A Review of Tons of Money

by Toni Wilson Wood

Waterloo - Alan Ayckbourn's Tons of Money is a hilarious farcical romp about indebtedness, inheritance, and imposters. This is the first show directed by Brian McCarty at Waterloo Community Playhouse and he has done a fine job with this show. What I love about McCarty’s approach to this show is that he’s really gathered together wonderful actors who meld together as an ensemble--each actor, no matter how big or small his or her part is, gives everything he or she can to the role--and you can see that in the performance.

A Review of Death of a Salesman

by Gerry Roe
 
Coralville - On entering the little theatre in the Children’s Museum for Dreamwell’s production of Death of a Salesman we see a room apparently set up for a rehearsal. A table and some chairs, curtains represent doors, and that’s about it. But then the players arrive, heralded by the melancholy sounds of a solo flute, to bring the play to life, to transcend the limited physical aspects of their space, to remind us or to introduce us to the greatness of what we are about to see.

Arthur Miller’s 1949 script was awarded the Pulitzer prize and a Tony for best play of 1949. The production directed by Elia Kazan, with Lee J. Cobb and Mildred Dunnock, and an iconic two-story set by Jo Mielziner, firmly established Miller and the play as significant developments in American theatre. The role of Willy Loman has been inhabited by Dustin Hoffman, Brian Dennehy, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, and hundreds of other actors in countless professional, academic, and amateur productions.

A Review of The Matchmaker

by Gerry Roe 

Photo by Lily Allen-Duenas

Amana - It’s quite possible that some audience members will approach The Matchmaker as a sort of Hello, Dolly without songs. Delightful as the musical can be, I suspect the audiences will find the play stands on its own two feet and is, in fact, a richer experience. The story is much the same: Dolly Gallagher Levi has been engaged to find a second wife for the widowed Horace Vandergelder. In The Merchant of Yonkers, an earlier version of the play, Vandergelder, not Dolly, was the principal character. The plot of The Matchmaker is not well served by a summary. After a series of complications and “adventures,” Dolly accomplishes her task but the second Mrs. Vandergelder is not the beautiful young widow Vandergelder planned to make his wife.

A Review of Mary Poppins

Photo by Len Struttmann

by Sharon Falduto 

Cedar Rapids - Mary Poppins at Theatre Cedar Rapids is lively, energetic, and colorful fun.

The musical combines elements of the beloved 1960s Disney movie and several plotlines from P.L. Travers’ series of books about the uncanny nanny Mary Poppins, making for a unique musical experience that adds more dimension to the story.

The songs in this musical are both familiar and different. You will hear “A Spoonful of Sugar,” “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” and “Jolly Holiday,” but the verses are different than those on that old Julie Andrews soundtrack recording. Much of the music is the original Sherman brothers, with additional songs, music, and lyrics by George Stiles and Anthony Drewe, whose credits include Peter Pan and Honk.

A Review of Into the Woods

photo by Jackie Blake Jensen Photography

by Sharon Falduto  

Iowa City - Stephen Sondheim’s 1986 musical Into the Woods has cast a powerful spell on audiences for nearly 30 years and is always popular in revival, which is why the corridor was able to support two performances of the show in the same season that Disney released a movie.

My 11 year old daughter sold Girl Scout cookies to the cast of City Circle Acting Company of Coralville’s Into the Woods when they were still rehearsing in their street clothes. Without the benefit of props, costumes, or set, she stood enthralled as the actors dug into the prologue of the piece. Naturally, she was my accompaniment for the premiere of the show on April 24, 2015.

The show interweaves and overlaps several Grimm fairy tales. We see Cinderella, longing to go to the King’s Festival but hindered by her wicked stepmother and stepsisters. Jack, of future Beanstalk fame, and his mother are in desperate need of food, and his mother demands that he sell his pet cow, Milky White. Little Red Riding Hood is off to visit her Granny, but runs into some trouble along the way. A childless Baker and his Wife long for the child who does not come. A wicked witch explains that she has cast a spell on the Baker’s family that his household will always be barren (which, if you think about it, is a pretty short-sighted spell). The only way to overcome the spell is for the Baker to retrieve four objects; “the cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, and the slipper as pure as gold.”

A Review of Romance/Romance

by Meghan D'Souza
 

Photo by Emily McKnight

Iowa City - Lean in, I've got a secret. I've had a long week and wasn't sure that I was in the mood for two one act musicals. On a normal day, I'm excited to see a play or musical that I've not heard of, but on Friday? My brain was on cruise control and wanted to be spoon fed something familiar in a familiar format:

Enter theatre.
Sit.
Watch.
Become engaged.
Enjoy a cookie during intermission.
Consider favorite parts, why they are favorites, and what I hope to see more of in second act.
Sit.
Watch.
Contemplate feelings of play.

A Review of Billy Bishop Goes to War

by Gerry Roe

Amana - At the talk-back after the first performance of this production, one of the first questions from the audience asked if Billy Bishop was a real person. As the actor responded (and as I knew from a little preparatory reading), Billy Bishop was indeed a real person, a Canadian pilot who flew fighter planes in World War I and again in World War II. Bishop lived from 1894 to 1956 and was Canada’s leading flying ace.

Billy Bishop survives in a play by John Gray in collaboration with Eric Peterson who provided music as accompaniment and as songs. I have to admit I didn’t expect this. I had anticipated Billy singing songs of the period such as It’s a Long Way to Tipperary and, perhaps, the Canadian national anthem (years before the current anthem, O Canada). Instead, there was musical support brilliantly provided by Andrew Crowe, accompanist and narrator. Crowe’s musical talents are impressive, not only on the piano but on the harmonica and violin. He also supports Vaughan Irving (Billy Bishop) in some of the songs. Irving and Crowe bring Billy Bishop vividly to life on the tiny stage of Old Creamery Theatre’s Studio Theatre.

A Review of Housebroken

by Matthew Falduto

Iowa City - Of all the theatre adventures an actor could embark upon, a solo show is perhaps the most daunting. One of the most wonderful aspects of acting is its collaborative nature. When you're acting with someone, you get to feed off of their energy, build a scene together, connect in a way that 'real life' does not always allow. A solo show is completely different. You are on your own. Every eye in the theatre is on you the entire time. It takes guts, incredible stage presence, and endurance. Fortunately, Iowa City is lucky enough to be home to a shining solo star - Megan Gogerty. Her newest show, Housebroken, premiered last week at Riverside Theatre.The opening night performance was a joy to experience, filled with humor and a witty examination of some of the foibles of our lovely city.

A review of Clybourne Park

by Matthew Falduto
 
Cedar Rapids - I love spaces like the Grandon Studio. It's a wonderfully intimate space that allows Theatre Cedar Rapids to present lesser known shows that might not sell out the huge auditorium located above. Shows like for colored girls... and Doubt, not to mention the annual Underground New Play Festival, play better in an intimate space like the Grandon Studio. Bruce Norris' Clybourne Park, a thought provoking play about race, is a perfect Grandon Studio show.

A Review of A Murder is Announced

by Toni Wood


Waterloo - A Murder is Announced, running at the Waterloo Community Playhouse, is an adaptation of the fourth Miss Marple book, written by Agatha Christie. This intriguing and surprisingly funny adaptation will keep you guessing 'til the very end.

The basics of the story are classic Agatha Christie; an ad appears in the local newspaper's personal ads stating that a murder will occur at the home of Letitia Blacklock on the night of Friday, October 13th at 6:30 p.m., which, as luck would have it, is the night that the play begins. The characters become more and more nervous as the time ticks toward 6:30, and after the murder, secrets, lies and cover-ups of nearly every character come out.

A review of The Great Gatsby

by Meghan D'Souza
Photos by Len Struttmann



Cedar Rapids - The talent at Theatre Cedar Rapids has brought to life Simon Levy's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, featuring the characters you likely met in high school and have loved to hate ever since. At least, I have. Set in New York during the Roaring Twenties, these characters lead lives that are glamorous to the outsider, but Nick Carraway (David Schneider) gets an inside glimpse and leads the audience through the story where we learn the awful secrets that they're hiding.

Bob: A Review In Five Acts

by David Pierce

Act One – The Script

You never know for sure if the way a play reads is the way a play performs. There are plays that read well but don’t carry that to the stage, and there are plays that are wonderful to watch that don’t read all that well. I have no idea how well Peter Sinn Nachtrieb’s Bob: A Life In Five Acts read, but it’s everything you could want out of a night of theatre comedy.

Granted, a large part of that is the cast and the staging, and I’ll get to those, but I wanted to take a moment to talk about the script itself and to applaud Dreamwell for choosing to do the show. I love how Dreamwell hunts for little known plays to perform, and Bob was a great choice. The script is hilarious, with moments of seriousness that never drop into syrupiness, in large part because of the jokes that come in at those moments of seriousness. One of my favorite laugh lines of the night was in one of those moments, and I’m not going to tell you what it is or set up the line because part of the pleasure was the fact that the line was both unexpected and a natural thing to say at that moment. The script has bawdy, ribald humor; subtle, restrained humor; humor that rises out of the moments; and humor that’s all in the written jokes. It’s a funny show, and I found myself laughing nearly constantly. Looking back, I can’t think of more than a one or two minute stretch without a laugh. It’s a fun script, executed in a fun manner.

A review of Walking the Wire: Classified

by Andrew R. Juhl

Iowa City - Riverside Theatre's Walking the Wire is one annual highlight of the local theatre scene, and for good reason. The performances are often fantastic, the writing is often fresh and multifaceted, and the roiling complements of comedy and tragedy provide a routinely enjoyable evening for audiences of this amaranthine platform.

As in years past, some familiar faces bring great performances to the event, even to the few underwhelming included monologues. And as in years past, the monologues with the most resonance and impact were those performed by their writers. Director Jody Hovland must have realized this to some degree, as she placed a writer-performer at both the beginning and end of the evening. Specifically, she placed the two most baldly autobiographical pieces of the evening (Chris Okiishi’s “Bully for You” and Janet Schlapkohl’s “Valentine Bunnies”) as those bookends, and I applaud this subtle, warranted use of symmetry. The third writer-performer, Ron Clark, imbues his happily-sad, fictitious story with the seemingly effortless gravitas one has come to nearly take for granted after so many years—but never should.

A review of Spelling Bee

by David Pierce
 

The cast of Spelling Bee.

Iowa City - Delightful. Causing delight, charming. Used in a sentence: The Iowa City Community Theatre’s (ICCT’s) production of The 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, playing February 27 and 28 and March 1, 6, 7, 8 at the Johnson County Fairgrounds is absolutely delightful.

Delightful. D-E-L-I-G-H-T-F-U-L

I did that without even using my magic foot, writing it on my arm, saying it to myself, or any of the other spelling tricks the characters in The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee use to spell the challenging (and sometimes not so challenging) words they’re given in their quest to be the champion of the 25^th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee.

Where to begin when talking about  a production this good? How about with this: The characters in the play are caricatures, stereotypes used to convey a quick impression. In the hands of an unskilled cast, that could be a bad thing. But in the hands of this cast, those stereotypes become living, breathing human beings, human beings with hopes and dreams and fears and worries. In the hands of this cast, you quickly see past the stereotype to the person within.

Why Torture is Wrong... Struggles to be Right

By Rachel Korach Howell
Photos by Elisabeth Ross

Regan Jade Loula as Felicity; Benjamin Alley as Zamir

Iowa City - Dreamwell’s Why Torture Is Wrong and the People Who Love Them, written by Christopher Durang and directed by Adeara Jean Maurice, is a look into post 9/11 frenzy in the United States with smatterings of other hot topic political issues thrown into the mix. The story revolves around Felicity (Regan Jade Loula) and her marriage to a possible terrorist named Zamir (Benjamin Alley). We see them wake up together and it becomes quickly clear that what was, to her, a one night stand (foolishly enacted in a drunken blackout) is actually the result of being slipped a drug and forced to marry a man she doesn’t know (married by an oblivious minister who makes porn, played by Brian Tanner). Zamir’s random shouting and violent threats to keep her from annulling the marriage, are seemingly, fairly easily ingested by Felicity as she agrees to have him meet her parents.

Luella, Felicity’s mother (Sandy Goodson), a sort of Stepford shell of a once-was woman (a clear result of an overly patriarchal society and a war-mongering and abusive husband), talks mostly of movies and theatre while the father, Leonard (Randall Schroeder) gets furiously angry on the turn of a dime, brandishes hand guns at the drop of a hat, and mysteriously retreats to care for his “butterfly collection” which no one has ever seen and Felicity suspects isn’t real.

The Spy Who Punned Me, or… From Old Creamery With Love, or… Punraker, or…

By K. Michael Moore
Photos by Lily Allen-Duenas

(L-R) Keegan Christopher as Myron; 
Mike Long as Jacob Seal

Cedar Rapids Puns are generally something a person loves, or hates. In a lot of ways, so is dinner theater. In both cases, the decision is entirely a matter of opinion and personal preference.

I LOVE puns (as several friends will attest with displeasure, no doubt!) – not sure about the old adage claiming they are the “highest” form of humor, but I love them. Dinner Theater, well, that I have found can be marvelous or disastrous… and every space in between.

Old Creamery Theater’s dinner theater production, The Spy Who Killed Me (written by James Daab) is a pun-laden farce of the spy thriller genre, performed at the Clarion Hotel in Cedar Rapids (Note: NOT at the OCT’s usual Main Stage or Studio spaces in Amana).

It ain’t Shakespeare, but it is far from disastrous.

An Itch to Scratch

By K. Michael Moore

Cedar Rapids - Some of my most amazing memories are of sitting in some friend’s basement, or around a table at some dive, tossing back a couple beers and having a bull session with my creative, often acerbic, always dreaming, creative friends. The unplanned conversations that spark a “You know what we could do…?” brainstorming session, that maybe leads to nothing at all but a couple laughs and a memory, or maybe becomes the next sensation. SPT’s Tales from the Writers’ Room series makes me feel like I’m watching those conversations every single time I go. The SPT troupe has this unplanned feel to everything, and it’s beautiful. They don’t waste time worrying about perfection, they throw together the funniest, best stuff they’ve got and see what sticks. And the result is really, really enjoyable.

For those who don’t know, Tales is like Cedar Rapids own SNL – a variety show of local writers and acting talent, with musical interludes between sketches. As far as I understand, like SNL, the performers come together in the week ahead of the 2-night set, and cram like hell to memorize, block, and put up a full evening of sketch comedy, spoken-word, and often electrifying concert-style music. Each season has a theme the writers must utilize, and each specific session has a specific topic – both must be included or at least nodded to in each sketch. In addition, each session includes the talents of the usual band of SPT ne’er-do-wells, and also 2 Guest Actors, a Guest Writer, and Musical Guest Artists. This season’s theme is “7”, and this weekend’s particular session was 7 Year Itch.

Menagerie's Delicate Power, and a Giving of Trees

By K Michael Moore
Photos by Len Struttmann

L-R: Spina, Schneider, Rezabek, Shedeck

Marion - The Glass Menagerie is often regarded as Tennessee Williams’s masterwork, filled with depth and broken, redeemable, challenging characters. In brief (as brief as possible!), the 1930’s: the Wingfield family, long abandoned but haunted by the unnamed Mr. Wingfield, struggles along on the income of an unsettled and dreaming Tom (David Schneider), who is also the Narrator of the piece. His older sister, Laura (Hannah Spina), destructively shy and with a crippled leg, has no prospects to make her own way in the world, little to no ambition past her record player and her glass figurines, and no likelihood to obtain a husband to provide for her. Their mother, Amanda (Traci Rezabek), is an aging southern belle who married the wrong man and lives largely in her own memory and her own vision of her children. Tom dreams of escaping the prison of the family flat, of adventure, but remains to keep his mother and sister from being destitute. Laura dreams of her glass figurines, of a boy she adored in high school. Amanda dreams of what she once was – or thought she was – and that her children would aspire to marriage and happiness, but she fails to understand what would make them happy. Needless to say, such a mix in a tiny St. Louis apartment leads to strife. Enter Tom’s friend, “The Gentleman Caller,” Jim O’Connor, played by Kyle Shedek, invited to dinner by Tom but at Amanda’s insistence in an effort to marry Laura off. Jim has no idea of Amanda’s intentions and doesn’t even know Tom has a sister.

Giving Tree’s inaugural production of Menagerie is a solid show, and shows the promise of future endeavors. It is not without its flaws, but it is a wonderful show. One of the show’s greatest accomplishments is that not one of the characters is flat or one-dimensional. As Director Heather Akers points out in her Director’s Note, it is all too easy with a script such as this to paint the characters too thin. Tom can easily become a selfish, alcoholic bum with no respect; Laura a willingly invalid spinster, afraid to face the world; and Amanda a manipulative harpy with a dash of insanity. At no time does the Giving Tree troupe allow this to happen. And that’s the true power of the production – Giving Tree shows us these infinitely human characters without either apology or excuse, but with simple understanding.

Lucky Me Lovingly Rendered

By Leah Gehlsen Morlan
Photo by Bob Goodfellow

Patrick DuLaney; Jennifer Fawcett

Iowa City - Riverside Theatre’s Lucky Me is a charming show which follows the trajectory of unlucky-in-love-and-life Sara Fine’s (Jennifer Fawcett) relationship with the affable Tom (Patrick DuLaney), a tenacious TSA agent. Written by Robert Caisley, who is on-hand for two talk-backs during the show’s run, Lucky Me visits Riverside Theatre as one stop on it’s National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere.

Frost/Nixon Features Passionate Performances

By Toni Wilson Wood
Photos by Matthew R. Kerns

Thomas Carlisle as Nixon

Waterloo - Frost/Nixon, performed by Waterloo Community Playhouse, is an epic juggernaut that covers three years, various locations, and the verbal boxing match between David Frost, the British talk show host who was better known for his handling of models, not presidents, and President Richard Nixon, who was seeking a way to redeem himself without apologizing for something he felt was not something to apologize for.

Sound boring? You would be wrong. While this material could be considered dry, Peter Morgan, author of Frost/Nixon, took a huge amount of information and condensed it into something digestible. He created a text that clocks in at 2 hours (sans intermission) that feels much shorter than it actually is. There isn’t anything extraneous here. Every word, every actor has his place.