, in any way, to put on a production this semester. It was a great season for GW theater.
        But, with graduation fast approaching, an acting role, my thesis, a writing opportunity, a visit from a special group of South Africans, and about a billion cover letters to write all in the same semester, I just don't think I'm going to be able to keep it going. Because I'm me, however, I can't resist a few things before I go:

1. From where I stand, this blog has done exactly what I wanted it to do. It both gave me an outlet to write down all my theater thoughts, and got people talking about the shows GW produces. Agree or disagree with any of my reviews, chances are if you read it, you talked about it with someone. And if you talked about the reviews, you talked about the shows. That was my main point here. Get people talking - because the more we talk about the quality of shows we produce, the more likely we are to produce good shows.

2. To the vast majority of you who supported me - especially the alumni and friends - Thank you! Chatting with all of you and hearing your feedback has been phenomenal. If you're upset I'm shutting it down, I'm sorry.

3. To those few of you who voiced your discontent with this blog in a respectful manner - Thank you as well. Your feedback was just as rewarding, and welcomed. Our opinions may have differed, but you have my respect regardless.

4. To the even fewer of you who voiced your discontent disrespectfully, called secret meetings to try and shut me down or get me blacked out of student theater, or quietly spread nonsense in the corner of a cast party thinking I couldn't hear you - I have two things to say. The first, a quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living." The second: buzz off, you read it anyway.

5. There will be two more reviews posted on this blog in the coming semester. The first will be a review of Michael Salgorolo's production, assuming he still wants me to do it - I am a man of my word who doesn't like getting punched in the nose. The second, will be a guest review of my thesis because this very same rubric I've used will be used to poll select audience members as part of the thesis itself.

6. In hindsight, yes, perhaps the creation of this blog was pretentious. But if you haven't noticed that every aspect of theater is a little bit pretentious in and of itself (with theater criticism perhaps being at the top of the list) then you're in for a very Spring Awakening.... I mean rude, rude awakening - do you see my point?

I'm excited about the coming theater season at GW. There are some awesome shows coming up and I hope I can get even a little bit close to seeing as many of them as I did this semester. Much love to all of you!

See you in the theater,
Ed

Generic: Cabaret

         FPP's annual Musical Cabaret is always a good time. Flashy dancing, exuberant singing.... wait. That's next semester? So this is.... ohhhh Kander and Ebb? THEY DID THAT?!?!
         Yes. GENERIC theater company did. And might I say, they did a pretty fine job with it.

Company Presentation
        Generic let this one get away from them a little bit. Seriously, the hype for this show was out of control. I half expected to walk in and find that Andy Lieberman had turned into Neil Patrick Harris, and that all the kit kat girls had been replaced with super models whose voices had been trained by Kander and Ebb themselves. No joke, if the lights had come up on the living, breathing, baby Jesus I would have nodded said, "yeah, that makes sense."
      The hype was so great, in fact, that I was really worried the show wouldn't even come close. From all the stories I was hearing I was afraid I was walking into an oversexualized, strip-dance, Andy Lieberman love fest (not that that isn't my every interaction with Andy - Love you boo :-* ). As will be said, I was pleasantly surprised.
       On the other hand, the poster is fierce if frightening. Certianly, it's an eye-grabber. It does make the downstage look a bit like the type of dark basement you would particularly want to avoid though.

Set
       What? That's it? That's the set? A couple of door frames, some tables and chairs, and one big platform? Really?
        Yes, really. And while it was boring and confusing as a first impression (especially given all the hype), Maddie made it WORK. The table seating downstage truly made the audience a part of the performance. The bare bones set was reminiscent of a sketchy, dive bar's late night cabaret, and yet, at the drop of a hat, perfectly transformed into an apartment building or bedroom.
        Creative, yet simple. My favorite.

Lights
       I will say one thing about the light design. Not only was the downstage lit, it was designed. The lights were not only functional - but a critical part of the production.

Acting
     There was no one in this production who stood out as a poor actor. And that is what made it truly enjoyable. Every performer new their role and fulfilled it. The kit kat girls stole the show - each one developing their own personality and working it on the stage. As for everyone else - wonderful job. It was hard to pick out performers for shout outs on this one, but here goes:

Madison Awalt - In the end, how is it possible to NOT talk about Sally in Cabaret? Madison's performance was outstanding. Her Sally was bubbly and energetic while heartbreaking at the same time. Her performance of "Maybe This Time" was tear jerking and certainly had a lump rising in my throat. While perhaps at times, especially early in the show, Madison slipped too far into the "persona" of it all, the overall effect was charming, and bitterly sad.

Lauren Winters - I loved seeing Lauren perform. Not only is her voice stunning, but she gave herself over fully to the character. Her story line was probably the most compelling of the entire production. Endearing and lovable, her Fauline Shneider was superb. I am excited to act along side her in the New Plays Festival in the coming semester.

Andy Lieberman - As I said before there was a lot of hype around Andy in the days prior to opening. And that makes sense now for two reasons. One, the role was perfect for him. And two, Andy put his heart and soul into it and it paid off. The fun-loving nature of the Emcee, mingled with the sinister rise of the Nazis, and culminating in a final moment of revelation was, in a word, breathtaking.

Directing
     I'd like to take this moment to offer my sincerest congratulations to director Maddie Hendricks and the entire production team. Not only was the vision clear and powerful, but it was executed wonderfully and every actor seemed to have gotten the coaching they needed. It was clear, however, that this was a group effort by the production team. While Maddie's character work and staging were wonderful, the show would have fallen flat without the work of Rick Westerkamp and Hope McCaffrey. Rick provided the first instance of motivated choreography I had seen all year. Hope's work, especially with solo numbers, filled in the sound. But, it was Maddie Hendricks who made the whole thing happen. Cheers to all of you!


Anyone hoping to top Cabaret for best musical of the year is going to have a tough time. I dare you to do it.

See you in the theater,
Ed

FPP: Assassins

             Hello student theater friends, alumni, and those other few people who read this just for fun! It's been a while, I know. I would take the time to explain why I haven't gotten these blog posts up - but I think at this point everyone knows about my special business with the president:

Photo Credit: Joe Plouffe

 So I'll just jump right into things.

       First, as usual, bias exposure! When I saw FPP's Assassins I was coming off of having seen the same show produced at Catholic University about two weeks earlier. The production at CU was phenomenal, and may have tainted my view of FPP's production. Also, I saw it quite some time ago and all I have to go off of are memories and the notes I wrote down when I got home from the performance. But, regardless, lehgo.

Company Presentation

       Nothing special, but not poorly done either. The show was given its due hype and it can't be said that we were allowed to forget about it. The posters are cool but nothing original. The man staring through american flag blinds / barbed wire thing is on the cover of the librettos and, while an awesome idea, has been seen before by anyone who knows the show. Which, maybe that's what they were going for - sort of like brand recognition or something. I don't know, either way, not a bad job but I wasn't frothing at the bit to see the show either.

Set

      Busy. That's really the only word I can think of to describe the set. There was A LOT going on. Criss-crossed red and blue were dashed all over the stage making it dizzying to look at, and at times a distraction to the action of the show. One side of the set was taken up by a large white "scrim" (really just a sheet stretched over a cut out whole in the set). At first, I thought this scrim was going to be used for projection - you can imagine my disappointment when it was only used for shadow play (which, by the way, reminded me of a children's shadow puppet show and was certainly NOT my favorite part of the production). The one thing the set did have going for it is that it vaguely made you feel as if you had walked into a carnival booth - an image that went well with the direction Zeke Reed took the production.

Lights

     I actually don't have much to say about the lights here. They were nothing over the top or exciting - but they lit the the stage well and did their job. Someone once told me that in many productions, the greatest compliment you can give a lighting designer is that their lights were unnoticed. So congratulations! The lights weren't distracting and did their job!

Acting

    This is where the whole "not writing the post right after seeing the show" thing is going to get me. I have to go mostly on memory here but I will comment on the things that stuck with me. Again, lehgo.

John Wilkes Booth - The kid who played Booth was both too young, and too green for the role. That's not to say that he isn't a good performer. I think he will be. But he just wasn't ready to take on a role as strong as Booth. The vocals were at times a bit out of his range and he let the accent get in his way. He tried far to hard to nail that accent and whatever coaching he did get on it wasn't enough. His words ended up garbled and it diminished the power of his voice tremendously. Don't get me wrong, if this kid keeps it up in student theater he's going places - it was just too big of a role, too early.

Charles Guiteau - Andrew Flurer as Guiteau was a good casting choice. Andrew was his typical goofy self and it all worked out quite nicely. It's pretty clear at this point that Andrew has established a niche for himself in GW theater. I'm curious to see him step out of that and take a serious role though, I hope he gets the chance to at some point. His performance was definitely one of the standouts in the show, though. Quite enjoyable.

Samuel Byck - Really I only mention Zach Shinske's performance for one reason - its potential. Zach could have blown this out of the water, all he needed to do was look up. Instead, he directed all of his action towards a tiny tape recorder in his hand. If he had just looked out at the audience it would have been brilliant. Instead, what should have been a punch in the face, felt more like a limp-wristed slap. A good effort that fell flat. Still, this is a good character type for Zach, and with a bit more direction, time, and work he could be a good character actor for student theater.

The Proprietor -  I save my opinions on the proprietor for last because it is a pivotal role in the show. Also, because my opinion on Kaiya Lyons' performance might cause waves. One thing that needs to be said is that Kaiya clearly put a lot of work into her character. She made strong choices, acted them well, and sang her heart out (though by the final performance I saw, it was clear vocal exhaustion was starting to kick in). BUT, I personally didn't like the direction she took the character. Kaiya's Proprietor was a tough, mean, and gritty. Rather than coaxing and persuading the assassins as a salesman might, the Proprietor came across as a bully or a lowlife carny. I wanted to feel as if the Proprietor was on the assassins' side, convincing them to fulfill their destiny or make their lives better. Instead the Proprietor seemed to be pushing them to do something they didn't want to do. Kaiya took a risk on her performance, she took the character in an unexpected direction. For that, she should be applauded. It just wasn't a direction I would have taken it.

Directing

     Zeke Reed did a pretty good job with this production. He provided us with an enjoyable, consistent, show that didn't get boring. But there were certainly a few things missing. Zeke didn't do anything new with the material - he presented Assassins as it was written. And that's all well and good. But where was the art in it? Sure the blocking was good, the casting decent, there weren't any huge errors in scene dynamics. But there wasn't anything particularly exciting about it either. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the production. It just needed some extra oomf, a little more pizazz, to push it into the "great" category. One thing I will say - the boy isn't half bad at making a stage picture:

        All things considered, FPP's Assassins was a decent production. Fun, entertaining, and exactly what you would expect of a student theater musical.

See you in the theater,

Ed