New items include cabaret shows from the Gaslight Cabaret Festival, a classic operetta at Winter Opera, and a local premiere at West End Players.
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New This Week:
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| Katie McGrath |
The Gaslight Cabaret Festival presents
Katie McGrath in
Aunt of the Year on Friday, November 9 at 8 p.m. "2018 Bistro Award Winner for Best New York Debut, Katie McGrath explores what it takes to win the coveted Aunt-of-the-Year award, using pop, jazz and soul songs to tell her story. Along the way, Katie shares the secrets of world class "aunting", discusses the great aunts of literature and history, and muses about a tribe of nieces and nephews who stole the heart of a happily childless woman." Rick Jensen is pianist and music director for the show, which is directed by Lina Koutrakos. The performance takes place at the Gaslight Theater, 358 North Boyle. For more information:
gaslightcabaretfestival.com.
My take: When
I reviewed Ms. McGrath's
Signficant Others show last November at the Gaslight, I said that anyone wanting to write a textbook on how to do cabaret could start with
Significant Others, so there's reason to expect great stuff from her latest show. I have known Ms. McGrath for over a decade, going back to when we both attended an early edition of the St. Louis Cabaret Conference. Even then, before experience and training had allowed her to polish her craft, it was obvious that her singing had the immediacy and emotional truth that is at the heart of cabaret performance. No wonder that Gerry Geddes, in a
review of the NYC debut of
Significant Others, wrote that Ms. McGrath has now "pursued, captured, and pretty much perfected cabaret performance."
Winter Opera St. Louis presents Strauss's comic operetta
Die Fledermaus (
The Bat) Friday at 8 PM and Sunday at 3 PM, October 9 and 11. Performances take place at The Skip Viragh Center for the Arts at Chaminade College Preparatory School, 425 S. Lindbergh. For more information, visit winteroperastl.org.
My take: It's easy to forget that Opera Theatre of St. Louis is not the only opera company in town. Union Avenue Opera and Winter Opera don't have OTSL's budget, but Winter Opera does have the advantage of an auditorium designed for musical theatre, complete with a respectable orchestra pit, and their shows generally feature fine singers and a decent orchestra. The company has a pretty good track record with operetta as well, with
a charming Student Prince last November and
a truly delightful Merry Widow in 2016.
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The Great Seduction
Photo by John Lamb |
The West End Players Guild continues its 108th season with the St. Louis premiere of the comedy
The Great Seduction by Vladimir Zelevinsky Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM and Sundays at 2 PM, November 9 - 18. "In the mid-19th century, the prolific French playwright and author Alexandre Dumas penned a five-act bedroom farce Mademoiselle de Belle Isle. It was a tasteful telling of the story of an arrogant Duke, a randy Countess, a young stud of a chevalier and an innocent maiden freshly arrived from the provinces, seasoned with generous dollops of low humor and decolletage. Well, okay. It wasn't exactly tasteful. But it was a rollicking and bawdy smash hit.A century and a half later, playwright Vladimir Zelevinsky decided it was time for the Madmoiselle to return to the stage. His new play, The Great Seduction, retains all the wit and charm of Dumas's original work in a tighter two-act format and with a different and surprising climax that adds a clever twist to one of the most important moments in French history." There will also be a show on Thursday, November 15, at 8 pm. Performances take place at the Union Avenue Christian Church, 733 North Union at Enright in the Central West End. For more information, call 314-367-0025 or visit
www.westendplayers.org.
My take: Vladimir Zelivinsky surely has one of the most unusual resumes of any playwright. A native of Siberia who emigrated to the USA with his family, Zelevinsky has degrees in nuclear physics from MIT and a number of software patents to his credit along with this theatre credits. His Manifest Destiny (which had its St. Louis premiere by West End, where I"m a board member, back in 2016) was a brilliant distillation of the American immigrant experience.
The Great Seduction goes off in a totally different direction with a sly take on the classic costume sex farce that turns out to be about much more than that. In
a 2016 interview for STLToday with Judy Newmark, the playwright said that he liked working with small companies because "that's where the interesting work is done." He has certainly provided some provocative pieces for those small companies to produce,
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| Ken Haller |
The Gaslight Cabaret Festival presents
Ken Haller in
Happy Haller Days on Saturdays, November 10 and 18, at 8 p.m. "In his take on the holidays, Ken promises to be surprising, funny, personal, moving, great company and just a little exasperating. Just like all our holidays!" Marty Fox is pianist and music director for the show. The performances take place at the Gaslight Theater, 358 North Boyle. For more information:
gaslightcabaretfestival.com.
My take: In
my review of Ken's last production,
The Medicine Show, I noted that he "delivered the goods with that combination of theatrical smarts and vocal authority that has made him one of our town's principal cabaret exports." He and Marty Fox have done another first rate job this time around; check out
my review of this show for details.
Held Over:
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Into the Breeches!
Photo by Phillip Hamer |
Shakespeare Festival St. Louis presents
In the Works, a festival of contemporary American plays inspired by Shakespeare, featuring the regional premiere of
Into the Breeches!, through November 24. "Building on its beloved summer productions in Forest Park and the acclaimed Shakespeare in the Streets program, the Festival now presents its very first season of contemporary American plays by writers in dialogue with Shakespeare, headlined by the regional premiere of
Into the Breeches! Written by the award-winning playwright of
Grounded, which starred Anne Hathaway in its New York run,
Into the Breeches! is a hilarious and heartwarming look at the WWII home front and a group of ladies who band together to keep the local theater going with their very own production of
Henry V. "In the Works" will also feature family matinees of
A Most Outrageous Fit of Madness, a delightful new play for young audiences by Festival favorite Nancy Bell, inspired by the mistaken identity hijinks of The Comedy of Errors, as well as staged readings of the Festival-commissioned
The Thousand Natural Shocks, a moving coming-of-age story about a teenage boy who finds strength and resilience through a high school production of Hamlet. (
The Thousand Natural Shocks is appropriate for ages 13 and over.)" Performances take place at the Kranzberg Arts Center, 501 N. Grand in Grand Center. For more information, including dates and times:
sfstl.com.
My take: The idea of
Into the Breeches! idea sounds like great fun and the Shakespeare Festival has had a rather good track record for many years now. Reviewing the play's world premiere earlier this year, the Providence (Rhode Island) Journal called it "a gem of a play, one of the sweetest nights of theater you're likely to see". Locally, Ann Lemmons Pollack
calls it an "absolutely delightful piece of work" while Calvin Wilson at the Post-Dispatch
says it's "a delightful and thoroughly engaging comedy-drama about persevering in the face of unfair obstacles and overcoming cultural prejudices that undercut the promise of the American dream."
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