Deborah Bostock-Kelley - Page 15

GETTING SARA MARRIED features a workaholic, an engaged financial advisor with short-term memory loss, and frightening food allergies. Mix in a loving, albeit busybody aunt, a frustrated fiancé, and a teddy bear of a sort-of-shady delivery guy, and you have yourself an incredibly funny farce. In the real world, the script would make no sense, but somehow the talent of the five actors makes a storyline where you have to suspend belief, plausible.

Helmed by Tony-winning director Barlett Sher, coming to the Straz Center for the Performing Arts on November 5 through 10 is Fiddler on the Roof. The musical offers a fresh take of the beloved classic tale. With familiar songs like a?oeTradition,a?? a?oeMatchmaker, Matchmaker,a?? and a?oeSunrise, Sunset,a?? the production is a heartwarming story of fathers and daughters, husbands and wives, the perfect start to the holiday season.

On Thursday night, director Aaron Washington took us to church. Nunsense Jamboree, the third in the series, combined the comedic influences of Laugh-In, silly jokes, a puppet nun, and crafty innuendos, five outstanding voices with an adorable set created by Paul Berge at Carrollwood Cultural Center. MAS Theatre captured the authentic charm of a country-western jamboree a?" like the kind you'd see set up at the fairgrounds. All that was missing was a hand raised, waving in praise and meat on a stick. I also had flashbacks of Sunday sermons with my grandma, with much better music provided by Mary Jo Hahn, Rusty Wirt, Wink Warren, and Valerie Frege.

Wild Party is loosely based on a poem from 1928 about a couple who host a party. The description doesn't sound terribly appealing, does it? But this party was not your average dinner party. Often the cast interacted with the VIP audience members and the bartender, making us feel like we were all attending this party. While the guests wore their most elegant attire (superbly dressed by costume designer Rachael Dugas-Murray), this soiree degenerated into debauchery with sex, infidelity, a snort of cocaine, and a gun.

Directed by Sarah Berland, on October 17-20, The Straz Center's Patel Conservatory will present Charlotte's Web in the TECO Theater. Featuring 34 children, from ages 9 to 16, the beloved children's story features a frightened little pig Wilbur who wants to avoid being a meal and an extraordinary spider named Charlotte, who teaches him how to be brave and all of their barnyard friends.

A little over 13 months ago, Katie Welch applied her Masters in Exceptional Student Education and a Bachelors in Theatre to open an all-inclusive theater, Broadway Everyday Star Theater (B.E.S.T.). On November 8 and 9, actors from 9 to 28 years old will perform a Broadway Musical Review with an original musical written by Katie.

As a way to celebrate diversity in Tampa Bay, The Straz Center created The Straz Arts Legacy REMIX Project, where writers, actors, musicians, singers, and dancers join together to perform for a free event showcasing a particular culture. On October 11, The Straz Arts Legacy REMIX Project will celebrate the Caribbean culture.

As the first familiar notes of 'The Candy Man' wafts across the audience in Carol Morsani Hall, I feel a strong sense of nostalgia. I grew up watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on television and am curious how a show with so many special effects could translate to the stage.

In a limited run on October 8-13, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the beloved childhood tale of five lucky children with magic tickets, hits The Straz Center to delight kids of all ages. The story is a lesson in have and have-nots, centering around Charlie Bucket, a poor, kind-hearted boy whose family is on the brink of starvation. Charlie, Violet Beauregarde, Mike Teavee, Veruca Salt, and Augustus Gloop, have found a golden ticket inside a Wonka bar and have gained the privilege of visiting the chocolate factory. Unlike Charlie, the four are sorely lacking in traits of kindness and appreciation.

Though I was fighting back the tears, the unexpected closure of the first act triggered wracking sobs from an audience member. That is how relatable, believable, and compelling the performance of Sonia Flew at Powerstories was on opening night.

'The Marvelous Wonderettes' tells the story of friends Suzy, Missy, Cindy Lou, and Betty Jean. The quartet is typical of high school. Suzy is the ditzy one, Missy is the control freak perfectionist with a secret, Cindy Lou is flirty and hopes to be prom queen, and Betty Jean is the class clown.

Described as a a?oehip hop, sex-comedy fairytalea?? by director Brian Balcom, a?oeVietgonea?? written by Qui Nguyen, is having its regional premiere on October 2, launching the 2019-2020 season at American Stage.

My husband loathes plays and yet I still dragged him out to Jaeb Theatre Sunday night to experience Spymonkey's Hysteria. After interviewing Toby last week, I knew it was our warped sense of humor and we'd love it. Not five minutes into the play at Klaus's unexpected greeting to Laura, he is tapping my knee mouthing, 'you were right.'

Having its preview in October, Gretchen is reaching out to the community via a Kickstarter fundraiser https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/melinamusical/melina-a-steampunk-musical-tragedy through October 25 for a demo recording to submit to festivals. In October, Melina will have its first official Table Read at Just Write, Lakeland and have a five song preview in Mount Dora at the Renningers Flea Market Industrial Steampunk Festival. On March 7, 2020, the musical is scheduled to have a full stage reading at the Carrollwood Cultural Center.

If you mix Monty Python and the Marx Brothers with a dose of Hitchcock, you will not come close to the surreal madcap comedy that is about to take center stage in their Straz Center American debut. Spymonkey's Hysteria from September 19 - November 3 in Jaeb Theater showcases the talents of the internationally-renowned comedy and physical theatre company, Spymonkey.

Clavico! is a musical comedy that centers on the residents of a no-name town, surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable wall that was built by El Duque, a foul swordfighter of long ago. A group of residents attempts to escape, but their plot is regularly destroyed by the evil dictator. When Clavico comes to town, is he the hero the town has been praying for or just an El Duque replacement?

At the close of the performance, my face hurt from laughing, but what else would you expect from a musical with the name Mel Brooks attached. This over-the-top and exquisitely offensive masterpiece, with everything from the producer's casting couch, grossly stereotypical ultra-sexy foreign female secretary/actress, sex-crazed old ladies to syrupy-sweet gay characters to literally, singing and dancing Nazis, this show is the antithesis to today's political correctness. The Producers at Carrollwood Players has something to make everyone do a little squirm in their seats and I loved every purposely-uncomfortable minute of this madcap story that revels in Mel Brook's irreverent humor.

In Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, after a boy injures another in a schoolyard confrontation, the parents meet to discuss the course of action in a civilized manner. Civility quickly crumbles as the conversation escalates in this savage comedy, the inaugural production of the semiprofessional theatre company Vivid Theatre Production, opening at Stageworks on Friday, September 6 through 15.

On Friday, August 31, VetArtSpan, a year-long creative collaboration with area veterans, civilians and local and national organizations will showcase personal stories, spoken word, dance, choreography, and artwork like painting and blown glass at The Straz Center's TECO Theatre from 7 a?" 8:30 pm.

In a time where bullying is national crisis, leading to children as young as nine years old taking their own lives, Innovocative Theatre's production The Hundred Dresses is opening at Stageworks Theatre on August 4. Sadly, this play is as timely today as when Eleanor Estes wrote the book in 1944. Set during the Great Depression in 1938, The Hundred Dresses is a play by based on the true experiences of the book author about a poor Polish girl named Wanda Petronski who is bullied by her classmates because she is different.