Interview with “Reunions” lyricist Jeffrey Scharf and composer Jimmy Calire
"Reunion"'s lyricist Scharf and Composer Calire explore how two forgotten one-acts became a musical about second chances, memory, and the courage to reconnect. [more]
Gabriel Barre
Reunions
"Reunions" is a charming new Edwardian musical made up of two classic one- act plays: James M. Barrie’s 1910 “The Twelve-Pound Look” and the Quintero Brothers’ 1901 “A Sunny Morning.” Using an ensemble of six main actors who rotate roles, these two one-act musicals have the same theme: former lovers meet years later by an accident that changes their lives. However, the Barrie play deals with a middle-aged couple in a London mansion while the Quintero play brings together two septuagenarians in a Madrid park. Beautifully directed by Gabriel Barre, this is an elegant evening worthy of its Edwardian ancestry. [more]
This Is Not a Drill
You may recall that on January 13, 2018, Hawaii residents including tourists received an alert that a ballistic missile had been spotted on the way to the islands. You may also recall that it was later reported as a drill only for security workers, and that the alert was over after 38 minutes. Songwriter Holly Doubet remembers that day as she was visiting the islands and has not forgotten the minutes pondering her impending death. This is the premise of The York Theatre’s new musical 'This Is a Not a Drill," conceived by Doubet with book by Joseph McDonough and Doubet, and a 15 song score by Doubet, Kathy Babylon and John Vester. A pleasant enough entertainment, there is no urgency except for the hysterical characters at the Hibiscus Resort and Hotel who take the alert seriously. We know, of course, that it was false, so the authors have made their plot out of "Love Boat," "Hotel" or "White Lotus" multiple storylines with each couple having their own crisis. Unfortunately, the characters and their problems are all clichés and stereotypes which all end happily, Hawaii being a place for solving one’s problems. It might have been more exciting dramatically if some of these plots had not had happy endings. [more]
A Sign of the Times
This York Theatre Company production at the New World Stages, following a presentation at Goodspeed Musicals in 2016, shoehorns these songs into a book by Lindsey Hope Pearlman from a story created by Richard J. Robin. It has an ambitious plot that glibly takes on a number of themes roiling through the turbulent Sixties: women’s lib, civil rights, the war in Vietnam, the sexual revolution, Andy Warhol, and even a premature touch of gay liberation. [more]
A Turtle on a Fence Post
Unfolding from a stand-up comedy routine—“A prisoner walks into a bar…!”—and set in a comedy venue designed with ingenuity and style by Walt Spangler, Turtle veers from hokey to horrible helped by the spiffy routines staged by choreographer Kenny Ingram in over-the-top, sometimes kitschy, routines. Where else can you see dancing prison guards waving their batons as they tap dance in a circle or the flexible actor Josh Marin portraying an ATM and a basketball hoop? [more]
Amazing Grace
Famously, it was an 18th century slave trader who redeemed himself, after many gruesome twists and turns in his life, by writing this song. Told with something approaching accuracy, "Amazing Grace" nevertheless is less than compelling as both history and theater. What might have been a fascinating tale has been reduced to a melodrama complete with a villain who all but twirls his mustache, a hard-to-win love interest, an African princess who provides an excuse for some passionate dancing and many examples of physical and emotional torture of slaves, all accompanied by a series of soaring contemporary ballads. [more]