David Clarke - Page 28

After winning prestigious awards both on Broadway and Off-Broadway, Disney's PETER AND THE STARCATCHER, a magical prequel to Peter Pan, is headed for Houston. The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts is the First National Tour production's third stop on their expansive route. The tour cast kicked off the show on August 15, 2013 in Denver and are currently playing to audiences in Dallas. Recently, Luke Smith, who plays Smee, took time out of his busy schedule to chat with me about PETER AND THE STARCATCHER, his career on stage, and his band Awning.

The Houston Arts Partners hosted their third annual conference on September 13 & 14, 2013. The event was an exciting and informative marriage between the worlds of education, the Arts, and STEM careers, with the theme Arts Work. With each conference, Houston Arts Partners aims to provide tools to classroom teachers of core content subjects that inspire teachers to utilize Fine Arts skills sets to enhance their classroom instruction. Based on my experiences at this year's conference, I know first hand that Houston Arts Partners vastly succeeds. Furthermore, it was so uplifting to see the STEM world openly embrace the Arts world and recognize the invaluable lessons that the Arts teach.

Houston, the ultimate party bus has arrived! PRISCILLA, QUEEN OF THE DESERT: THE MUSICAL, based on the 1994 film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, is an uplifting musical about three friends as they journey across the Australian outback. They embark on the road trip of a lifetime in search of love and friendship, and discover so much more along the way.

As one of the nation's leading theatre scenes, Houston has proved itself to be a respectable and important venue in growing a resume and providing refreshing and invigorating work for those involved with the theatre at a professional level. One of our own homegrown talents, Detria Ward, has been gaining a lot of attention recently. The Ensemble Theatre has given her multiple opportunities to share her craft with audiences, and recently she was awarded Best Actress by both The Ensemble Theatre and Houston Press' Houston Theatre Awards for her magnificent and critically lauded portrayal of Grace Dunbar in Pearl Cleage's THE NACIREMA SOCIETY. Recently, I got the opportunity to talk with Detria Ward about her career, her upcoming one-woman show, and her rising star.

Before Thursday's opening night performance of Paul Oakley Stovall's IMMEDIATE FAMILY, The Ensemble Theatre's Artistic Director Eileen J. Morris explained that their 37th season is all about creating magical moments within productions and within the community of their ever-growing audience base. Creating the first of many magical moments for the evening, she then proudly asserted that the E in ensemble stands for everyone, welcoming every member of the opening night audience to the theatre. Following suit, the heartwarming family-centered comedy IMMEDIATE FAMILY left audiences rolling in the aisles while exploring the importance of family and the power and beauty of acceptance, love, and understanding that members of our chosen and biological families can offer us.

When it comes to American Theatre from the 1930s, one of the leading writing duos was George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart. This pair is integral in the development of Modern American Theatre. They are often studied in survey courses that chart the progression of the art form, as most agree that together they wrote some of America's favorite comedies. Their hilarious and heartwarming 1936 play YOU CAN'T TAKE IT WITH YOU premiered at the Booth Theater on December 14, 1936 and ran for 837 performances. It also won the 1937 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. When it was adapted for film by Frank Capra and Robert Riskin in 1938, it won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director. Now, in 2013, The Alley Theatre is reviving the classic and hysterical masterpiece about an eccentric family that is happily surviving the Great Depression. It's 1936, and their key to bliss is embrace the love they have for one another, their hobbies, and to find ways to simply enjoy the life they've got.

This past weekend, I had the distinct pleasure of discovering the Greater Houston Area's best kept secret. Ever since The Masquerade Theatre announced they were permanently closing on April 27, 2012, I have been going through Masquerade withdrawals. Other theatre groups, namely Michael J. Ross' Music Box Musicals among others, have sprung up in their absence and offer musical productions of the quality and caliber to fill the void that was left. As good as these productions are, they just aren't the same. Of course, Sunday's closing performance of Jason Robert Brown's SONGS FOR A NEW WORLD at The Masquerade Theatre's Artistic Director Phillip Duggins' Zack's Mac Shack, a new restaurant and cabaret performance space, in Galveston, Texas wasn't the same either, but it was pretty close.

Northwest Houston's longest-running all volunteer playhouse, Theatre Suburbia, opened their 53rd season with Houston-based playwright Mary Jane Taegel's comedy GOING BARE. The romantic comedy about a doctor who drops his malpractice insurance and promptly gets sued for 4.2 million dollars was first produced in Los Angeles, where it won a Best New Play award from Theatre Americana. In 2002, GOING BARE was both published and optioned for a film.

Victor Hugo's epic novel Les Miserables has become one of the world's most successful and beloved musicals. Alain Boublil first got the idea to adapt the novel to stage while watching a production of OLIVER! In London. He pitched the idea to French composer Claude-Michel Schonberg. LES MISERABLES was first staged in 1980, and over 500,000 people saw it across its 100 performances. The first production in English, produced by Cameron Mackintosh and adapted and directed by Trevor Nunn and John Caird, opened in 1985 in London. This production instantly became a phenomenon, and is still running (with revisions and alterations to the book and staging). LES MISERABLES first opened on Broadway in 1987 and ran through 2003. It was revived in 2006 and will be revived on Broadway again in 2014. Currently, Bayou City Theatrics is presenting a pared down LES MISERABLES that is also the first all-Houston talent production of the musical.

As a ballet, THE MERRY WIDOW is an adaptation of Franz Lehar's popular romantic operetta Die Lustige Witwe (The Merry Widow), which premiered in 1905. In the process of adapting the score for ballet, John Lanchbery and Alan Abott retained the style of Franz Lehar's orchestrations and included several of the well-known tunes from the operetta. Their score premiered in 1975 when The Australian Ballet, under the Musical Direction of John Lanchbery, produced the World Premiere production with choreography by Ronald Hynd and Scenario and Staging by Sir Robert Helpmann. This grandiose and radiant ballet of THE MERRY WIDOW had its Houston Ballet Premiere on September 17, 1995 in the Brown Theater. The Houston Ballet also performed it in 1999 and 2007. Now, in 2013, the lavish production is serving as Mireille Hassenboehler's gorgeous swan song and letter of admiration to the audiences of the Houston Ballet.

For the most part, a large chunk of Generation Y is out of college and in the workforce. According to some, we are the young hopefuls that were born between the early 1980s through the early 1990s. Others push the birth dates back as far as the 2000s. Either way, our voice is gaining in strength, and we're making our mark. Sadly, our mark is one of frustration. A recent study by Office Angels shows that 27 percent of 25-34 year olds are unhappy in their current job, and according to Moster.com 55 percent of Generation Y employees see their current employer as a mere stopping off point in their career path. Luckily, Leslye Headland, author of BACHELORETTE (which was adapted for film in 2012 and starred Kirsten Dunst, Lizzy Caplan, Isla Fisher, and Rebel Wilson) once worked as Harvey Weinstein's personal assistant and understands this plight. She has crafted a deft comedy that addresses workplace dissatisfaction with her 2008 play ASSISTANCE.

About nine months before Noel Coward left this earth, an autobiographical revue that told the story of his life premiered at the Mermaid Theatre in London on July 10, 1972 as part of the 1972 City of London Festival. The production, directed by Wendy Toye and starring Patricia Routledge, Derek Waring, Elaine Delamr, Una Stubbs, Geoffrey Burridge, among others, ran for 405 performances. The show featured songs and scenes that spanned Noel Coward's career, including material from the 20s to the 60s. The original cast recorded a comprehensive 2 disc LP that was released by RCA in 1972, and now Masterworks Broadway has reissued the album for the digital age. Featuring 106 minutes of material spread across 2 CDs, I found the listening experience entirely trying and agitating.

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT closed up shop on Broadway on June 15, 2013. The show enjoyed 478 regular performances and 27 preview performances over the course of about 15 months. Its notices were mixed to positive, and there are plans to kick off a National Tour for the 2014-2015 season. For those of us who missed the show on Broadway, the lively and decadently glitzy NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT (Original Broadway Cast Recording), which was released by Shout! Factory and distributed by Sony Records, perfectly allows us to acquaint ourselves with the production before it plays in our regional venues.

Even after interviewing Classical Theatre Company's Artistic Director and Director of William Shakespeare's HAMLET JJ Johnston, I was highly skeptical about this production. HAMLET set in the post September 11th world with inspiration from Edward Snowden sounded like a gaggle of confused metaphors looking for destruction. For whatever reason, I couldn't wrap my head around this vision for the piece. Walking into the theatre didn't allay those concerns. The set looks more like a modern prison than a castle, with stark grays, dull blues, and a splash of orange in its color palette. Surveillance cameras are positioned along the top of the structure. There are corrugated Plexiglass windows, rivets, rust, and fencing to be seen as well. "Denmark's a prison," says Hamlet to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Act II, Scene 2 of the play, and Jodi Bobrovsky's set design nailed that on a literal level.

Noted cabaret singer Isabel Rose is ready to begin the process of delivering her new album, TROUBLE IN PARADISE, to the world. The album features her take on classic songs such as "Got a Lot of Livin' To Do," "Trouble In Paradise," and "Love Will Keep Us Together." For the album she worked with acclaimed music producer Bob Rock, who is best known for producing such acts as Aerosmith, Bon Jovi, Motley Crue, Metallica, Bryan Adams, and Michael Buble. To promote the new album, Isabel Rose will be performing in Los Angeles at The Mint on September 26, 2013 and in New York City at The Cutting Room on October 16, 2013. Before she kicks off this venture, she took a few moments out of her busy schedule to chat with me about her career, the new album, and the upcoming concerts.

Bayou City Concert Musicals (BCCM) is kicking off their series of neglected 50s musicals with THE PAJAMA GAME, featuring Music and Lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross and a Book by George Abbott and Richard Bissell. The beloved romantic comedy is based on Richard Bissell's novel 7½ Cents. In the show, the factory workers at Sleep-Tite Pajamas are fighting for a 7½ cent per hour raise. In the midst of this, Babe Williams, the grievance committee head, and Sid, the handsome new factory superintendent, fall in love. THE PAJAMA GAME took New York City by storm when it premiered in 1954 and ran for 1,063 performances in its original run. It spawned a successful film adaption in 1957, had a failed Broadway revival in 1973, and found success again with a 2006 Broadway revival. Additionally, the BCCM production is the first professional production of the beloved musical in Houston in about 40 years.

Theatre Under the Stars' (TUTS) Humphreys School of Musical Theatre (HSMT) introduced Houston, Texas to the 2007 stage musical adaptation of XANADU this weekend. The musical film Xanadu opened to mixed-to-negative reviews and audience responses in 1980, but over the interceding years has gained a cult following. However, from its release, the film's soundtrack has been a commercial success. It contains five Top 20 singles and was certified Double Platinum in the US. The musical adaption retains Electric Light Orchestra's original pop songs written for the film, featuring music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar. Douglas Carter Beane stepped in to write the book for the musical, and added a pair of "evil" muses as a plot twist. For the musical, the creative team pieced together a tacky, self-indulgent, and self-referential one act that despite a talented cast is uninteresting and bland.

Whenever people begin thinking of the young Broadway stars that show promise for career longevity, Aaron Tveit's magnanimous talent and indomitable energy come to mind. While a musical theatre major at Ithaca College, he left school to be an understudy for Mark and Roger in the national tour for RENT. From there, he went on to be in such acclaimed stage musicals as HAIRSPRAY, WICKED, NEXT TO NORMAL, and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. He also played Enjolras in the 2012 film musical Les Miserables. Television audiences would recognize him from his 10-episode stint in the CW's Gossip Girl as William "Tripp" van der Bilt III and as Mike Warren from USA Network's police drama Graceland. Now, his ravenous fan base has a solo album, THE RADIO IN MY HEAD - Live at 54 BELOW, to clamor for. Sadly, the release is surprisingly underwhelming on several levels.

Joseph Kesselring wrote ARSENIC AND OLD LACE in 1939, and the darkly comic play premiered on Broadway on January 10, 1941 at the Fulton Theatre, now named the Helen Hayes Theatre. Brooks Atkinson, theatre critic for The New York Times, famously stated that the play was "so funny that none of us will ever forget it." Eventually, ARSENIC AND OLD LACE moved to the Hudson Theatre, and closed on June 17, 1944, after having played 1,444 performances. The zany, madcap comedy is considered to be Joseph Kesselring's most successful play and is one that still manages to captivate audiences today. A.D. Player's current production of the classic, well directed by Joey Watkins to pop with delightful enthusiasm and energy, proves that the roughly 74-year-old play is as funny as ever.

Vaslav Nijinsky was heralded as the greatest male ballet dancer of the early 20th century. He deftly performed gravity defying leaps, leading many to assume he used wires, and could even dance en pointe, which was a rare skill for male ballet dancers at the time. He famously choreographed L'APRÈS-MIDI D'UN FAUNE, which had a salaciously explicit ending for the contemporary audiences of 1912, JEUX, a flirtatious dance which he intended to be danced by three men but was changed to be danced by one man and two women, and the legendarily infamous 1913 LE SACRE DU PRINTEMPS (THE RITE OF SPRING), which ended with the graphic sacrifice of a female virgin and caused fights to break out between the audience as some loathed and others championed his totally new style of ballet. Vaslav Nijinsky's life was rich with juicy backstage romantic affairs, and he also suffered from mental illness, which became so extreme that he was forced to retire from the dance world and spent the remainder of his life in and out of psychiatric hospitals. All of this is addressed in the 1998 one-man show NIJINSKY'S LAST DANCE, written by Norman Allen, which is enjoying a Houston premiere production by Edge Theatre Company.