Kelsey Lawler - Page 9

As a sometimes-self-identifying Millennial, it may come as little surprise that opera is relatively new territory for me. I've grown up as a lover of musical theater, but classic opera is a whole other ball o' wax. Mainstream media doesn't exactly drop Verdi, Mozart, Leh r, or even Gilbert & Sullivan into one's lap. I've had to seek out the experience of opera, going into it knowing that there's a risk involved. A risk of disappointment and of the experience affirming what current trends seem to have decided for me: that opera's rightful place is in the past.

With Lauren Gunderson's Silent Sky, the Next Act Theatre invites us, for a couple of hours, to orient ourselves in a place and time before the 1990 Hubble telescope, before the 1969 moon landing, before the first rocket launch in 1926, and before Edwin Hubble proved the vastness of galaxies far beyond our own in 1923. It's here that we meet mathematician and aspiring astronomer Henrietta Leavitt, played by the always-brilliant Deb Staples.

Though GUYS & DOLLS might not offer deep self reflection, it continues to be a staple of the American musical tradition for accomplishing the one thing musical theater set out to offer in the first place: An escape. A sense of sheer joy. A break from the monotony of reality and our own personal problems. A chance to be part of a fantasy world of song and dance for a few hours where the laughs are rehearsed and the guy gets the girl and leave with a smile.

It's said that lovers of good music had to stuff their handkerchiefs in their mouths to keep from bursting out laughing at the operatic recitals of eccentric Manhattan socialite, Florence Foster Jenkins. Madame Flo once declared, 'People may say I can't sing, but no one can ever say I didn't sing.' She wasn't wrong people did say she couldn't sing, but sing she did.