Photo Flash: Jim Caruso, Billy Stritch and Friends at Las Vegas' Smith Center
by BWW News Desk - Jun 23, 2013
When Jim Caruso and Billy Stritch walked into the new Cabaret/Jazz room at the new Smith Center in Las Vegas, they had no idea they would soon be inundated with performances by some of the most thrilling talent the town has to offer. ?Headliners, jazzers, vocal groups, dancers, and stars of the musicals on the strip signed up for impromptu performances at Cast Party, the New York open mic that regularly tours the country. Scroll down for photos from the concert!
BWW Reviews: Welk Resort Theatre in Escondido Offers Enjoyable Stepping Out
by Don Grigware - Apr 18, 2012
Stepping Out by British TV writer Richard Harris is not a musical, although it was turned into one in 2010. It's a play with music and is set in Northern England in 1984, the same time period and place as Billy Elliot. It's the tale of eight women and one man who take a weekly local tap class in their church hall. Workers and mates by day, these folks are generally disillusioned and unhappy, each for a different reason, and without the class, they might just cash it in. What you see on stage, now at the Welk Resort Theatre in Escondido, are the amateur characters as they arrive at class and spill their guts for a brief time about their various issues and how they adapt themselves to each other and to learning how to tap. First efforts are rusty at best, but as the play proceeds, the group get to know and tolerate each other and to tap better, and eventually are given a chance to participate in a local one-night annual entertainment gala. My first misgiving with the play is that you never get to know each person thoroughly or totally understand their motivations, but after careful consideration, what you see is what you get: an entertainment that brings the people together, that brings a much needed joy into their lives ... and to the audience at large. It's real, funny and musically fun - about a mini Chorus Line but with amateur dancers whose stories do not involve the profession - and that by itself is enough to give it universal appeal.
