Papa Weeze presents Stand Up Fashion event May 21 and 22 – Where standing up for a cause meets runway fashion

17 May 2016

Sharing on behalf of my pal Barbie Weisserman – sounds like a fun event! Don’t miss it!

DETROIT – Presented by Papa Weeze, Stand Up Fashion is an annual event that brings together artists of all different mediums into TWO illustrious nights of events, May 21 and 22, at 31440 Northwestern Highway in Farmington Hills. The event features an artists gallery and fine hors d’oeuvres (open and close in the lobby), an opening stand-up comedy performance, and a fashion extravaganza featuring local designers of all ages and experiences. These are two days of fun and fashion you do not want to miss.

Now in its second year, Stand Up Fashion’s main event is a high-fashion show featuring local designers on Saturday night. From stunning ball gowns to avant garde designs made from unconventional materials, the designers are sure to make jaws drop. The first evening starts at 6pm for a wine reception and 7pm for the show.

Papa Weeze executive director Barbie Weisserman noted, “I can’t tell you how thrilled we are to see this event enter its second year. Papa Weeze’s mission to inspire and promote local artists has really resonated, and 2016’s Stand Up Fashion is even bigger, bolder, and more provocative than before. You will see it all: steam punk, cosplay. up cycle, vintage clothing and wedding gowns, costumes, wearable art, and more. Our emcee is the divine Ms. Lauren Jacobs. You are in for a treat!”

papa weeze collage Sunday’s event is a breakdown of fashion trends, appreciating the art of clothing from all different walks of life – especially those often overlooked. From cosplay to steampunk to drag, Sunday will inspire you to look at the unusual and unexpected in a different light. Sunday’s proceedings begin at 1pm for refreshments and 2pm for the show. There will also be a silent auction, raffle, and opportunities for audience members to vote for their favorite designs.

Weisserman adds, “Earlier this year, our first short film, Getting Ed Laid, starring Ed Asner and Jean Smart and directed by Deborah Pearl, took the ‘Lou Costello Award for Comedy Short’ at the 2016 Garden State Film Festival. And now this event has grown from one to two days. I’m over the moon with the trajectory Papa Weeze has taken, and I invite everyone to come play with us!”

Stand-Up Fashion 2016 will take place Saturday, May 21st and Sunday, May 22nd at: 31440 Northwestern Highway Farmington Hills, 48334. Advance tickets ($20 for Saturday; $15 for Sunday; $30 for both days) are currently on sale at the Papa Weeze website: http://papaweezeinc.org/standupfashion/. (Tickets purchased at the door will cost an additional $5 each day.)

Design and artist gallery applications are still being accepted, also at this web address. If you are interested in modeling or have a vintage wedding gown to donate, please email Weisserman at papaweeze.inc@gmail.com.

About Papa Weeze:

There is no shortage of quality theatre companies in Southeast Michigan, but unlike other metro areas the success of “arts collectives” – marrying the spontaneity of theatre, cabaret, and improv with the abstract joys of movement and dance as well as the crafts of design, fashion and visual arts – has been more hit-or-miss.

“PAPA Weeze” aims to “to provide collaborative opportunities for professional artists to create and display all forms of art, in an attempt to entertain, educate and expand.” The organization, led by long-time local theatre professional Barbie Weisserman, is named for her late father-in-law Harold Weisserman, an individual whose generosity and heart led him to support many creative and entrepreneurial efforts in the community.

The group’s flagship project for 2015 was crowd-funding/producing a short independent film Getting Ed Laid, written by Deborah Pearl (Designing Women) and starring Ed Asner (The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou Grant) and Jean Smart (Designing Women, Fargo). Recently, the film received the “Lou Costello Award for Comedy Short” at the 2016 Garden State Film Festival.

2016 Stand-Up Fashion Show Flyer_Page_2

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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.

Ann Arbor’s Penny Seats Theatre Company with two offerings – The Canterbury Tales and Xanadu – this summer

2 May 2016

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From our press release … which is why I refer to myself in the third person on my own blog … or I’m just having a nervous breakdown. Or both.

Canterbury Tales

Ann Arbor’s Penny Seats Theatre Company is set to open its sixth summer season at West Park, performing outdoor professional theatre at movie-ticket prices, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays throughout June and July. This year, the group’s season will open with a modern adaption of Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales (by Lindsay Price), followed by the 2007 Broadway musical smash, Xanadu (based on the 1980 cult classic movie of the same name), with a book by Douglas Carter Beane and music and lyrics by Jeff Lynne and John Farrar.

Canterbury Tales, directed by Anne Levy (Brighton), is set to star Matt Cameron (South Lyon), Dale Dobson (Milford), Jenna Hinton (Farmington Hills), Jeff Miller (Ann Arbor), Tina Paraventi (Ypsilanti), Debbie Secord (Ypsilanti), Jeff Stringer (Ann Arbor), and Jennifer Sulkowski (Plymouth). Tina Paraventi, who plays the show’s holier-than-thou Prioress, expressed great excitement about this new adaptation: “This is a wonderful adaptation of Chaucer’s Middle-English collection of stories, accessible to today’s audiences, very high-energy and entertaining. It’s also great fun for the actors, who not only play the travelers, but also act out different roles in the stories told by each traveler.” Debbie Secord (who plays the devilish Wife of Bath) agreed: “This cast and crew are phenomenal and I can’t wait to see what we can accomplish with this show. I must say, I am particularly fond of the host of characters I will be playing in the show, most notably the Wife of Bath and the chicken—ahem—hen, Pertelote. I must say, I’ve never played poultry before and am looking forward to it!”

This hilarious, energetic show will run at West Park, in the band shell area, from June 16^th to July 2^nd at 7:00pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

Xanadu Penny Seats Next up is the 2007 Tony nominated musical comedy, Xanadu. It tells the tale of a Greek Muse’s decent from Mt. Olympus to Venice Beach, California, to inspire a struggling artist to achieve the greatest artistic creation of all time – the world’s first roller disco. And yes, there will be roller skating in the park!

With direction and choreography provided by Phil Simmons, along with Musical Direction by Richard Alder, the show will feature performers Paige Martin (Ann Arbor), Matthew Pecek (Berkley), Roy Sexton (Saline), Kasey Donnelly (Ypsilanti), Allison Simmons (Holland), Sebastian Gerstner (Ann Arbor), Logan Balcom (Hillsdale), Jenna Pittman (Waterford), and Kristin McSweeney (Ypsilanti).

Roy Sexton, who plays Danny Maguire, the show’s curmudgeonly businessman, summed up the feelings of many in the cast about Xanadu‘s quirky place in the musical theatre cannon: “I’ve loved Xanadu since I first viewed it – about a million times – on HBO in the early 80s. I wore out two copies of the ELO/Olivia Newton-John/Gene Kelly soundtrack, but I always lived in shame because the film was such a notorious Hollywood bomb. When it was revived and reinvented so successfully on Broadway, I secretly (well, not so secretly) hoped the Penny Seats would eventually take on this campy, kitschy, satirical stage re-do of the movie. The score is crackerjack and the narrative is just so hysterically loopy that I knew it would be a great fit for us. I live in shame no more!”

Xanadu will run at West Park’s band shell from July 14^th to July 30^th at 7:00pm on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays.

Advance tickets to both shows are available at the group’s website, www.pennyseats.org. Although the curtain goes up at 7:00pm each evening, pre-show picnicking is encouraged for audience members, and the group will sell water and concessions at the park as well.

ABOUT THE PENNY SEATS: Founded in 2010, we’re performers and players, minimalists and penny-pinchers. We think theatre should be fun and stirring, not stuffy or repetitive. We believe going to a show should not break the bank. And we find Michigan summer evenings beautiful. Thus, we produce dramas and comedies, musicals and original adaptations, classics and works by up-and-coming playwrights. And you can see any of our shows for the same price as a movie ticket.

FOR MORE INFORMATION about The Penny Seats call 734-926-5346 or Visit: www.pennyseats.org.

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A collective of crazies: Hard Taco’s Chisels ‘n Dust

1 November 2014

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Because time plays funny tricks, I find myself in the peculiarly delightful place of singing the chorus (as an army of miners nonetheless) on a song written by the elementary school-aged son Malcolm of my good friends Zach and Lauren. Malcolm, mind you, had not quite arrived in this world when I first met Lauren, who was pregnant with him when she first co-music-directed (along with Rebecca Biber) me in Spotlight Players‘ production of Company. WHEW! “Bobby, Bobby, Bobbeeeee.”

Anyway, enjoy the song “Chisels ‘n Dust” and Zach’s much funnier blog post (than mine) which follows.

Hey, be sure to sign-up for his blog. It comes out the first of every month, is chock-full-of-fun, and is FREE!

You can find all of Zach’s Hard Taco output (sounds rather odd to write that sentence) at hardtaco.org … but, for sheer vanity, here are shortcuts (in chronological order …I think!) to all the songs I’ve been privileged to perform with his collective of crazies – click title to listen/download (free!):

This has been so much fun … I look forward to many more musical adventures with them!

And if you find yourself in Metro Detroit tomorrow afternoon and you’ve got nothing to do, stop by Sirius/XM’s Seth Rudetsky’s master class at Farmington Players (noon to 3 pm).He will be torturing … er … teaching a dozen of us guinea pigs how to be better auditioners (auditionees?) to the delight and amusement (and horror) of the audience. Tickets still available at farmingtonplayers.org

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From Zach – view original post here …

November Hard Taco Digest: Another Ick in the Wall

Dear Friends,

“There’s a pit where bad guys have to dig up crystals all day instead of going to jail.”

That is my son Malcolm’s vision for the new Hard Taco song, “Chisels ‘n Dust,” which he co-authored. I enjoyed this collaboration, and hope it is the first of many. I look forward to breaking up over aesthetic differences and grudgingly reuniting after a decade of unsuccessful solo endeavors.

I always feel a bit embarrassed about posting a link to my songs on Facebook, but I do it anyway, just in case one or two people are curious. Other than that, I’m a pretty reserved Facebook poster.

We all know people that exist at the other end of the spectrum. One of my friends furnishes her timeline with new material five or more times a day. Most of the posts are just three letter interjections, such as Yay or Ick, but within minutes, each of these garners hundreds of Likes and Comments.

So what is her secret? Am I an unpopular person or am I just providing unpopular content? To find out, I took 24 hours and posted the same kind of stuff as everybody else. The results will shock you.

With warmest regards,
Zach

Tomfoolery

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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view.

In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book 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.

“We love a good ghost story. How about you?” Never Can Say Good-bye film in development PLUS Slipstream Theatre event AND Shih Tzu res-cue!

16 July 2014

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Never Can Say Goodbye

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again (particularly for those provincial social media naysayers … who aren’t listening anyway), the internet brings the world together in fun and surprising and interesting ways, breaking down geographic boundaries and uniting people by affinity (as opposed to arbitrary constructs of place and time). Read The World is Flat. No, really. Go read it.

Writing this blog has introduced me to a documentary filmmaker in Toronto (click here) and allowed me to review a short film by an animal advocate whom I’ve never met but feel as though I have (click here). It has helped me connect with and learn from fellow bloggers (click here) and has given me the opportunity to assess the work of local theatre groups (click here). I even got a shout out from JB Bernstein, the subject of the Disney film Million Dollar Arm, over my review of that fabulous flick: “It means a lot to hear a review like this. This was a very personal story, and to know that I was able to reach even one person with our message it was worth all the work.”

Ok … enough patting myself on the back …

My downright caustic review of the latest Transformers installment caught the attention of Traverse City-based independent filmmaker Theresa Chaze (click here for her website). She is also a published author, experienced video producer, and accomplished communications professional, and she is hard at work launching her new film Never Can Say Good-bye. I was honored when she asked if I would read her script and offer my thoughts.

(And the animal lover in me adores this part of her impressive bio: “As the media specialist for Angel Protectors of Animals and Wildlife, she produced several public service announcements and micro-documentaries. The messages remained informative and promoted positive action to save our nation’s wildlife.” Yes! Another of her potential projects is a TV show about equine therapy for veterans – Horses and Heroes.)

Theresa Chaze

Never Can Say Good-bye reinvents the reincarnation conceit (Christopher Reeve’s/Jane Seymour’s 1980 film Somewhere in Time, Ellen Burstyn’s 1980 film Resurrection) in the guise of gothic paranormal psychodrama (Nicole Kidman’s 2001 film The Others, Julie Harris’ 1963 film The Haunting, Deborah Kerr’s 1961 film The Innocents). The plot concerns two families united by a doomed marriage in the 1950s and explores the dissonant legacy that familial discord has had on subsequent generations. (See the Stephen King/John Mellencamp musical Ghost Brothers of Darkland County for another take on this thematic concept.)

I finished reading the script earlier this week. It is so well done and layered and clever. I love the notion of turning a ghost story on its head through the lens of reincarnation. I thought the characters were all clearly and thoughtfully drawn, and the script is definitely a page turner in the best sense. The disparate threads cohere in a denouement that is both chilling and poignant. The dialogue is believable, and the insular college-town setting (somewhere in northern Michigan, I believe) lends a nice chilly, hierarchical vibe.

Different actors are reported to have been attached at various points, including Lauren Holly, Bill Hayes, and Dyan Cannon. Stanley Livingston is connected to direct. Obviously, “name” performers would bring added attention to the project, but I daresay a cast of unknowns would keep audience attention focused on the narrative and the dense web of challenging relationships therein.

And, as in seemingly all creative efforts these days, there is a crowd-source funding campaign afoot through Indiegogo – you can donate here. From the campaign’s page …

We love a good ghost story. How about you? We are not talking about films that gross out the audience or are so dependent of special effects that the producers forgot to give the characters personalities or have plots that are based on clichés or simply don’t make any sense. Much like Dark Shadows, Never Can Say Good-bye is based on suspense and plot twists that will scare the socks off the audience and make them suspicious of the dust bunnies under their beds.

Best of luck, Theresa – hope this script makes it to the silver screen soon – it’s a keeper!

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My pal Bailey Boudreau (with whom I appeared in Farmington Players’ production of Legally Blonde the Musical last year) has launched the Slipstream Theatre Initiative here in Metro Detroit, and they have a fun event this weekend. Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

Slipstream Theatre Initiative is proud to present a one-weekend staged reading festival of new, local works! The festival is a fundraiser for both Slipstream Theatre Initiative and Two Muses Theatre, and promises to provide non-stop entertainment.

Slipstream

Featuring new short plays by Playwrights Cara Trautman, Bailey Boudreau, Emilio Rodriguez, Kim Carney, Emily Fishman, Barry Germansky, Margaret Edwartowski, Katherine Nelson, Lori Reece and Josie Kirsch, this two day event offers a wide variety of material and subject matter.

Bailey Boudreau

The actors include Scott Romstadt, Steve Xander Carson, Miles Bond, Cara Trautman, Jennifer Jolliffe, Cindi Brody, Katie Terpstra, Alexander Henderson Trice, Claire Jolliffe, Maxim Vinogradav, Nick Kisse, Joshua Daniel Palmer, Josie Kirsch and Bailey Boudreau.

All proceeds will go to the 2014-2015 seasons of Slipstream Theatre Initiative and Two Muses Theatre, both non-profit organizations.

What: Original Works Weekend
When: Saturday July 19th, 7:30 pm & Sunday July 20th, 5:00 p.m.
Where: Two Muses Theatre inside the West Bloomfield Barnes and Noble
How Much: $10, additional donations accepted (tax-deductible)
Contact: InsideTheSlipstream@gmail.com , www.SlipstreamTI.com

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And this is just something that I needed to capture – and why not put it in this particular crazy quilt of a blog entry …

So, I’m going to lunch yesterday with my colleagues Mike and Jan and I see a Shih Tzu or something (no tags, but a collar) running about the busy traffic on Middlebelt. We lure the dog into a yard with a rattle-y container of gum, and the people who live in the house say, “We saw him running around.”

Really? And you didn’t do anything?

They give us some twine which we fashion into a leash. I wander about this neighborhood while Jan and Mike go to the drugstore to get a real leash (which of course they don’t carry – my mom always says, “Always have a leash in your car.” I will now).

As I stumble around using this dog like a divining rod to see if he will lead me to his home (he didn’t – he was kind of a cute dingbat), up rolls from within the neighborhood a Grand Marquis painted an ugly orange red and on tires the size of small boulders. The gentleman driving the car, not saying “thank you,” grumbles, “My dog.” I say, “What’s his name?” Surly reply, “Bear.” (Really, a Shih Tzu named “Bear”?) The dog did indeed reply to the name, at which time the man got out of the car, lifted the dog roughly by the collar, smacked it on its side, and said, “We’re goin’ home.”

So, who wants to kidnap a Shih Tzu with me? Yes, we drove back through the neighborhood to confirm that he and “Bear” do live there. And, after work yesterday, I drove by the house again where the dog lives, and I met the teenage boy who clearly loves him very much. Let’s hope for the best.

If you want to know where I got this love for all creatures great and small, please check out my mom’s latest wonderful blog entry “that is my medicine” here.

And read about friend Beth Kennedy’s adoption of “Nacho the Cat” here!

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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! Thanks to BroadwayWorld for this coverage – click here to view. In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book 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.

“I act because it compels…” The Penny Seats’ upcoming production of Elektra

2 July 2014

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“…The audience is being given the gift of live theater. Films do not ask from us in their enacting, a film can merrily play out to an empty room, but the very beauty of live theater is the human exchange. Without that sense, it is dead.”

– Emily Miller Mlcak

(Mlcak is a beloved professor from my undergraduate days at Wabash College, and she wrote this in response to “scha·den·freu·de.”)

Elektra cast photo by Dawn Marie Kaczmar

These words rang in my ears the other week when I crashed a rehearsal of The Penny Seats’ summer production Elektra (as adapted by Ann Arbor’s own Anne Carson) for a sneak peek of the glorious mayhem that is sure to delight audiences at the West Park Band Shell July 10 – 26.

In the spirit of transparency (oh, how I do hate that overused expression), I am one of the founders of The Penny Seats, and I held featured roles in the company’s first slate of offerings: Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet), What Corbin Knew, She Loves Me, and Little Me. However, to reclaim some balance in my personal life, I stepped off the board last year and am just a blissfully unencumbered theatre-goer this summer.

(I think I’d be pretty lousy in Greek tragedy anyway – my cheesy musical comedy shtick would likely grate in the world of Sophocles.)

“The very beauty of live theater is the human exchange.” From what I saw of Elektra’s opening scenes, that quality is evident by the bucket-ful. Portraying the title character, Ypsilanti’s Emily Caffery, who recently appeared onstage at both Performance Network and Two Muses Theatre, captures the visceral heartache of a daughter betrayed as her family unravels before her very eyes.

For those unfamiliar with the tragedy, Elektra details the revenge scheme the title character and her brother Orestes exact upon their mother Clytemnestra and step father Aegisthus, in retribution for father Agamemnon’s murder. The action takes place in Argos, shortly after the Trojan War.

Caffery, a student of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center’s National Theater Institute, notes, “This translation is not stuffy. The piece is very recognizably human. It is immediate and real, and I am using the text as much as possible to bring each image to life.” Indeed, her Elektra is violent yet empathetic, adrift yet fierce, inconsolable yet laser-focused … Dorothy Gale by way of Katniss Everdeen.

The yin to Caffery’s theatrical yang is Sonja Marquis as Elektra’s soccer-mommy-from-hell Clytemnestra. Marquis, a resident of Brighton, has worked at Tipping Point, Purple Rose, Encore, Two Muses, and The Ringwald among many other local theatre companies. “Don’t be scared of the Greek mythology. You’ll find lots to enjoy,” Marquis observes. “Clytemnestra is painted as a villain, but I don’t judge her. As an actor, I look for the justification … Elektra’s father killed my child [Iphigenia, sacrificed to the gods before the play begins]. Obviously, Elektra sees it differently, but why wouldn’t Clytemnestra be angry?”

Marquis quickly adds, with a hearty laugh, “But don’t worry … I definitely haven’t identified with my character’s villainy that much!”

Remaining cast members include Samer Ajluni (“Old Man”/“Aegisthus”), Scott Wilding (“Orestes”), DeAnnah Kleitz-Singleton, Sarah Lovy, Katherine Nelson, and Kez Settle. Like Marquis and Caffery, these accomplished thespians have all appeared in venues across Southeast Michigan: Hillberry Theater, Abreact Performance Space, Waterworks, Wild Swan, Planet Ant, JET, and more.

Director Russ Schwartz along with assistant director JP Hitesman are mining the material for contemporary resonance – familial discord, jealousy, anxiety in wartime, sexism, ageism – and are layering in a light amount of cheekiness to keep their audience engaged (and to highlight the darkness that much better). For example, keep your ears open for Ajluni’s marvelously witty take on the expository tale of Orestes’ “death” by chariot race – imagine Ben-Hur as told by an announcer at the Belmont Stakes.

Ajluni, who calls Farmington Hills home, is savvy to the challenges of outdoor theatre. (Elektra will not only be performed outdoors, but the production will take full advantage of all the space surrounding the West Park Band Shell.) “I once did a show in Central Park, and you get a different feel every show. Focus is key,” notes the actor, adding that playing two very different characters “lets you do something far from yourself. … I love when the Old Man gets to be the voice of the audience, telling the characters, ‘Stop giving so many speeches!’”

Lovy, who plays Pylades, a mute boy, chuckles, “I like that they gave me a chance to do drag! Seriously, though, plays like this are important for education. I was introduced at a young age to the classics. That exposure has helped me relate to daily life, family dynamics, and themes. I’m really grateful for that. … I’m the eyes and ears of the show, and I can’t let on what I know or the whole family will blow up”

Settle, one half of the show’s Greek chorus, concurs, “We are there to influence the outcome. We have a job to do … but we are ethereal beings performing a delicate dance between justice and vengeance.”

Nelson, Settle’s fellow chorus member, elaborates, “Ancient Greece is where theatre started, and it continues as a source of great drama with plots as extreme as any summer blockbuster. In our daily lives, we are all so worried about being calm and polite, but a show like this? You can really cut loose.”

With such a fun, fizzy, and damn erudite cast, Schwartz is grateful for this summertime collaboration and echoes his actors’ perspectives. “This show and this cast are so perfect for the space. This is different than anything The Penny Seats have done before, and we wanted to expand our direction a bit.”

Hitesman adds, “This is challenging stuff … very active. The relationships are so intense, like a real family, and working on this reminds you how much the Greek classics have influenced today’s theatre, film, TV.”

Schwartz concludes, “Carson’s adaptation gets to the spirit of what modern audiences will appreciate. It is very immediate and draws you in. If you’ve been away from Greek drama for a while, this show is a great way to reconnect … and if you’ve never seen a Greek tragedy, this is the one for you. Immediate and relatable.”

In the play’s opening scene, Elektra declares, “I act because it compels.” In the context of the play, this proclamation indicates an urgency of movement, but, witnessing this intrepid band of actors exercise their talents, these words take on double meaning. Indeed, they do act because the very doing compels – compels the hearts and minds of both performers and audience. And I, for one, can’t wait to see the finished results!

Elektra opens July 10 and runs through July 26. Shows are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday at 7 pm, and tickets are $10 per person. You can purchase tickets at www.pennyseats.org or by calling (734) 926-5346. Patrons may want to may want to bring blankets or camp chairs to sit on, as the tiered seating around the pavilion does not have back support. The company has partnered with a local caterer to have food on-site, and picnicking (beginning at 5:30 pm performance nights) is encouraged.

[This piece first appeared on BroadwayWorld here – I appreciate their wonderful support!]

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“Everybody’s got the right…” Farmington Players’ production of Assassins

2 March 2014

10 Comments

[Image Source: Farmington Players]

I suspect theatergoers have a love/hate relationship with Stephen Sondheim. I know I kind of do. Sometimes his work is sheer brilliance, spinning elegant insight out of ugly misanthropy. Other times, he is so self-indulgent it makes my eyelids hurt.

What follows is not a review. This is one of my “I have wonderful, talented, fantastic theatre friends and I am proud of the show they just did” blog entries.

In this case, I just got back from closing night of Farmington Players’ production of Sondheim’s Assassins. If you aren’t familiar with the show, in essence it is a musical revue of sorts with a meta thematic narrative tying together the experiences and motivations of the most notorious presidential assassins in American history. Fun night at the theatre, eh?

[Image Source:
Farmington Players]

Well, morbid as it may make me sound, it actually is. Michael Smith with the assistance of Margaret Gilkes does a fabulous job directing this spiky material with stellar musical support from Rachael Rose. Kristi Schwartz also adds the perfect light touch to some comic choreography.

[Image Source: Farmington Players]

The show is an allegorical treatise examining the underdogs in our society and the effect that perceived/real persecution, disparity, and frustration can have on the most fragile of psyches. Assassins offers prescient analysis of our Instagram-happy, “Real Housewives of … Wherever” world in which fame is its own reward, regardless of the ugly costs. Sondheim also anticipates our ongoing collective debate about gun culture, asserting quite plainly that firearms and their immediate availability are a uniquely horrifying American tradition.

The cast, as I’ve indicated, is populated by some of my favorite theatre friends. Barbara Bruno (who deserves an extra shout-out for wringing every bit of comic gold from her role as “Sarah Jane Moore”), Bob Cox, Daniel Crosby, Barry Cutler, David Galido, Keith Janoch, Nick Rapson, Michael Soave, Alex Spittle, Keith Firstenberg, and Jason Wilhoite all do spectacular work in the principal roles, nailing the rich content of not only the score but the incisively written monologues. The ensemble (Erik Elwell, Jayne Firstenberg, Jim Moll, Martin Rinke, Pat Rodgers, and Patrick Wehner) all have the tough task of setting the atmosphere of any given historic era, and they accomplish it with aplomb.

[Image Source: Farmington Players]

This is not an easy show and it can quickly slide into creepy, clammy, artsy-fartsy territory without a strong cast and directorial vision, but this production deftly avoids that trap. Like another Sondheim classic Company, Assassins revels in its lack of any discernible plot and in playing mind-bending, dream-like tricks with time and place.

The Farmington Players’ production grounds the material with heart and humor, beautiful singing, sharp sound and lighting design, atmospherically minimal set pieces, and great character work. I’m sorry to say this is closing night and if you didn’t get to see it, you missed out on a wonderful production.

As the main characters espouse in what is arguably the best song from the score, “everybody has the right to be happy.” And I certainly was tonight.

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Reel Roy Reviews is now a book! In addition to online ordering at Amazon or from the publisher Open Books, the book currently is being carried by Bookbound in Ann Arbor, Michigan; by Green Brain Comics in Dearborn, Michigan; and by Memory Lane Gift Shop in Columbia City, Indiana. Bookbound and Memory Lane both also have copies of Susie Duncan Sexton’s Secrets of an Old Typewriter series.

Reel Roy Reviews

…to the chagrin of true arbiters of taste

Tag Archives: farmington hills

Papa Weeze presents Stand Up Fashion event May 21 and 22 – Where standing up for a cause meets runway fashion

Ann Arbor’s Penny Seats Theatre Company with two offerings – The Canterbury Tales and Xanadu – this summer

A collective of crazies: Hard Taco’s Chisels ‘n Dust

November Hard Taco Digest: Another Ick in the Wall

“We love a good ghost story. How about you?” Never Can Say Good-bye film in development PLUS Slipstream Theatre event AND Shih Tzu res-cue!

“I act because it compels…” The Penny Seats’ upcoming production of Elektra

“Everybody’s got the right…” Farmington Players’ production of Assassins

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November Hard Taco Digest: Another Ick in the Wall

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