Dinner theatre is one of those genres that can be amazingly dreadful or superb, surprisingly or not. Ain’t Misbehavin’, currently playing at the Riverside Dinner Theatre in Fredericksburg, is of the most definite latter. Let’s dispense with the minor bummers first. The music wasn’t live. Recorded tracks instead of a live orchestra on that sizable stage was disappointing mainly because the five splendid performers in this show deserved live music. Their chemistry together would have been complete brilliance in concert with musicians equal to their caliber of art. The dinner?…meh…It is possible to see the show without having to have the dinner, but it was okay enough so that the mediocre meal was part of the fun. Okay, that’s over.

Ain’t Misbehavin’, the title of this show and one of the most famous songs of the Jazz Age, is an homage to a composer and artist called “the black Horowitz” by Oscar Levant; no amateur himself when it came to tickling those ivories. Thomas “Fats” Waller was an American prodigy like no other in his time and his legacy is a delightful walk back into a time when the most consummately talented artists persevered against all segregationist odds.

None of the performers bore what might kindly be called a regulation Bolshoi physique. Thus, the energy required to present this show did not leave anyone worrying that a performer or two might fall over from the breath expended in belting out a selection of Waller’s breathtaking (I couldn’t resist) tunes. Kadejah One, Kimberly Fox Knight, Theresa A. Cunningham, Jerrial Young and Brandon Martin resound with personality in addition to performing skill and made for a wildly curated ride back in time to Harlem of the Jazz Age. Cunningham, in particular reminded me of the late LaVern Baker, with her low, back of the throat trill.

Ain’t Misbehavin’ seems to me to be the kind of a show where the performers need audience involvement to enhance their own performances. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on one’s age, the average age of this audience was about 70 years old and these people just didn’t have the energy to participate; although everyone made his and her pleasure known at the end of the show. I would have been thrilled to have a dance floor so I could boogie along to the music and the stunning vocals instead of getting a seat burn on my tuches.

The scene (Phil Carlucci) was simple but effective for the musical presentation and the transitions involved with the collection of songs. The women’s costumes (Gaye Law) were just beautiful, flattering and sparkly and colorful. The men’s costumes (Keith Walker) were less showy: but they reflected the fit of the times and made Young and Martin into Jazz Age men pounding the pavement of Tin Pan Alley trying to get a break.

However, the lighting and technical direction (Phil Carlucci) made this show a cut above what the cognoscenti usually deride as dinner theatre. Nicky Mahon’s lighting design and Ben Feindt’s stage management made for a visually punchy presentation and I noticed no missed cues or flaws. Feindt, incidentally, was our waiter for the afternoon and he was very sweet.

On a Sunday afternoon, with light traffic on I 95 South, the trip to Riverside Center took about 35 minutes. This Ain’t Misbehavin’ is worth the shortish drive to get to Riverside Center and is just a lovely show with beautiful and personable performers. Worth the drive and the chicken fried steak is not bad at all.

Director’s Notes

Ain’t Misbehavin’, a celebration of the songs, the life and times of jazz great Thomas “Fats” Waller, was an instant hit when it opened on Broadway on 1978. Although no actor actually impersonates Waller in the production, the five singers who take us into Waller’s world–Harlem in the 20′s and 30′s–evoke the spirit and personality of the man.

Waller was a highly gifted Black American musician, who often in collaboration with Harry Brooks and lyricist Andy Razaf, produced hit after hit from the mid 20′s until his death in 1943 at the age of 39. His musical career started with playing the organ in the Abyssinian Baptist Church and studying classical piano. By the time he was 25, he and Razaf had written the score for the Broadway hit Hot Chocolates, which included the songs “Ain’t Misbehavin’” and “Black and Blue.”

In the late 70′s, Murray Horwitz invited Richard Maltby, Jr. to listen to some rare Waller recordings. The wit of the song lyrics and the stylistic piano scores convinced Maltby that Waller’s music and personality could be brought to life on stage. Soon, a host of collaborators was hard at work producing the show.

Ain’t Misbehavin’ initially opened at the Manhattan theatre Club; shortly afterward, it moved to Broadway, and now it is at Riverside! I hope you enjoy the show.

Patti D’Beck

Photo Gallery

Photos provided by Riverside Dinner Theater

Cast

• Kadejah One, Kimberly Fox Knight, Theresa A. Cunningham, Jerrial Young, Brandon Martin

Production Staff

• Producer: Rollin E. Wehman
• Director/Choreographer: Patti D’Beck
• Musical Director: Rollin E. Wehman
• Production Manager: Carole Schrader
• Scenic Adaptation: Phil Carlucci
• Costume Design: Gaye Law
• Lighting Design: Nicky Mahon
• Scenic Artist: Matthew P. Westcott
• Technical Director: Phil Carlucci
• Stage Manager: Ben Feindt

Disclaimer: Riverside Dinner Theater provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

When New York Times critic Ben Brantley reviewed Neil Simon’s Proposals upon its Broadway opening in 1997, he wrote, “Mr. Simon has been blessed with an unusual facility for zippy dialogue and innately involving neatly shaped stories, but a rich sense of character has always come easily to him…With Proposals, unfortunately, there’s little sense that the people on the stage are more than conduits for the jokes and the plot.”

Having seen Vienna Theatre Company’s new production of Neil Simon’s 30th play, I may have been wont to agree (I should be arguing with The New York Times?). But, upon reflection, there is more going on than would seem; Simon, in his own butterfingered way, was Larry Davidizing himself and nobody noticed.

Feel free to start gagging or retching as I describe Proposals as a heartwarming and poignant reconciliation between the sexes and the generations as anger dissipates and people make nice before they croak. Bert Hines (née Hinestein or Hinowitz lol) (Eric Storck), is convalescing after a heart attack at his bungalow in the Poconos in his last summer in 1957. He is looked after by his long time Mammy…oops, pardon me, housekeeper, Clemma (Lisa Hill-Corley). Bert pines for the wife (Allison Shelby) who left him three years earlier and is remarried. Clemma is acerbically carrying a torch for the husband (Sidney Davis) who walked out on her seven years earlier. The irony here is that Bert has been assimilated while the woman who runs his life takes refuge in the safety of the Hines home from a world that will not yet let her assimilate. Bert’s daughter, Josie (Madden), is pining for her last summer’s love (Michael Schwartz), who is now involved with a gentile tootsie (Sarah Hayes), as she (Josie) breaks off her engagement from the smartest Jew in Harvard Law School (Kevin Comer). There we go again…it’s always H-bomb time. However, in a show of Ivy ecumenism, last summer’s love went to Brown. Meanwhile, Josie’s Florida flirtation (Eric Sampson), a cross between Tony Soprano and Cosmo Kramer wants to come see her. This whole megilla ends up at the bungalow for lunch on a nice day in 1957 and no one is what each one initially seems to be.

Yes, Bert seems like a sweet and darling man but Annie left him for a reason. Annie is initially seen as a hard and bitter woman who abandoned her family for a younger man, but she was lonesome and tired of being a summer widow as Bert spent his life building up a chain of stores and never being home for his family. Clemma is a tart spritz of cranberry juice keeping everyone honest while she had let the wayward husband who left her believe a lie by omission and that rascal who left her is aging badly and regrets his old wicked ways. This older generation is basking in memories of a life that is gone with GI Bill. The younger generation has broken through the barriers that impeded Bert and Annie and Clemma and they are not better people for it.

Hill-Corley and Storck fell into the gentle rhythm of decades long companions and their respective performances overcame and mitigated the limitations of the younger and less experienced actors. Whereas Hill-Corley and Storck were able to realistically portray the natural give and take of people, the younger generation seemed to be waiting for cues before they spoke. Eric Sampson’s charming buffoonery and malaprops steal the show as the playwright intended, but Sampson gives Vinnie enough depth so that our sympathies are with him as he cluelessly responds to his peers’ in his face denigration. Unfortunately, the commentary on smugness and self-importance is lost in the larger narrative and no one, Director or actors, could have had a clue about the larger issue without proper dramaturgy.

The set (Leta Fitzhugh) was beautifully created and reflected that summer escape from city grime and pavement. It worked to enhance Maloney’s blocking and secured our understanding of who everyone is and how they get here. Pat Tinder’s costume design was also pretty authentic, but her presentation of a mesomorphic Annie is unforgivable. Shelby is not an unattractive woman and Tinder made her look like a frizzy linebacker in junk jewelry. Why was no one miked? This was an audience of loud and flatulent coughers and sneezers and throat honkers and every rude eruption overwhelmed the presentation from the stage and the audience missed a lot of dialogue. I will only mention the obnoxious e-cigarettes as a concession to the theatre being in a city building where there is no smoking ever, even for artistic and authentic presentations.

Ultimately, what Proposals is illustrating is the deracinnation of Tevye’s representative descendants and their elevation to the mid twentieth century meritocratic elite and its continuing deleterious effect on everyone. Simon and David have made themselves filthy rich evincing the parochial and inside bickering between the generations of a sectarian minority who have turned cultural and ethnic exhibitionism into a national pastime. What I don’t understand is why everyone gets so into this.

I don’t want to damn this production with faint praise because it deserves more than that; but the show is well-played and I had a good enough time. Proposals is a better evening out than the shoot ‘em up at the local Cineplex at a better ticket price.

Photo Gallery

Allison Shelby (Annie Robbins), Eric Storck (Burt Hines), Kevin Comer (Ken) Lisa Hill-Corley (Clemma Higgins) Eric Sampson (Vinnie Bavasi) and Shannon Madden (Josie Hines)	Lewis (played by Sidney Davis) surprises Clemma (played by Lisa Hill-Corley) by returning after 7 years’ absence
Shannon Madden (Josie), Eric Sampson (Vinnie) Sarah Hayes (Samii), Michael Schwartz (Ray) and Kevin Comer (Ken) at an impromptu funeral

Photos by Harold Bonacquist

Disclaimer: Vienna Theatre Company provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review. VTC also purchased advertising on the ShowBizRadio.net web site, which did not influence this review.

How do we know the moon? Do we venerate it as a sphere made of rock and sand, with limited atmosphere and less gravitational pull than the earth; a satellite approximately 140,000 miles from us; yet so large and so close that it permeates our dreams and drives our ocean tides? Or is it a physically embodied allegory that bathes us in light and induces fantasies and reveries and drives artistic endeavor?

The heroism of President John F. Kennedy is bound in his pledge for the United States to reach the moon in ten years. In an administration that started in ignominy and ended in assassination, Kennedy is revered because he embraced the arduous. Whether staring down a nuclear challenge or conceiving of the sci-fi fantastical, he elevated curiosity and intellectual and scientific challenge to illustrate what was then truly exceptional about the United States.

By today’s standards the United states is exceptional because some foolish and anarchistic malcontents say it is exceptional while tolerating contemporary standards beneath the standards currently enjoyed by those failing nations the very United States uplifted in the first place. Therefore, it is not ironic that it was the United States who planted the first and only flag on the moon; the irony lies in that we have not been back there. But a private company is now selling moon trips to begin by 2020. The cost for this private indulgence is only $750,000,000.00…a cost the United States itself maintains it cannot afford anymore. This is not a joke; it a piteous abandonment of everything that made the United States exceptional in the first place. But none of this means human beings still don’t cherish our moon and our collective dreams about it.

And so the moon is once again a dream and its elevation in art reaches its apogee in Synetic Theatre’s A Trip to the Moon, an artfully integrated trio of moon based stories predominated by George Melies’ 1902 film of the same name. Writer, Director and Illustrator Natsu Onoda Power has conceived a lovely and brilliant work of dance, film, illustration, storytelling and music all simultaneously presented and executed with deliberate skill and compassion as two of the stories end sadly. I will state right now that I cannot even begin to put together words to describe the artfulness and loveliness of this production. The words elude me as I ponder the amazing lights and scene transitions as the three stories unfold. Is it possible to describe a ballet simulating dog mating as poetic? How about butt sniffing? Choreographer Irina Tsikurishvili has elevated the most coarse of inate animal traits into a rhythmic work of art in the story of Laika (Karen O’Connell), the Russian stray dog sent into space in the experiment to see if life can survive a rocket launch and reentry. Sadly, Laika did not survive her journey; and only in the aftermath of the fall of the USSR did Laika’s handlers and rocket scientists express their long suffering guilt and regret at their collective participation in the deaths of Laika and the other dogs used as objects of experimentation.

When JFK issued his heroic challenge to American scientific research and development to overtake the Soviet advantage in space travel, he did not know that the Russian lack of safety protocols and its inapt entrepreneurial method of testing would result in the horrific launchpad conflagration that killed the leaders of Soviet space research, thus leaving that field wide open to the United States to attain the prize in JFK’s time frame. The Americans took so long to enter space competition because the admonition was issued that no live, sentient being would die in the trials. Laika’s capture, experimentation, flight and death are so astutely and heartwarmingly recreated and O’Connell is lovely as she channels a little doggie who died in a way that no other doggie had died before. O’Connell’s face is as as guileless as a little doggie’s and her canine joy in her life so beautifully expressed. The movement of the set pieces along with the scene transitions, in combination with Konstantine Lortkipanidze’s score are mesmerizing and Andrew F. Griffin’s lighting is a monument itself to episodic and evanescent art.

The least strong story in this trio of moon tales is “A Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.” a medieval Japanese tale of a lonely woodsman who finds a moon princess in the forest and raises her as his daughter until the Moon people return to bring her back, leaving the woodsman to die lonely and bereft. Saying this is the least strong story of the trio is by no means denying its creativity and loveliness. Why wouldn’t medieval raconteurs and poets have conceived of a life and society similar to their own on an unknowable and untouchable body suspended in the heavens, steeping Man and Woman in its light while teasing them with its remoteness? Set Designer Giorgios Tsappas and Costume Designer Kendra Rai explore the metaphorical and physically illustrate this wistful and sorrowful interpretation of no good deed going unpunished.

The title tale of this show is the fundament with which the tales interact with each other. George Melies made hundreds of films in his career and many were based on astronomy and moon travel. However, he is remembered for “Le Voyage dans la Lune,” a comic illustration of colonial aggression and hubris. Power authentically recreates the film in live action dance and pantomime while Jared Mezzocchi’s brilliant projections integrate the film with the live action. It is all just too fantastical to divine. The live action drawing of the scenic backgrounds in combination with the projections and the peeling away of the gigantic paper as scene transitions advanced brought applause interruptions throughout this drop-dead gorgeous show.

The thirty years prior to Melies crafting A Trip to the Moon evoked a revolutionary change in life for the developed world. Electric light, telephony, celluloid film manufacture, spontaneous combustion engines…all elevated humanity from organic creatures subject to the Earth to masters of the Earth as one scientific breakthrough begat another pyramided on the scientific principles being proven daily. In 1902, while Melies was making A Trip to the Moon, Guglielmo Marconi was opening his first Marconi radio station and Albert Einstein and Mileva Maric were pondering what would become known as the Special Theory of Relativity. Melies’ A Trip to the Moon is a comic illustration of Man as master of the Earth.

It is no secret that I am tired of expensive 20th century musical revivals and I am interested in the new and experimental. For every amateurish non success I suffer through, I am rewarded with the joys and revelations of breakthrough works of art that leave me dreaming of the future and pondering the miracles of the past. Synetic Theatre never fails to impress me with its art and creative invention…venerating the past and exploring the future of creative endeavors.

Photo Gallery

Francesca Jandasek and Colin Analco in ‘A Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’	Colin Analco and Katrina Clark in ‘A Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’
Victoria Bertocci, Katrina Clark, and Colin Analco in ‘A Tale of the Bamboo Cutter’	Pasquale Guiducci, Ben Arden, and Victoria Bertocci in ‘A Trip to the Moon’
Karen O’Connell as Laika in ‘Laika the Space Dog’	Pasquale Guiducci, Ben Arden, and Victoria Bertocci in ‘A Trip to the Moon’
Victoria Bertocci, Karen O’Connell, and Pasquale Guiducci in ‘Laika the Space Dog	Pasquale Guiducci, Victoria Bertocci, and Ben Arden in ‘A Trip to the Moon’
Karen O’Connell as Laika and Katrina Clark as the Moon in ‘Laika the Space Dog’

Photos by Johnny Shryock

Cast

• Colin Analco, Ben Arden,Victoria Bertocci, Katrina Clark, Zana Gankhuyag, Pasquale Guiducci, Francesca Jandasek, Karen O’Connell, Renata Veberyte Loman, James Konicek, Ula Louise olsen,Guy Spielmann

Production Staff

• Writer, Director, Illustrator: Natsu Onada Power
• Choreographer: Irina Tsikurishvili
• Composer: Konstantine Lortkipanidze
• Projections Designer: Jared Mezzocchi
• Set Designer: Giorgios Tsappas
• Props Designer: Suzanne Maloney
• Costume Designer: Kendra Rai
• Stage Manager: Marley Monk
• Lighting Designer: Andrew K. Griffith
• Production Manager: Amy Kellett

Disclaimer: Synetic Theater provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

Imagine the Warsaw Ghetto uprising reenacted by hyper active fifth graders demanding audience participation and one has approximated the results of what is actually a very thoughtful group of theatre professionals engaging in every generation’s iconoclastic effort to be so different as to become a new voice of a new generation and the result is dog & pony dc’s A Killing Game. Nice try, but no cigar. Not since Ernie Kovacs anyway and he died trying.

The Beatles attempted this same concept at the height of their influence and the result is still hidden in the attic like a crazy grandma who only gets taken out for her friends’ funerals. If the Beatles couldn’t pull this off then maybe the concept needs a rest…sort of like Latin; one sounds pithy speaking of it but wouldn’t dare try to take it for a spin.

Not that I didn’t have a good time at A Killing Game …..I did, it was fun…..but if arguing the point about whether the show is theatre or not is the point, then dog & pony dc succeeded. I appreciate the concept of “audience integration” if the intent is to wake up the snoozers. The problem is managing to polish a presentation that the audience has paid to see when the audience itself is not polished and is not in on the joke until it’s too late…sort of like self crucifixion….you can never get that last nail in. In fact, the concept in practice is so squirrelly the press gets a two page explanation of the effort rationalizing the endeavor; the rest of the audience goes out into the cold. Tossing Ionesco into a mix with Orson Welles and card games is name dropping, without cerebration; and without such content inherent in the text. Welles was a genius only because he kept telling everyone that he was. He was his own self-esteem movement. So too, for that matter, was Ionesco.

Upon arriving and calling for tickets we were instructed to leave our smart phones turned on and to download some app complimentary to Twitter so that we can tweet the action in real-time. Downloading the app led to an instruction to download another protocol and this completely f*cked up my phone and I spent the last minutes before the show opened uninstalling whatever sh*t it was that I shouldn’t have installed in the first place. Instruction: run from any play that advises you to keep your phone turned on.

It seems that everyone in our sunny, sunny town is dying of some horrid disease that looks like a woman in shades and red lipstick. She sidles around silently trying to look sultry and threatening while we are all dying of this disease. She is wearing a too tight dress which makes her look like she is concealing a colostomy bag underneath the bodice. Ultimately, the action becomes a mid 20th century game show that is so absurd as to be indescribable. The only comment for this show is WTF? Everyone is handed an expensively produced card packet before the show and the contents of this packet direct one’s participation. Certain audience members become characters and participate onstage. The rest of us have the opportunity to offer commentary answered by the UPS man (Sean Paul Ellis), a courageous actor waiting to answer to the unknown in front of all of us.

The production itself is very courageous and daring and the talent and skills of the cast are on display at every moment. The sauce, however, has too many cooks and no one to edit and keep control over the concept. If the show morphs into something else for every performance, depending on how the audience participates, then it is not a show. It is an experience, a separate concept whose motivation is to get people to pay for something they can have at home for free or at less cost. If the audience is put to work, then why is it paying to see the show? It should, in fact, be paid for its time and labor and not being charged for the favor of indulging some others’ vainglorious affectations. This company’s collective parents have so been telling these darlings how special they are; and they all believed it. This show is the result of the self-esteem movement in child development in overdrive.

The disappointment is that each of the cast is a supremely talented performer and those skills are patently obvious and wasted in every second of the show. The show is a masterpiece of properties management and the props are actually the stars of this show. The blocking and movement are superb and the costuming clever. In the end, though, the whole concept is an interminable conceit; the next generation trying to finesse its parents by making the parents’ same mistakes. Plus ca change, c’est la meme chose.

Though the tickets to A Killing Game are $17.00 online; at door purchase might be a lottery of prices ranging from $5.00 to $40.00. If you can get in for $5.00, do that. Any more and the show should be paying you.

Cast

• Blue: Jon Reynolds
• Pink: Yasmin Tuazon
• Orange: J. Argyl Plath
• Purple: Jessica Lefkow
• Green: Genna Davidson
• Brown: Sean Paul Ellis

Production Staff

• Director: Colin K. Bills
• Developed & Scripted by: Colin K. Bills, Rachel Grossman, Lorraine Resegger-Slone, J. Argyl Plath, Jon Reynolds, Rebecca Sheir, Gwydion Duilebhan
• Production Design: Colin K. Bills, Ivania Stack
• Sound Design: Christopher Baine
• Stage Manager: Melanie Harker
• Graphic Artist: Kate Ahern Loveric

Disclaimer: dog & pony dc provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

The disappointments and under achievements of the masses have continued through the generations like diseases of the blood as the mid 20th century social experiment of financial cleansing of the cities left contemporary humanity fat, stultified and withdrawn. The nuclear family has been replaced by, well, replacements; and step relations are the norm while intergenerational fellowship is almost nonexistent. The contemporary suburban trinity of conformity, authority and cable television replaced intellectual and artistic challenge while shopping as recreation became mainstream leisure activity. There is simply nothing else to do and the only conceivable object of real monetary value that can be possessed is an old Springsteen guitar pick; and that is not available in any K Mart or Bed, Bath and Beyond.

And so we have the fundament of How I Paid for College, Helen Hayes Award winner Marc Acito’s compact adaptation of his own book for The Hub Theatre. This is not Acito’s first adaptation by The Hub and he may well be on his way to becoming the contemporary Neil Simon as Edward Zanni (Alex Brightman) tries to escape his constipated existence as “The Prisoner of Some Suburb in New Jersey.” Edward is an actor with theatre programmed into the nuclei of his cellular being. All he desires is to take his professional training at Juilliard, a school so enamored of its own self-importance that it charges $50,000.00 a year for its trainees to binge drink in gay bars after Method class. Edward embarks upon a scheme to beg, borrow and steal the $50 grand to at least pay for his first year at Juilliard. Alex yearns to leave his shattered, suburban home and embark upon that great river crossing to reinvent himself in New York as an actor. That is not going to happen but it will take a 75 minute uproarious monologue until he and we find this out.

The story is in the mode of safe TV situation comedies with a touch of “Arrested Development” and plot contrivances left over from “McHale’s Navy.” Though it might be said that Brightman is somewhat derivative of Robin Williams circa 1978, I prefer to think of him as Stephen Mead, a local actor whose ability to play many characters at once makes my own head spin. That being said, however, the show belongs to Director Helen Pafumi who elevates this production from a Chinese menu of comic techniques to a vivid and clever evocation of 21st century desire to escape. Brightman is fast without being frenetic and his physical and vocal changes as he morphs from character to character in this story are disciplined and skillful. Pafumi keeps control of the action as the story gets more absurd and the dénouement slips over us with Brightman in a schvitz and the audience in stitches. The success of this show is grounded in a superb production team and Acito’s non judgmental illustration of the devolution of modern family life and relationships.

Social engineers and planners, encouraged by the transportation and fuel industries, with assistance from the construction trades, decided that the various strata of the middle classes should be moved from cities and bundled in the outlying inner rural areas soon to be called the suburbs. Seventy years of such social restructuring have resulted in a f*cked-upness of several generations so profound that it is now the under classes who are being cleansed from the cities so their financial betters can have its excitement back. Children who have never jaywalked are blinding their parents with fear as they settle into urban dens of multi-family dwelling units and socialize, maybe even cavort with, the poor. This is known as gentrification and Edward’s father’s new neighbors are going to be the exact same folks his grandparents ran away from a generation and a half earlier. The impediment to Edward’s dream of life in The Big Apple is his father, a successful businessman who could pay for Juilliard, but rebuffs his son’s dreams because his own dreams were never pursued; let alone realized. Thus, one f*cked up generation revisits its f*cked-upness on the next because the father cannot neither bear, nor face up to, his own son’s success.

In fact, the father is so incensed by his son’s determination to find happiness in himself that dad orders Edward to leave his home and be taken in by every suburb’s insane Jewish family. This device succeeds because Brightman is every insane Jewish character from the trashy parents to the felonious son to the batty therapist grandmother. Where Brightman succeeds is in conveying Edward’s urgency. It is organic and Acito has drawn these characters well and portrayed the drive that true actors have in them to present an artistic vision whether there is an audience or not. Pafumi keeps everything tight and Brightman under control as he plays every character and advances the narrative. It is a testament to everyone’s skill here that what could have been a hyper active comic audition became instead a delightful repast of comic styles in combination with a contemporary story that is true to any family with artistic and ambitious offspring.

The success of the play itself is in its delicious subversiveness. Underneath the contemporary portraits are Aristotelian buffoons bobbling around, acting atrociously; but never behaving so irredeemably as to be hopeless. But there lies the only negative rub. The narrative tootles along humorously on its way to a successful conclusion when Edward’s hateful father suddenly gets heartwarmingly paternal and affectionate in an almost ruinous architectural misstep that threatens to destroy the farcical arc that seals the play’s bona fides.

We are all players in our own dramas which we live every day. There is no rule that says talent is measured in $50,000.00 increments and successful lives are not predicated on the surfaces of hoity and toity sheepskins. Artists emerge fully formed; their only impediment is inertia.

Don’t be inert. Turn off the cable television and go see this play. Supply your own laugh track.

Director’s Note

There are moments in life when we realize anew, that we are greater than the sum of our parts and that our experiences are shaped by those we walk through life with. The moment when we go away to college is one of those definitive times. We break out of the familiar home of our youth and are faced with defining ourselves by new challenges. It’s a treacherous, adventurous time when we are pulled in polar opposite by what we have known and what is yet to come. As we forge ahead, we carry with us the myriad of imprints made by those who have touched our life. How I Paid for College captures all of this.

When Marc pitched the script to me, I was beyond excited. I had been searching for a piece that explored this time in our life. It is something that so many in our community can identify with. How I Paid for College gives us permission to laugh in a big way at how hard it is to grow up, the insanity of college costs, huge dreams and crazy schemes. It has been a joy to work on this play that is so full of hijinks, fun, laughter, honesty, heart, (sic) and theatricality. Buckle up and enjoy the ride.

Photo Gallery

Photos by Melissa Blackall Photography

Cast

• Eddie: Alex Brightman
• Al Zanni: Alex Brightman
• Dagmar Zanni: Alex Brightman
• Eddie’s Mother: Alex Brightman
• Paula: Alex Brightman
• Natey Nudelman: Alex Brightman
• Natey’s Mother: Alex Brightman
• Stan Nudelman: Alex Brightman
• Nana Nudelman: Alex Brightman
• Nana Nudelman’s Cryent: Alex Brightman
• The Buddha Lady: Alex Brightman
• Juilliard Auditors: Alex Brightman
• The Buddha: not Alex Brightman
• Everyone Else: Alex Brightman

Production Staff

• Director: Helen Pafumi
• Scenic Design: Kristen Morgan
• Lighting Design: Jimmy Lawlor
• Sound Design: Matthew Nielson
• Costume Design: Maria Vetsch
• Stage Management: Rebecca Griffith

Disclaimer: The Hub Theatre provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.

What do we know after seeing Legally Blonde The Musical? That proper California females are all blonde; they go to college for an MRS. Degree; that they devote themselves to one man who will carry them away to live happily ever after graduation; at least until these men dump the girls; that East Coast wealth is serious and more important and well connected than vulgar West Coast money; that any fashionista addlebrain can take coaching from an equally imbecilic sorority sister and lead a cheer in the admissions office of ….you guessed it….Harvard Law School; that said addlebrain will get admitted to HLS for love and follow the serious East Coast money who dumped her in California for a serious East Coast career. Also, that there is no African-American or Asian talent in sororities. So, a dumb book becomes an equally dumb movie which, in turn, gets adapted to the stage with an off the wall, difficult to sing score.

“Legally Blonde” was a book by Amanda Brown, turned into a film starring Reese Witherspoon and adapted for the stage by Laurence O’Keefe, Nell Benjamin and Heather Hach. A mashup of “The Paper Chase”, “Private Benjamin” and “My Cousin Vinny”, Legally Blonde The Musical manages to set back women’s advancement only about 50 years to the “Animal House” era when female intellectuals were all lesbians or frigid…yes that was the word to describe women who wanted to study and/or didn’t want to marry…and the likes of Sandra Day O’Connor, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Judge Judy couldn’t get work as legal secretaries, let alone attorneys. Times have changed but the voices of the Princess Generation are determined to keep that secret from all the little girls who cherish their own brains.

The well-established, usually high-quality, Reston Community Players got so excited over this pleasant, but inane, little number that it put more work and manpower into the sets than it did the actors or the show. That being said, RCP’s production of Legally Blonde the Musical is pleasant and inoffensive and follows the fish out of water narrative that expedites most elementary stories. Plus, this show has not one, but two, doggies (Angel Huntley, Francis Xerxes Farms) live on stage not following the program! Gotta love the doggies.

Elle Woods (Maureen Rohn) is rich and blonde and Californian. She is also smart, but 20 years of bleach has pickled her brain and Rohn camps up her Malibu girl to the stratosphere. She is assisted by a Greek chorus of California sorority airheads; all of whom follow her dream instead of their own. Elle so loves her loser of a boyfriend (Nicholas Von Bank) that she manages to get herself admitted to HLS without her father having to build a library or theatre for it and discovers that the boyfriend really is a loser and that she could love the poor but brilliant HLS charity case (Ryan Khatcheressian) who respects her mind, even when she bends over from the waist and shoves her tuches into his face. Elle also manages to get an accused murderess (Courtney Trollinger) acquitted using her cosmetology skills to expose the true perp. However, in the end, this story is all about getting married…to someone, anyone actually, and Elle’s three successful years in law school end with the marriage; no mention of a future beyond the MRS.

Molly Hicks Larson as Paulette the Hairdresser stole the show in every scene, with or without Rufus (Francis Xerxes Farms), a thoroughly charming English Bulldog. Larson shares her triumph with Kyle (Joseph Aquilina), the handsome and muscular UPS delivery route driver who steals Paulette’s heart. The other bright spot in this convivial endeavor was the gay duo (Tomas Huntley, Patrick Graham) camping up their admissions and denials in top comic form. The show does cover a lot of comic ground and the cleverest moments were the ones that occurred without the principals, unfortunately. The exercise choreography (Mark Hidalgo) was a skillful combination and execution in a crosswalk of a mostly pedestrian dance design as the accused, Brooke Wyndham (Courtney Trollinger), demonstrates her fitness proficiency.

Rohn is a great singer, but she is done in by the idiosyncratic score, an analogous “Star Spangled Banner” of impossible tunes that can only be sung in an out-of-body state or else her throat will break. She projects exuberance and sincerity; but she and the other performers deserve better than what RCP and Director Joshua Redmond gave them in this production. The hair salon set was pretty but most of the scenes looked like elementary school scenes hand-lettered and painted by sixth graders on flimsy card stock. Who gave the direction that scene changes had to occur during production numbers? The sets and their movement were actually upstaging the actors. There is some great talent up on that stage and the moving of all those pieces into place coupled with some poor sound operations made the performers difficult to hear whether they were singing or talking. These are all very good performers and they deserved their collective and individual moments without interference from the crew.

David Rohde’s music direction was energetic and his orchestra accompanied the singers without clobbering them. Rohde is one of the best music directors working in community theatre and he does justice to this show where others in production did not. Senseless musicals are the lifeblood of all theatre and the productions and audiences deserve a measure of artistic effort and investment from the production staff even if the show will draw audiences by its very existence and quality is a moot point.

Legally Blonde the Musical is not RCP’s finest moment, but it is not bad either. What it is is a sweet evening out with family and friends, watching talented people taking risks onstage and sincerely wanting to please. Who could have a problem with that?

Photo Gallery

Mauren Rohn (Elle)	Evie Korovesis (Margo), Erica Wisniewski (Pilar), Claire O’Brien (Serena), Maureen Rohn (Elle), Jaclyn Young (Kate)
Maureen Rohn (Elle), Molly Hicks Larson (Paulette)

Photos by Traci J. Brooks

Cast

• Elle Woods: Maureen Rohn
• Emmett Forrest: Ryan Khatcheressian
• Warner Huntington Ill: Nicholas Von Bank
• Paulette Buonofuonte: Molly Hicks Larson
• Professor Callahan: Jeff Breslow
• Margot: Evie Korovesis
• Serena: Claire O’Brien
• Pilar: Erica Wisniewski
• Vivienne Kensington: Mimi Preda
• Brooke Wyndham: Courtney Trollinger
• Kate I Chutney: Jaclyn Young
• Enid Hoops: Toby Nelson
• Sundeep Padamadan I Nikos: Tomas Huntley
• Aaron Schultz: Andrew Nguyen
• Kyle: Joseph Aquilina
• Dewey I Carlos: Patrick Graham
• Dad I Winthrop: Chris Borton
• Grandmaster Chad: Jesse Baskin
• Whitney: Rebecca Williams
• Mom: Joy Gardiner
• Store Manager I Judge: Lauren Hill
• Bruiser: Angel Huntley
• Rufus: Francis Xerxes Farms
• Delta Nu Sorority Girls: Sarah Conrad, Lauren Hill, Katie Kerrins, Caroline Simpson, Rebecca Williams
• Band Members, Harvard Students, Inmates, Salespeople, Reporters: Joseph Aquilina Jesse Baskin, Chris Borton, Sarah Conrad, Joy Gardiner, Patrick Graham, Lauren Hill Tomas Huntley, Adrian Johnson Katie Kerrins, Andrew Nguyen, Caroline Simpson, Rebecca Williams, Jaclyn Young

Orchestra

• Conductor: David Rohde
• 12 musicians at each performance
• Keyboards: Matt Jeffrey, David Rohde, Bill VanLear
• Reeds: Mitch Bassman, Dana Gardner, Lindsay Williams
• Trumpet: Daniel Lee, Jose Luis Oviedo, Will Thayer
• Trombone: Scott Fridy, Dan Pendley
• Violin: Audrey Chang, Greg Hiser
• Guitar: Rick Peralta
• Bass: Dave Burrelli
• Percussion: Alex Aucoin, Matt Robotham

Production Staff

• Producer: Jennifer Lambert
• Producer: Sam Nystrom
• Director: Joshua Redford
• Assistant Director: Rich Bird
• Music Director: David Rohde
• Choreographer: Mark Hidalgo
• Stage Manager: Eileen Mullee
• Set Design: James Villarrubia
• Costume Design: Jennifer Lambert, Sam Nystrom
• Associate Costumer: Anne Marie Pinto
• Properties: Mary Jo Ford, Evie Korovesis, Jennifer Lambert
• Set Dressing: Bea and Jerry Morse
• Lighting Designers: Ken and Patti Crowley
• Sound Designer: Rich Bird
• Set Painting: Cathy Rieder, Sabrina Begley, Maggie Cotter
• Hair/Makeup: Jaclyn Young

Disclaimer: Reston Community Players provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review. RCP also purchased advertising on the ShowBizRadio web site, which did not influence this review.

Well….there’s good news and bad news. Bad news first: there is really a God. Good news: she’s a girl named Barbara Millicent Roberts aka Barbie. At least I think she’s Barbie; I would love for her to be Barbie. Barbara (Ashley San), or God…Goddess?….or Schoolteacher Barbie…thinks math and science are hard. That doesn’t mean she can’t do them; she really knows her hard subjects as she expounds in her breathy, girly delivery describing what is in reality, a primordial soup. It just turns out that there may be more primordial soups than we thought. And her feet really are bent at 125 degrees so she can slip on those little plastic open toed shoes and show off red toenails.

Barbara/God really knows what she’s talking about, but she’s got some grief. It turns out that God, herself, has an even higher authority to answer to. That authority is Nature. Nature, as in scientifically established research and forensic evidence to advance hypotheses Nature, not Nature as in right-wing loony toon wishful thinking about secret female secretions and their ability to distinguish between congenial male ejaculation Nature and forcible basting tool ejaculation Nature. Nature is supervising Barbara. Barbara is a drummer but is in need of some occupational therapy which she didn’t create with the heavens and the earth 6000 years ago as rumored. Barbara also is frightened of insects which she should have thought of and corrected before Sunday. Barbara is sparkly and pretty, just like School Teacher Barbie.

But I digress. Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Boom is about forcible basting tool ejaculation and Artists’ Initiative presents this play at Olney Theatre Center so well that I am compelled to write the words “forcible basting tool ejaculation” sans irony and even humor. “But,” you’ll say, “Olney Theatre is such a schlep.” It is, but go anyway.

Jules (Stephen Murray) is a homosexual virgin whose only relationship so far has been with his hand. He is also a brilliant, but misunderstood, marine biologist…aren’t they all?…who knows the world is ending tonight because a comet…marine biologists predict comets?…will strike the earth and destroy everyone but him because he has duct taped the door to his basement apartment shut. Because no one is listening to a marine biologist who studies comets, Jules must save humanity himself; so he places a Craigslist ad…I cannot believe I am writing this…..looking for a female date to trap inside the duct tape and with whom to reconstitute humanity. The forcible basting tool ejaculate method is devised because Jules finds the idea of hetero sex with a woman revolting. Are you still reading? Even George Costanza couldn’t make this stuff up.

Jo (Chelsie Lloyd) is cruising Craigslist for a hookup and agrees to come over to Jules’ for a good old-fashioned schtup on a futon. Jo is from Massachusetts but has retained a dialect coach to erase any vocal trace of a New England upbringing. I wasn’t so lucky. Well, Jo starts to get a bit suspicious when she attempts to accomplish her quickie with Jules and he gets green just sniffing her. When he confesses to his plan to use her to save humanity, she gets a bit bitchy. She refuses to recruit Jules to bat for the away team even after the comet really does strike the earth and she and he argue for the rest of the play. Note to self: buy duct tape, oodles.

Jules, not to be deterred from his mission, keeps trying to penetrate Jo with the forcible basting tool ejaculate when he thinks he can catch her by surprise…I am still writing this. So far he has had no success because Jo keeps catching him at it before he can squeeze the big plastic thing at the top of the tool. Barbara, in the meantime, stops and starts the action as she explains the extraordinary principles of earth science and the regeneration of life. It turns out that when one is planning for the end of life as we know it, food and supplies have to be stored and rationed, but there is an endless supply of you know what if you keep your hand in good shape. Also, the issue of nature’s unpleasant messes is discussed but I’m not buying that one. There is no discussion of Jo’s preferred brand of bathroom tissue.

Surely, you must realize by now, that there is a meaningful spoiler I am trying to avoid. Murray is charmingly geeky as the poorly socialized Jules and Lloyd is appropriately furious that, not only is she still alive with this meshuganah basting tool penetrator, but she is also a virgin and is now likely to remain one. Barbara is still dropping her drumsticks and stopping and starting the action so she can explain it all and the ending is completely unexpected and ingenius and will blow the thoughtful away…pun intended. Barbara is no Hypatia of Alexandria, but she knows her science and quantum theory and she can keep our attention longer than Stephen Hawking can.

The music is a war of millennial generation anthems antagonized by dentist office Muzak….much like Jules and Jo. There is a lot to digest in this little show and the ultimate themes expressed are compelling to the both the hard scientist and the daydreamer.

The set is a composite paneled basement paradise edged in duct tape and furnished for a science nerd. This show requires complicated sound design and technique and the sound does not miss in enhancing the entire experience along with lighting to reinforce the themes discussed in the play. When the ending hit I was so completely engrossed with the principles of nature and earth science that I renewed both my Science and National Geographic subscriptions. In the end it’s School Teacher Barbie who’s left with the basting tool…..”Yoo hoo…Ken…….”

Director’s Notes

It seems there have always been false prophets telling the masses that God is planning to take His (Her? Its?) vengeance on humanity and destroy the Earth. And nowadays its hard to ignore the millions of ways we might unintentionally doom ourselves and accidentally end our existence on this planet regardless of some higher being’s intent. What I fell in love with about this script when I first read it several years ago, is its ability to at once poke fun at the coming apocalypse and simultaneously ask legitimate questions about what we as people should be doing with our time on Earth. As Jo so frequently asks, ‘Why am I here?’ Is our purpose in life really just to reproduce? Is it to build? To educate? To love? I don’t know the answer, but I think the question is important.

I had the great fortune to learn about life, storytelling, and theater from two incredible women: my mother, Beverly Fox,and my grandmother, JoAnne Fox. My mother passed away four years ago shortly before I first read this play, and my grandmother passed away in the middle of this rehearsal process. When I find myself wondering, like Jo, why I am here, I think of the way they chose to live their lives. They were devoted communicators. In both their personal and professional lives they constantly sought to make connections and build relationships with others. Whether or not you find this show provoking, I hope at minimum going out to the theater tonight has provided you with the opportunity to spend time with others, building (or sustaining) a relationship. If it does that much, I know I’m doing their memory justice. And that, for now at least, is why I’m here. – Renana Fox

Cast

• Barbara: Ashley San
• Jules: Stephen Murray
• Jo: Chelsie Lloyd

Production Staff

• Director: Renana Fox
• Production Manager/Sound: Heather Mork
• Stage Manager: Will Richardson
• Costume Designer: Toni Goldberg
• Properties: George Burgtorf
• Scenic Design: Matt Wolfe
• Lighting Design: Jedidiah Roe
• Photographer: Nick Hood

Disclaimer: Artists’ Initiative provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review and purchased advertising on the ShowBizRadio web site, which did not influence this review.

Okay, Bubbies….What is it about insane fathers that turns Texans into crusaders and muckrakers turning our worlds upside down and then going and dying just when we need our crusaders the most? Imagine, if Abe Zindler hadn’t been such a sumbitch, li’l Marvin would have just followed him into the family bidness; the Chicken Ranch might still be runnin’ and the rats and roaches would still be managing Houston’s finest dining establishments. If “General Jim” Ivins would have loved little Mary Tyler just a smidge, our little hellcat debutante might have gone off into a series of wrong, but prosperous, marriages and muckraked around the River Oaks Social Times (I made that up)…oh lordy, lordy…there’s blacks and Jews movin’ into River Oaks and we just installed another swimmin’ pool….we cain’t sell now….except to blacks or Jews and I thought we had rules forbiddin’ that. Who let them get so rich anyhoo?

Molly Ivins, nee Mary Tyler Ivins, was born an old soul. From her earliest girlhood she had the ability to see through people to their authentic cores and notice the hypocrisy around her. She was too young to articulate what she observed, so she reacted against it instead. That’s what little girls do. When she finally learned the words, she stepped off the path to country club eminence to pursue a journalistic vocation and used her literary skills to chase and catch the windmills of official corruption. I use the word vocation because Molly could have become wealthy using her talents for her own profit. Instead she eked out small livings at small newspapers and risked the good jobs she did have by telling epic truths. Every truth flowing from the nib of her pen, every keystroke on an old typewriter was another retort back to the father who wouldn’t show his love and who substituted verbal abuse for attention just as Molly used his offenses to fuel her rage at a corrupt political and social system. Molly Ivins left an agglomeration of real treasure…her words and her insights incorporated into Margaret and Allison Engel’s Red Hot Patriot: The Kick-Ass Wit of Molly Ivins at Arena Stage.

Molly lives again through Kathleen Turner and her one woman show at Arena Stage. Interestingly, Turner is also the daughter of a military man who didn’t quite understand her (as I read it) and she embodies the feisty, rebellious and compassionate woman who died too young and left not enough words to inspire a deluded populace who votes against itself and then complains about its delusions. Turner is stunning; unfortunately not enough folks outside of Texas know who Molly Ivins was and what she accomplished. Molly lived and died for The Texas Observer, a still small, independent muckraking rag taking on the establishmentarian, job outsourcing, polluting, offshore money concealing fat cats underwriting corporate journalism and political machinations. When Turner as Molly demands to know who in the audience reads, or has ever read The Texas Observer, only the Very Smart Prince and yours truly knew what she was talking about and our subscription is almost 40 years old. Forty-five years of abusing herself via alcohol, nicotine and basic self neglect left Molly fighting for her own life instead of the lives of her “beloveds” who need her now more than ever. I write this teary eyed because I loved Molly and what she stood for and followed her from paper to paper consuming her words and thoughts as the intellectual alimony sustaining me while I developed my own mind and point of view. I ponder the irony that the people who most need to read and hear Molly Ivins are precisely those who do not have $109.00 to spend on one brief show in a poncie, schmoncie theatre. Everyone laughed at the right spots in this monologue schtick; I don’t know if the audiences are cheering for Turner’s great performance (they better be) or are cheering for Turner’s righteous anger as she embodies a noble woman who sometimes lived a less than noble life (they should be).

Turner has not aged well in the traditional sense of the concept. She is large and she seems to have avoided injecting deadly toxins into her eyes because she can. She carries her life proudly on her frame and wears it on her face as she recreates the unkempt and unfashionable inner beauty of a woman who put others before herself. Turner’s wig, if that’s what it was, left some poor looking temples showing and I don’t know if that was intentional because that is how Molly wore her hair, the cancer that ravaged her or the wig is too small for Turner’s head. I know Molly loved her some cheap, farm wife, plaid house dresses for her formal wear; Turner’s boots were a little too clean-looking for the Molly everyone knew. But then again Turner is entertaining company and even Molly would have cleaned up her boots for that.

At the height of her notoriety Molly’s attacks on Texas fat cats so enraged the reactionary Dallas Morning News, that that paper bought her standard, The Dallas Times Herald, and shut it down faster than my mother could cruise the napoleons at a dessert buffet. Molly found her last home at the Fort Worth Star Telegram who knew a star when it saw one. Turner is the star who resurrects this great woman and broadcasts her voice far and wide. YAY for Kathleen Turner!!! Molly was angry and mal adjusted; Turner assumes that anger and mal adjustment for me and the rest of my shouting contemporaries hurling plain-spoken logic at rich schmegeggies and their political handmaidens. Yeah…I know that theatre needs those same schmegeggies (they were probably in the audience with us laughing away) to endow it so they can take great charitable tax deductions on top of the unconscionably low tax rates on their capital gains and other investment income; at least for the money they keep onshore. I think we should all incorporate ourselves as 501(c) corporations and solicit for free money from the fat cats who can then take those contributions to us great unwashed as charitable deductions. Now, there’s a win/win welfare scheme! I still am not reconciling Molly Ivins and $109.00 tickets to her re-embodiment when this whole concept is antithetical to everything she stood for. The only folks who can afford to see the re-embodiment of Molly Ivins are the same people who tried to shut her up in the first place….LMAO. But I think it necessary to do in order to assume a new mantle of righteous anger at the moral, financial and political corruption that is destroying the greatness of our country at the time we need integrity the most; though Molly understood the pact with the devil we must make in order to survive. Molly was a good ole gal.

Since I am a sucker for cheesy gift shops in absurd places, I would urge everyone to run to Arena Stage’s gift shop and pick up the two Molly Ivins books they have for sale. Teach your children to develop Molly’s keen eye for bull—-but warn them not to use her writing style on those government school tests they use to cut the teachers’ salaries. It will get them an unwanted IEP and you a trip to the local social services offices for official bad parenting.

My father loved me; it was mother who was iffy. Maybe that’s why I am a pathetic underachiever trying, at my advanced age, to accomplish something when, it turns out, that my Daddy guaranteed my failures via some good early daddying. Go figure……I think I want to ride with the nuns on the bus and memorialize Molly Ivins in the way that she would appreciate: some love, some mercy and some straight talk.

Also, do not forget, Bubbies, that fornication and its results and consequences…. and their alternatives, are the province of the rich who can choose whether they want voluntary or forcible. Molly is in Heaven hanging with her dog, Sh*t, screeching at the choir and howling to God and everyone at what has happened to us since she left us five years ago. Kathleen Turner is doing it for her. I hope you go see it and meet a great woman you never knew. It’s like seeing an unholy Texas rendition of Sister Mary Ignatious Explains it All to You only with cow poop on the boots.

Oh…. and by the by, I think it is important to add this because this is what critics do: the set is a pretty good pro forma newsroom left over from the “Lou Grant” era and there is an efficient little helper boychick (Nicholas Yenson) prancing in and out when the wire service bells go off. Rear screen projections add context and explanations to Turner’s prattling and the whole damn thing is just a great time and the bar is offering some really good tequila refreshment and I can’t imagine going back to Texas without Marvin Zindler and Molly Ivins to look after me. Oh! And she was offering us some good old Perl Beer to help us lubricate our conversation.

Texas has come to us. Let’s all go out and have good old time.

Photo Gallery

Photos by Mark Garvin

Cast

• Molly Ivins: Kathleen Turner
• Helper: Nicholas Yenson

Production Staff

• Director: Davis Esbjornson
• Artistic Producer: David Snider
• Stage Manager: Kurt Hall
• Technical Director: Scott Schreck
• Projection Designer: Maya Ciarrocchi
• Set Designer: John Arnone
• Costume Designer: Elizabeth Hope Clancy
• Wig Designer: Paul Huntley
• Lighting Designer: Daniel Ionazzi
• Original Music and Sound Designers: Rob Milburn and Michael Bodeen
• Property Master: Chuck Fox

Disclaimer: Arena Stage provided two complimentary media tickets to ShowBizRadio for this review.