The Last Night of Ballyhoo
By Alfred Uhry
Directed by Tad Ingram
Starring Kristin Shoffner, Carine Gaito, Kevin Alonso
UCF Conservatory Theatre, Orlando FL

While many people despise the Jews, none do it with such flair and panache as other Jews. At least that’s what’s happening in 1939 Atlanta: as Hitler initiates his new world order in Poland, the Freitag/Levy family clings to its social status in moneyed Atlanta. Adolph Freitag (Robert Svetlik) never married so he has plenty of time to make bedding while his widowed sister Boo Levy (Shoffner) bitterly climbs for status in the only Jewish household on Hempstead Avenue. Well, there IS one other, but it’s on the tacky end of the street so it doesn’t count. Things have gotten so bad the cook quit right before the (Christian) holidays, and there’s no real prospect of date for her barely marriageable daughter LaLa (Gaito). Adolf’s new assistant Joe Farkas (Alonso) might do, except he’s from… well, let’s just say his people came from East of The Elbe by way of Brooklyn. That would never do down at the exclusive Standard Club where neither Christians nor Ashkenazi are appreciated. Smart ass Peachy Weil (Parker Slaybaugh) saves the day by asking LaLa to the Ballyhoo Cotillion. He’s a practical joker but a nice guy; his parents don’t care if he marries LaLa. Neither does he, but at least everyone has a dance partner.

A gentle comedy of mores, “Ballyhoo” pokes around in the crevasses of the successful and not completely accepted. The family relations are hard to keep straight without the handy family tree in the program, but if you just take this as intersecting love stories, it’s easy to follow. Joe seems genuine confused that Jews could discriminate against Jews, but this is the Old South, and discrimination is a mark of gentility. Shoffner seemed continually strident, and opposite her we find Adolph’s sister-in-law Sunny (Katie Thayer). Just like her name telegraphs, she only sees the positive and has high hopes for Lala who’s 22 and still stuck in middle school. I loved Slaybaugh’s Peachy, he was a complete switch from the stuck up and futzy Freitag household. Everyone here draws a distinct view on the situation, from Boo’s dislike of a Christmas star on the Hanukkah Bush to Adolph’s stolid businessmanship to Joe’s confused outrage. The double standards of this family lurk in all of us, and I’ll add this – the set was gorgeous. These people may be discriminating against their own, but they also discriminate when they go shopping at Rich’s Department store down on Peachtree.

For more information on UCF Conservatory Theatre, visit http://www.theatre.ucf.edu

I Love You Because
Music by Joshua Salzman
Book & Lyric by Ryan Cunningham
Directed and choreographed by Roy Alan
Musical direction by Chris Leavy
Winter Park Playhouse, Winter Park FL

Hey, they used dirty words in this show! Despite WPPH’s tendency toward squeaky clean entertainment, I distinctly heard “P*n*s P*mp” and even “C*nn*l*ng*s,” so while there isn’t explicit sex onstage, you know these people are actually D**ng *t. Stodgy Austin (Todd Mummert) writes trite greeting card messages and just broke up with his off stage girlfriend. His brother Jeff (Christopher Norton) recommends taking six month to get over it and date the worst girl he can find, just to recalibrate. Meanwhile Marcy (Lulu Picard) is in the same situation and her BFF Diana (Belinda Johnson) advises the same thing. Diana even sings a song about the math behind the six month thing (The Actuary Song) which makes her the geeky cute one. These opposing teams meet on a Jewish dating site, apparent to make the break up easier when the time comes. Of course, Mary and Austin fall for each other after suitable agonizing (…But I Don’t Want To Talk About Her, Because of You) but the interesting relation forms between Jeff and Diana. They become Friends With Benefits, and grease through all those awkward “getting to know you” moments with the delusion that the sex is only temporary. They seem more fun as a couple while Marcy and Austin have the Democrat / Republican thing lurking in the background. When their lust wears off, why, it just might be presidential election time. Awk-ward!

I loved this cast and I liked some of the songs even if I couldn’t hum one right now if you held a bagel to my head. The plot holds few surprises and it takes silly jokes and excellent singing to keep this show alive. I love Norton’s hair with its carefully and critically greased look, and paired with Mummert they look a bit like Abbott and Costello – the tall guy get the acid straight lines, and short guy practices looking hurt but always driving he comedy forward. Ms. Picard is sassy cute and she and Mr. Mummert are a darling couple and you do cheer for them even if the script telegraphs its punches. You can hear those plot turns coming, and then a small voice in the back row goes “oh oh!” But that also says the audience is on board with the story – it’s a mixed message. Over on the side, stalwarts Chris Leavy and Sam Forrest keep the jazzy soundtrack flowing, and I’ll give the set high marks. This show was well received, the house was full and there were plenty of overheard compliments.

For more information on Winter Park Playhouse, please visit http://www.winterparkplayhouse.org

Add Songs, Stir
By Paul Strickland
Beth Marshall Presents
Orlando Shakespeare Center, Orlando FL

Storytelling is nothing more than cooperative hypnosis without that embarrassing “squawk like a chicken thing.” Strickland has made a name for himself on the Fringe circuit with a knack for extending the mundane into fascinating hour long journeys through his life. Tonight he creates a more abstract world where a small town attempts financial recovery by building a glass bottomed boat. When the boat proves to large to tow to the lake, they create a Potemkin village in the valley below and flood it, building the sort of underwater fantasy land that would have pulled tourists off the state highway a long time ago. Strickland sings plaintive acoustic numbers between tales, I’m guessing titles like “Never Any Closer” and “Together in a Dream” and a variant of “Twilight Time.” These buffer his stories, stories possibly about the mannequins floating under the lake, possibly about his friends, and possibly mirrors of his own insecurities and heart breaks. No matter which, the performance riveted, and even though the audience was packed with the Fringe Faithful, the response was well deserved. If all the schedules fall out right, and the water does not leak out of lake or the boat hit the rocks, we may see this show again in the near future.

For more information please visit www.facebook.com/#!/BethMarshallPresentsFringe/

Hedwig and The Angry Inch
Book by John Cameron Mitchell
Music and Lyrics by Stephen Trask
Directed by Bruce Ryan Costella
Musical Direction by Spencer Croswell
With Joshua Eads-Brown and Janine Klein
In The Wings Productions at The Abbey
Orlando, FL

Damn, this show has some great rock and roll! And between the smashing chords and cynical lyrics there’s this weird, heartwarming story about love and mutilation and escape, and there’s a disconnect between the two that builds you up and tears you down like the Berlin Wall. We sit in a in a seedy cabaret with overly bright LED lighting and it might be Orlando or maybe Junction City, Kansas but it doesn’t really matter. We meet the outrageous Hedwig Robinson, a slip of a girlyboy who grew up in East Berlin listening to pop tunes on Armed Forces Radio. He meets Luther, a service man with flexible preferences and a willingness to marry him out of communism, but Hedwig ends up in divorced in Kansas with a botched sex change and a cheap beige wig. He turns to the music he loves and that’s how we end up in The Abbey tonight. Along with his backup band “The Angry Inch” we meet his “husband” Yitzhak (Klein). Their relation is strained and infused with jealousy and arbitrary meanness. While he’s jealous of Yitzhak, he’s even angrier at his more successful protégé Tommy Gnosis playing a bigger venue down the street.

There’s a disconnect between the kicking rock and the more leisurely paced monolog. When the band played I was ready to burn down the house, but the air fell out of the room during the leisurely monologs. Eads-Brown’s delivery wasn’t to blame; he’s made for the part and has both vocal skill and the emotional intensity to make Hedwig real. His entry costume was great; with its American flag them and beehive hairdo he looked like Evel Knievel after he failed to jump the Aquanet factory. Klein’s Yitzhak looks incredibly masculine; I knew it was her up there in that leather jacket and biker doo rag, but I wasn’t positive until she came out in her black velvet ball gown.

Behind the show is a solid four piece band led by Spencer Croswell, and every tune sounded great from “Wig In A Box” to the audience favorite “Origin of Love.” There were a few technical problems, the opening song lighting seemed frozen and Eads-Brown ran around the stage in the dark. Maybe a bad cable, maybe some bad programming, but by the second song the lights were moving and jumping, and Eads-Brown got the follow spot he deserves. If you can find parking, this is a receptacle Hedwig but not a great Hedwig. It needs tighter direction: the talent is there but not used to best effect.

For more information on In The Wings, visit http://www.inthewings.org

For other events at The Abbey, visit http://abbeyorlando.com

Tick, Tick…BOOM!
By Jonathan Larson
Directed by Stephen Halpin
Musical Direction by Don Hopkinson Jr.
Starring: Bret T. Fox, Ariana Morales and David Brooks
Baggy Pants Theatre at The Roth JCC, Maitland FL

Before Jonathan Larson wrote “Rent,” there was this angst ridden NYC hipster romance / musical. Jon (Fox) is turning thirty and his musical theater writing career has gotten him as far as a single off-off -Broadway workshop. His best friend and roommate Michael (Brooks) sold out for a high paying marketing gig with a nice apartment and a Beemer while girlfriend Susan (Morales) wants to marry and move to Cape Cod. They only do summer stock out there, and John has bigger dreams plus there are plenty of cute actresses waiting table in the Big City. While he may never get to The Great White Way but there’s plenty to agonize over as his biological clock ticks away. If only Steven Sondheim would drop by…

I listened to the original soundtrack to this show a while ago, and it left me cold but tonight’s arrangements by local music guru Don Hopkinson brought these songs to life. While nothing here is a toe tapping hit, the effect overall is quite pleasant if you can get over the incredibly awful microphones the cast sang though. :”Johnny Can’t Decide” lays out Jon’s central dilemma in an urgent rock style, “Therapy” gives Jon and Susan a fun and sexy duet, and the big number “Why” pushes Jon down his post show journey. Poor Michael never gets his own song, although he contributes to the bruncable “Sunday” as well as the very Rent-sounding “No More.” If you ignore the sound issues (drop outs, distortion, feedback, and delays) this is a solid production of a musical that rarely sees the stage these days. It’s clearly autobiographical and a time capsule of the New York of 1990, although the tension between bohemian starvation and a soulless corporate corner office spans the centuries. The show has a few laughs, a few tears, a few nice songs, and a few lost girlfriends. I just would have preferred the cast to lose the microphones and project.

For more information on Baggy Pants Theatre, please visit http://www.baggypantstheater.com

Spot Light Cabaret: Heather Alexander & Laura Hodos
Musical Direction By Chris Leavy
Additional material by Roy Alan and Todd Alan Long
Winter Park Playhouse, Winter Park FL

Noting says “Holiday Spirit” like a slutty musical number by Heather Alexander, and you heard that from her, not me. The Spotlight Cabaret series at Winter Park Playhouse just keeps growing and this was a sold out extra show was added at the last minute for slackers like me who didn’t buy tickets early enough. Whatever they’re doing, their doing it right. The Alexander / Hodos pairing always pleases the crowd, and the first half of the show stuck with the traditionally sappy stuff – Ms. Hodos sang ” A Perfect Plan Goes Wrong” and “They All Come Home For Christmas” and Heather stalked the AAPR crowd, sitting on laps and polishing comb over’s while belting “Rich, Famous And Powerful” and “Santa Baby.” And they ended the first act with the Andrews Sister’s flavored “Drinking Our Way Through The Holidays.”

All that is fine and dandy, but the real reason for attending this shindig is the second act. Flo and Ebb (Alexander and Hodos) appear in polyester pants suits and fashion accessories for Tuesday Morning. They plug their infamous “Cheese Logger”, complain about the competing cabaret up the street at the Red Fox Lounge, and sing a Time-Life CD compilation about holiday food. Their joke works best if you’ve actually spent time in Oshkosh – Heather is from the much more cosmopolitan Racine, and I spent a few formative years in beer city. Naturally, your mileage may vary if you don’t find the Midwest intrinsically silly. As the gals wound down, Mr. Long and Alan come out to sing them off and fill in while they transition back to their sexy party dresses. All fun, all fueled by cheap red wine and top shelf liquor, and worth the trouble to find parking. After all, those who arrived late had to actually cross Orange Avenue to get to the theatre. It’s not a horse drawn sleigh, but it’s as close as you’ll get down here.

For more information on Winter Park Playhouse, please visit http://www.winterparkplayhouse.org

Bad Santa and The Angry Elves
By Christian Kelty
December 17, 2011
Harper’s Tavern, Winter Park Florida

It’s still a week out from the big day, but already I’m looking forward to starting in on good old form 1040. That’s why I was looking for some sort of rock and roll interlude in the holiday insanity, and my schedule opened up for this Winter Park gig of Christian Kelty’s mini rock show. Harper’s was briefly Drake’s Boathouse, and before that an empty lot and before that the bar side of “Le Cordon Bleu” that burned down back in ’96. They’ve got a little show stage behind the bar and some of the muddiest acoustics this side of the Carr. That and a permanent 60 cycle buzz in the sound system made it hard to hear what was about 10 feet in front of me, but Bad Santa (Kelty) and his backup band did their best to mash up punk, metal and holiday spirit in a chocking cloud of theatrical smoke and a red/green laser spot generator.

Bad Santa behind a cloud of theater smoke.

Was this rock and roll? Absolutely, and in the best sloppy drunk wham-bam, thank-you-ma’am style. We open with “Christmas Bop” which you might remember from the Ramones first album, then follow with a bit of Ozzy and the one song I’m really getting full of: Santa Baby. That came from the band’s sexy drummer and I’d tell you her name if my hand writing and memory were better. The band also features a leprechaun on bass and a pirate sort of guy on lead and everyone did their best to fiddle with the sound system knobs and gave us unexpected pops and blatts. The audience got into the game; Santa Kelty gave out a few creepy gifts, danced with a mute audience member and eventually did a John Lennon holiday medley. That knocked any holiday thoughts out of my mind, and I appreciate that. The show was short and tight, the songs reasonably clever, and while I’m not sure this show is ready to open at the Copacabana, it’s as fun an evening as you have until new years eve.

For more information on Bad Santa and the Evil Elves check out their Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/BadSantaandTheAngryElves

It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play
By Joe Landry
Directed by Tom Larkin
Starring Cory Boughton, Kaje Holthouse, Marcie Schwalm, and John Seegers
Breakthrough Theatre, Winter Park FL

Just as the law imposes a blood alcohol limit on drivers, I have a self imposed holiday sappiness limit and this show is just barley legal for me. But it’s got the Radio gimmick going for it, so I can’t really dislike it on principle. You’ve seen IAWL a dozen times: George Bailey (Boughton) grows up in small town America and subjugates his entire life to offering fair and honest financing for the working classes of Bedford Falls. He rescues drowning brothers, passes on college, misses out on the war and a Silver Star and generally acts as the foil to evil Mr. Potter (Bret Carson). But at some piont, all this selflessness gets to be too much and he say’s “Screw it. I’m getting hammered and committing suicide. That’ll show all those unappreciative immigrants!” But Clarence T. Angel (Carson again) does a reverse Grandfather paradox time travel whammy on him and George learns that people love him, he has done immeasurable good, but maybe he should have considered that obscenely generous offer Potter made him to get out of home lending and into leveraged buyout.

There’s a rock solid cast here – besides Boughton and Carson you’ve got John Seeger with the most wonderful radio voice in Orlando, Marcie Schwalm in her ever stylish snood playing all the bad girls, and newcomer Kaje Holthouse as George’s faithful wife. David Strauss covers the miscellaneous men’s roles (including the bratty kid, he was born for that role) and Andrew Hakimipour as the out of sync sound effects guy. That was the one thing about this show that jarred, he was supposed to be missing sound cues for humorous effect, but it never got a laugh. If you’re going to put a sound effect guy on stage, watching him hit the mark is where the real fun lies.

Despite this, the show flows along and sticks close enough to radio reality for today’s market and George Baileys decent into Hollywood Hell and redemption feels reasonably natural. Radio drama is more and more exotic in this iPad world, but it’s still fun to watch unabashed performance where sound rules and motion is all about finding the microphone at the last second. Close your eyes and you can smell the warm hum of the old Atwater Kent cathedral radio. Somehow, it smells like …love.

Or over heated phenolic. They’re very similar emotions.

For more information on Breakthrough Theatre, please visit http://www.breakthroughtheatre.com

Bitches of the Kingdom
By Fiely A. Matias and Dennis T. Giacino
Musical Direction by Lulu Picart
Starring Michelle Knight, Jennifer Lynn Warren, and Lisa Sleeper
Orlando Shakespeare Theatre, Orlando FL

At first glance, you’d think the Disney legal team would be on this like lawyers on a bus crash, but nearly all our favorite animation babes are based on public domain fairy tales that date back to the Hundred Years War. Disney female characters are typically bloodless, sexless and rather submissive, but give them a chance like tonight’s show and they can castrate men with the best. Snow White (Knight) leads this Amazon pack into battle, her anthematic “One More Happ’ly Ever After” sets tonight’s tone – feisty, funny and laid down over a 4/4 pop beat that’s somewhere between show tune and labor rallying song. Her co-stars Cinderella (Warren) and Sleeping beauty (Sleeper – get the pun?) barely keep up, and when legless Belle (Allyson Fischer) nearly falls off stage in here roller chair that’s the last time the audience isn’t laughing.

There’s more here than busting stereotypes, Matias and Giacino deconstruct the family friendly storytelling mythos and hold it up to the ridicule it deserves. Krista Miller plays the “Secondary Princess” in a tee short with airbrushed boobs and airbrushed G -string, Lulu Picart keeps her hair in place with Chopsticks of Death as Hua Mulan, lesbian conqueror, and Andrea Canny channels Bette Midler as the Little Mermaid. There’s an overwrought “Squaw Girl” by Pocahontas (Jenn Abreu), and Lisa Sleeper really takes the lead on “Big Tits”. But the biggest hit of the evening was the Kurt Weill rip “Not V’one Red Cent” from Rapunzel (Lois Sage). It’s all about licensing and marketing and the fact that she’s not getting a cut when they put her face on a baby diaper. Disney may specialize in making magic, but they’re even better at making money.

The Oops Guys have really hit a vein with this show, it premiered at last year’s Fringe and now have four touring companies up and down the easy coast and they’ll tackle Las Vegas next. This you chance to catch this show in its natural habitat, and here’s a word of advice – don’t bring the kiddies. You’d hate to corrupt them this young.

For more exciting information about Bitches of The Kingdom visit http:\\www.bitchesofthekingdom.com

The Diviners
By Jim Leonard Jr.
Directed by Aradhana Tiwari
Starring CK Anderson and Michael Marinaccio
Beth Marshal Presents at the Garden Theatre, Winter Garden FL

It’s rare to find ringworm as a story motivator, but Jim Leonard Jr. handles it deftly giving us this dreamy memory play set in the depths of the depression. CC Showers (Marinaccio) used to preach but he’s given that up and hit the road looking for honest work in the depths of the depression. He hiked from Hazard Kentucky to Zion Indiana and winds up apprenticing in Ferris Layman’s (Don Fowler) garage. He’s the only person patient enough to deal with Ferris’s son Buddy (Anderson) – Buddy lost some capacity when he nearly drowned and is now plagued with a fear of water and a terrible itch. He’s also really good at witching water and predicting rain; the near death experience robbed him of one thing but gave him another. The town’s people adore CC; they desperately want a church again and his protestations about a career change are ignored. As Normal Henshaw (Marty Stonerock) proclaims ‘”You can’t quit the spirit!” Town doctor Basil Bennett (Mike Lane) helpfully point out Buddy has the worst case of ringworm he’s seen, and if he doesn’t bathe soon the child will go blind. Cold water is a start and CC convinces him he can breathe in the water and bathes him. At this precise moment Normal and the other righteous women of Zion town arrive, and while CC is convincing them he’s not baptizing anyone, Buddy gets what he’s always wanted – a chance to join his dead mother.

“The Diviners” holds your attention with a curious lack of the tensions and conflicts that most dramas offer. Practical Ferris hires the unskilled CC, everybody tolerates Buddy, and all the women throw themselves at CC while he carefully deflects them. Marinaccio is a fine speaker, he drops in to a preacher’s cant in the second act and some of us were ready to come down front and confess. Comic relief arrives from the hired hands Melvin (Andy Haynes) and Dewey (Daniel Crosby), they teach each other how to dance and debate their chances of avoiding hell as they nervously flirt with young Darlene Henshaw (Gwen Boniface). Lane laconic philosopher / healer avoids motors cars and other internal combustion engines – today he’d be “Green,” but back then he’d just be a gentleman farmer and likely to stave until they subdivided his land after the war.

With Ms. Tiwari direction flowing like water, this parable of tolerance and good intention takes place on a mystical set by Tommy Mangieri. A rickety windmill and the tree from Godot hide behind a scrim and skeleton houses slide in and out of our perception. Once Buddy agrees to put his feet into the “Itch Juice” the end is inevitable – the water he fears will do him in and destroy CC. Everyone we meet is sadder and hungrier than before but the villainy remains distant: the banks and Herbert Hoover aren’t responsible for this evil, it’s just an existential event. There’s no avoiding it, and the only remediation is time, time and more time and the only place to find that is in the sky with Jesus and Mom and Buddy. It’s the saddest happy ending you’ll ever see.

For more information on The Garden Theatre, please visit www.gardentheatre.org