Monthly Archives: August 2017

Wilde Awards 2017: If only I had Wink Martindale’s career …

29 August 2017

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Well, the 2017 Wilde Awards Ceremony is in the history books. And a truly special night celebrating the best of Michigan theatre is over … for another 365 days.

As a kid, I was obsessed with game shows and awards ceremonies, so to suggest that co-hosting last night with EncoreMichigan’s David Kiley was the fulfillment of a lifelong dream is no hyperbole. And more than a little dorky. If only I had Wink Martindale’s career.

I was humbled to be amongst such theatrical and critical talent last night, and to see so many personal friends receive well-deserved recognition last night affirmed that good people who work hard do earn the spoils. And my buddies still spoke to me after the show was over. #winning

Full list of winners and additional coverage here.



Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language

Encore Michigan photos by Richard Rupp

 

“It’s called the Reign of Terror, not the Reign of Agree-to-Disagree.” Theatre Nova’s Michigan premiere of Lauren Gunderson’s The Revolutionists

27 August 2017

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K. Edmonds and Melissa Beckwith; Diane Hill in foreground. [Photo from Theatre Nova’s Facebook page.]

“Sigh. Gasp. Retort. Sometimes I say them, instead of doing them.”  – The Revolutionists’ Marie Antoinette (a sparkling, scene-stealing anarchic aristocrat in the delightfully daffy hands of Melissa Beckwith)

 

In a genius bit of cross-promotion, the Huron Valley Humane Society (which is as much animal advocacy organization as top rate animal shelter) partnered with Theatre Nova to hold (on August 24) a benefit preview of Theatre Nova’s latest offering The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson – a play as much about finding your voice in collaboration and commiseration with like-minded individuals facing the same wall of apathy, antipathy, and alienation as it is a time-bound period piece exploring the exigencies of the French Revolution.

(Needless to say, the packed house of Greater Ann Arbor animal advocates left the theatre fired up, galvanized, and inspired.)

Yours truly, Penny Yohn, and Kim Elizabeth Johnson enjoying the pre-show reception

Like Clutter, another entry this season at Theatre Nova, The Revolutionists is both memory play and call-to-action with a nice slathering of meta-absurdity across its surface. Playwright Gunderson brings together four women (some historical figures, some composites) in one small room at the height of France’s Reign of Terror to discuss their truths, their narratives, their plights as free-thinking women in a society that seeks revolution and equity but not when it comes to the distaff side of society. Liberté, égalité, fraternité. Literally. (Bernie Bros, anyone? Too soon?)

The aforementioned Marie Antoinette, Caribbean revolutionary Marianne Angelle (a grounded, heartbreaking, and damn funny K. Edmonds), and Jean-Paul Marat’s assassin Charlotte Corday (a fiery, spiky, compelling Sara Rose) find themselves in the chambers of playwright Olympe De Gouges (a fabulously neurotic Diane Hill … channeling just a hint of Hillary’s steely resolve?), seeking a writer to help them finish their stories. It is unlikely that these women would have ever interacted IRL (“in real life,” as the kids say), but Gunderson has great fun imagining what might have transpired. For example, she rehabilitates and humanizes Antoinette as a 1% victim of misunderstood and misrepresented intention (the heroine of Stephen Schwartz’ classic ditty “Meadowlark” if played by Carol Kane), never quite letting her off the hook for her tone-deaf excess. It’s a marvelous hat trick, aided and abetted by Beckwith’s revelatory performance.

Director David Wolber has stacked the deck with a to-die-for cast (in fact, most of them do meet the guillotine at some point – or multiple points – during the show), and he wisely let’s them run like hell with their roles, shaping and pacing the narrative for maximum funny and maximum heartache.

K. Edmonds and Sara Rose [Photo from Theatre Nova’s Facebook page]

The challenges facing these women in 1793 aren’t terribly different from those facing women in 2017, and that’s a damn shame. The language is purposefully anachronistic, and Wolber’s staging – coupled with the dreamlike design of Daniel C. Walker (lighting), Carla Milarch (sound … seriously, download right now the equally anachronistic, breathtaking pop songs by French group L.E.J. which are used interstitially and at intermission), and Forrest Hejkal (set, costumes, props, hair) – smartly positions the play as an allegorical comic nightmare, cautioning us that history sure as hell repeats itself. As Cordray warns her compatriots at a moment when they seem to be sliding into fearful ambivalence and losing their collective moral compass, “It’s called the Reign of Terror, not the Reign of Agree-to-Disagree.” Touché.

The Revolutionists runs at Theatre Nova through September 17. Don’t miss it. Tickets at www.TheatreNOVA.org

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Yours truly with Kim Elizabeth Johnson

Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital). In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan. My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language

“Don’t be afraid to give a compliment.” Mary J. Blige’s Strength of a Woman Tour at Michigan Lottery/Freedom Hill Amphitheater 

2 August 2017

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Twenty-five years ago, a goofy white kid, a freshman at Wabash College (me) walked into a Target store in Crawfordsville, Indiana and took a look at the cover of Mary J Blige’s now-iconic What’s the 411? debut album and thought, “THAT looks interesting!” instantly buying it and listening to it on repeat ever since.

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In fact, the album was more than interesting. It was a revelation. Other generations had Aretha Franklin or Tina Turner as a soulful voice that crossed R&B and pop and rock boundaries to express a deep-seated pain over an intolerant and misogynistic world. My generation has Blige. She was to hip hop what Kurt Cobain was to rock, a disaffected iconoclast gleefully turning Top 40 convention on its collective ear.

Two and a half decades later, I finally had the opportunity to see Blige live – at the Michigan Lottery/Freedom Hill amphitheater. (By the way, this is a marvelous venue, with nary a poor sight line and a fantastic array of amenities.)


Blige put on a killer show. As you can imagine, she “leaves everything on the field,” as sports pundits are prone to say. The show highlighted all of the hits, from her debut album through equally landmark LPs My Life and Share My World, on to her latest offering Strength of a Woman, also the title of this tour.

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The set design was minimal, with some fun digital projections recounting the looks and styles of her storied career, and her remarkably tight backing band knew just when to get out of the way of her freight train of a voice.

If there was a theme to the evening, it was that women survive and thrive despite the pain and duresss of a society stacked against them.  Blige has been famously unlucky in love, and she isn’t afraid to throw shade at any man in the audience who views women as a disposable commodity. One of her fieriest moments was recent album cut “Special Place in Hell,” dedicated to all the swaggering, self-absorbed cowboys out there. And, unsurprisingly, classic feminist anthems like “Not Gon’ Cry,” “I’m Goin’ Down,” and “My Life” were delivered with a fiery urgency that kept them as fresh and timely as the day they were recorded.

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Blige’s opening act, Destiny’s Child alum LeToya Luckett, carried a similar thene through her set list. While Luckett lacked the visceral authenticity of the show’s headliner, she landed her musical critique of a society that fails to honor its women. As she observed, “Don’t be afraid to give a compliment…must be something insecure about you if you can’t.”


Well, I am not afraid to give credit where credit is due. And tonight’s performance was a scorcher. Do not miss this tour if it passes your way.


Thanks to the venue’s Tina Genitti for being the consummate host this evening. My friend Aaron Latham and I had a remarkable time!

Reel Roy Reviews is now TWO books! You can purchase your copies by clicking here (print and digital).

In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the first book is currently is being carried by Bookbound, Common Language Bookstore, and Crazy Wisdom Bookstore and Tea Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan and by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan.

My mom Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series is also available on Amazon and at Bookbound and Common Language