Bwog’s Song and Dance Connoisseur Sean Zimmermann reports on Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s latest production, Changing Direction.

“You never realize the role of directing until you see different directors back to back,” explained Will Brown, Production Designer for Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s production of Changing Direction. The production features numbers from a wide selection of famous musicals, from Into the Woods to Rent, each directed by a different student director. Will’s comment couldn’t ring truer in this production; while many of the numbers were quite good, there were others that came off as average.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the show was that I don’t think it showcased the performers; there were multiple times during the show when I felt a singer would have been better, if only she were singing something else. This was especially true in the case of the rendition of “Out Tonight” from Rent. Morgan Fletcher, who played Mimi, trilled on a number of notes, and I couldn’t determine if this was a decision of the director, or if Fletcher’s voice was actually quavering. However, when she appeared again in Aida’s “Easy as Life” and “Written in the Stars,” Fletcher was spectacular; she hit every note flawlessly. Therefore I don’t think it was that she couldn’t give a good rendition of “Out Tonight,” but that the direction was poor, or it was a poor choice for her. Other numbers, such as the rendition of “What Could Be Better” from Baby also suffered from this problem. Read more…

At last night’s show of Fiddler on the Roof, the average age of the audience was significantly higher than any of the other shows Bwog has attended in the past. Producer Jonathan Jager shared that many families purchased blocks of 10 tickets to the show, explaining the surprising lack of college students. Among the few college students present, however, was Bwog’s very own Sean Zimmermann. Here, his review.

The Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s performance of Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Rebecca Victor, is spectacular. The cast, the costumes, the lighting the music — all is of an unusually high caliber. Perhaps most impressive is the quality of the acting, which at last night’s performance was on peak and at a very professional level for a college production.

There are a few actors whose performances deserve special note. Tevye, portrayed by Eric Lawrence, spoke with a thick accent which perfectly fit his role; his character’s monologues, during which all other characters would freeze, were well-executed — as were the freezes themselves, which gave the monologues an almost dreamlike quality. Other members of Tevye’s family, such as his wife Golde (Kathryn Maslak) and his three eldest daughters Tzeitel (Becky Greenstein), Hodel (Rivka Friedlander), and Chava (Emily Buttner) were portrayed very believably, as were the young student Perchik (Michael Seaman) and the poor tailor Motel Kamzoil (Josh Warshawsky). Some of the actors in smaller roles also stood out: Elizabeth Varner deserves praise for her hilarious portrayal of the matchmaker Yente, as does Tyler Benedict for his almost-sympathetic portrayal of the town Constable, Ben Bardin for his elderly Rabbi, and Bethanie Mangigian for her screeching ghost of Fruma-Sarah. Read more…

You know those coffins you’ve been seeing out on the steps for the past few weeks? Well apparently the CU Players have decided to finally lay the corpse to rest and have the funeral this weekend … over the course of three days in the Lerner Party Space of all places. Bwog’s Interactive Theater Bureau Chief Jon Edelman was in attendance for last night’s first round of the matriarch’s drawn-out funeral.

Photo via CU Players

Grandma Sylvia’s Funeral brings the concept of interactive theater out of the realm of Italian stereotypes, so prevalent after the success of environmental theater pioneer Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding, and into the realm of Jewish stereotypes, a theme more fitting with trends in Columbian comedy.  Beyond that, though, the show isn’t that original. But it is still pretty damn funny.

Here, as in Tony N’ Tina’s Wedding, the show incorporates the audience into the cast of players, in this case as the assembled attendees for the memorial service of Grandma Sylvia, matriarch of a feuding Jewish family.  This motley clan is composed of both the dysfunctional members you’d expect (the drunk, the slut) and the ones you wouldn’t (the condescending psychologist, the gay vampire).

The interactive experience begins on the line outside the show, as the family members act as ushers, distribute yarmulkes, have loud arguments, and search for the missing rabbi.  While this technique establishes the characters and makes the wait to get in more bearable, the audience reactions are sometimes unpredictable and not always cooperative: some dutifully played along, contributing reminiscences of the departed, while others did their best to mess with the actors, claiming that they had come to see a play, not a funeral, and weren’t sure who Sylvia was. Read more…

Bwog’s Dane Cook ventured into Riverside Theater to attend last night’s performance of Black Snow.

The intrigue of Black Snow took hold even before the play began. As the audience filed past to take their seats, a young woman cautioned everyone entering the theater, “Don’t forget your package. It’s here waiting for you.” Standing beside a messy table strewn with documents, she gestured toward several metal pails, each filled with small brown envelopes that read, “Keep in your pocket. Keep closed. You’ll know when to open…”

This unexpected introduction sets the tone for the rest of the production, which follows Sergei, an aspiring writer in Soviet Russia, on a dark journey into a confounding world both comically cruel and utterly unusual. Disappointed by unfavorable reactions to his first novel, Sergei pursues the opportunity to become a playwright and sets out to engage the Russian theater scene. While struggling to make ends meet, he confronts marvelously zany characters and scenarios of dreamlike absurdity. And although he battles desperately to hang on, ultimately his fate spirals out of control.

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Taking a break from finals studying, Bwog’s North Pole Bureau Chief Sean Zimmermann reports from the production of “XMAS! 4: Shalom Alone” last night about the story of one little Jewish Santa:

As the audience walked in to Roone, the first thing to notice was the loud dance music filling the auditorium. Lady Gaga, who usually isn’t associated with holiday cheer, was a surprising choice and a stark contrast to the musicians warming up wearing Santa hats. However, “surprising” is indeed a good overall characterization of the musical. Surprising due to its very small budget, surprising due to its limited showings, and surprising due to just how good it turned out to be.

Ollie Klausberg, played by Brian LaPerche, opened the musical by giving a reading from the Torah during his Bar Mitzvah. However, the nervous Ollie wets himself while reading and runs off stage. After being comforted by his pagan friend Amethyst (Emily Feinstein), an elf named Marty (Reni Calister) greets Ollie and informs him that he is the grandson of Santa and needs to travel to the North Pole. Ollie, after some encouragement from Amethyst, agrees.

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In my defense, there is no way I could have known what to expect last night as I entered the Lerner Black Box Theater to see Black Theater Ensemble’s production of Purlie Victorious.  Spiral notebook held high, pencil behind my ear, and grinning insincerely as I am wont to do, I strode into the room and proudly proclaimed that I was the Bwog reviewer—when everyone in the room stopped dead in their tracks to greet me.  Within a minute of taking my seat, the producer and a member of the cast had introduced themselves, excitedly telling me about the Ensemble’s mission and that, despite the fact that I would be alone in the audience, I should feel free to laugh; the play is, after all, a comedy.  Though the dress rehearsal hadn’t yet begun, the energy in the room was palpable, and the friendliness and excitement of the cast and crew was infectious.  I quickly tucked away my pencil and spiral notebook, and a genuine smile broke across my face; “I am an idiot,” I thought.  I tell this story because I strongly recommend that you attend Purlie Victorious, and that you do so without reservations.

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Bill Clinton may be a tough act to follow, but the cast and crew of The Secret Garden seem to be handling the Roone Arledge stage quite well – or at least they’re putting on a good show. Hannah Goldstein reports from the (secret) final dress rehearsal.

You might say the ‘Secret’ is out of the Box: the passing of Columbia Musical Theatre Society’s biannual black box show, has left the Secret Garden as this semester’s main stage production. At their last dress rehearsal before a two-night run, the cast presented a small audience (including Lucy Simon, the composer of the original score, no less) with a somewhat unconventional twist on the old classic. The performance marks the culmination of the Columbia Musical Theater Society’s long proposal and approval process that lead first-time director Mary Jo Holuba, BC ’12, to take on the non-traditional project.

Unlike the story you may remember, the show is more thematic than plot-driven. Holuba emphasized healing as the driving theme by re-envisioning traditionally inert entities as dancing people: ghosts, plants, and exotic memories take on human form and remained a constant force onstage throughout the two-and-a-half hour performance, whether shifting silently in the background or executing wild turns center stage at movements of high tension. The dancing was, for the most part, entrancing, but the presence of the dancers occasionally distracted from what plot action did occur between the speaking characters as they acted out a story about young Mary Lennox, who comes to life after the death of her parents in an unlikely garden at an English estate. Though the set was fairly minimalist and the pit claims a sizeable part of the stage space, the blocking and choreography easily filled the rest of the space, making for an interesting but occasionally overstimulating show, at least in the visual realm. The music, however, was fitting, well-executed, and effective – ironically most noticeably so when the stage was most crowded.

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Last night Sarah Camiscoli attended Bat Boy along with a mob of eager Columbia students that filled Lerner Black Box to the rim. Thankfully, several poor souls abandoned their spots on opening night, offering Bwog a spot in the audience to review the sold out show.

“The way of sin is death, sweetheart,” preaches Jill Shackner, as elf-eared and vampire-fanged Bat Boy Ricky Schweitzer springs into her quaint three-bedroom house. With a brilliant production team and the return of the performing talent of last year’s Varsity Show, the “virgin territory”—as coined by director Nina Pedrad—of this student run production was more than a success. Despite what Nina may claim, it seemed apparent that the cast and production team had been around the block as the cast opened the show with a riveting performance of “Hold Me, Bat Boy.” Before reaching the confines of Lerner Black Box, Bat Boy began as the story of a half-boy, half-bat discovered in cave published on the a 1992 cover of Weekly World News. Soon after, there was a book written by Keythe Farley and Brian Flemming, a musical composed, and thus, the sin of the “Bat Boy” was born.

Set in the farm country of the Deep South that just can’t be “rid of Christian charity,” Bat Boy, cleverly points to the triviality of town elections, the oppressiveness of religious authority, and the overwhelming popularity of cowboy boots. Ricky Schweitzer, Bat Boy or, as Meredith Taylor calls him, “Edgar”, brilliantly unveils the misery of a dysfunctional marriage, the triteness of small town south, and the simplicity of “any twit” receiving a Columbia degree as he evolves from a primitive birdlike creature into a stand up religious man who comes to understand the existential significance of a navel. In the same vein, Remy Zaken, as Bat Boy’s secretly incestuous sister Shelley, enthralled students as she, Jill Shackner, and the live orchestra directed by Evan Johnston revealed the need for a bigger box to accommodate their musical talent in “A Three Bedroom House.”

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Feeling emotionally burdened, Bwog’s Catharsis Bureau Chief, Claire Sabel, sought release last night in CU Players’ production of Sophokles’ Elektra.  And according to her review, the trip was more than worthwhile.

It is one thing to read the great works of Greek drama in Lit Hum, and quite another to bring them to life on stage – but CU Players’ production of Elektra, directed by Brian Bené, is a truly brave attempt at tackling Sophocles’ very difficult tragedy.  Lasting a tightly packed 90 minutes with no intermission, the performance can at times be laborious, but is ultimately extremely rewarding.

As Bené points out, the central themes of Elektra - suffering, loss, revenge, and the desire for justice – are all very modern ones which make the play both extremely accessible and uncomfortably relevant.  Thus, after having read virtually all of its modern translations, CU Players decided to adopt one of the most contemporary versions available – that of Anne Carson, published in 2001. Carson’s Elektra is so desperate and trapped by the fate of her family that the only course of action left to her is to lash out and ‘make noise’; a notable and distinctive feature of this version, as explained in the preface to the play which is helpfully included in the program, is Carson’s decision to transliterate the lamenting shouts of the characters, so that the audience hears “Oimoi!” instead of the expected “Alas!” Read more…

Black Box Correspondent Mark Hay attended last night’s performance of NOMADS’s latest production:

Your correspondent arrived early to last night’s production of “The (Love) Story of Myrtle Willoughby and Willough Myrtleby (and the Neighbors)” to attend its Opening Gala—mainly due to the promise of free food—where I happened to meet Kurt Kanazawa (CC’11), president of NOMADS (New and Original Material Authored and Directed by Students, the group behind the production).  He spoke briefly on his intent to bring the group into more exciting and experimental grounds, such as by adding an element of smell to theater and doing a play in ASL.

Not to sound stodgy, but when artistic undergrads use the word “experimental” to describe their work, red flags go off. I entered the theater with great skepticism, expecting possibly a strangled take on “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” or some long, painful indie experience. To Mr. Kanazawa, and especially to writer Cassandra Adair (BC’12) and director Katie Lupica (CC’11), your reviewer owes you a sincere and profound apology for my doubts. Read more…