Calvin Knegten

Copperfield! The New Musical

October 31, 2026

While many of Charles Dickens’ novels have been adapted successfully for the musical theater (Oliver! And The Mystery of Edwin Drood are two that come to mind), David Copperfield which clocks in at 870 pages in the Signet edition has defied successful musical adaptation until now. Jeffrey Scharf’s skillful and clever "Copperfield! The New Musical" has streamlined the story so well that it works beautifully as a new musical. With director and choreographer Gabriel Barre, Scharf’s musical version solves many of the problems inherent in such an adaptation. As this bildungsroman (story of growing up) deals with David Copperfield’s earliest days to his second marriage at age 35, two actors are used as David, but cleverly they interact reminding us that the child is father to the man. All of the main characters and events are here except for David’s schoolfriend Tommy Traddles who actually isn’t needed in the retelling. [more]

Pride House

January 23, 2024

While “Pride” has come to stand for Gay Liberation in contemporary times, Beatrice has named her house after Jane Austen’s novel as it is made clear when she names her new guesthouse “Prejudice” at the end of the play. The play’s cast of characters includes mostly real people under their own names: John Mosher, film critic for The New Yorker Magazine; Arthur Brill, decorator and furniture designer; Natalia Danesi Murray, a Broadway actress and later journalist and editor; and Edwin Marshall, an African American dancer in the Ziegfeld Follies. Unfortunately, neither the play nor the program makes it clear that these were all real people or that they were well known in their time. The play also does a certain amount of name dropping (Eva Le Gallienne, Gypsy Rose Lee, Janet Flanner) that may go over the heads of many of the younger theatergoers today. [more]

The Picher Project

October 13, 2023

"The Picher Project" is a bluegrass and folk-infused musical conceived and directed by Quentin Madia, with music, book, and lyrics by Madia and Lauren Pelaia. This show is based on real-life events that are not only a part of Oklahoma's history but also of the social and industrial history of the United States. Through words and songs, the story is told of how this gentle, quiet, rural area became the center of lead and zinc mining in North America, only to end up dead as the number one most polluted place in the United States. [more]