Bill Hanney’s North Shore Music Theatre’s holiday show again this year is the 29th Anniversary production of A Christmas Carol, A Musical Ghost Story which is an annual favorite. This version of this well-known holiday tale was written by former NSMT artistic director, Jon Kimball which he adapted back in 1989. As Jon explains “A Christmas Carol is a timeless story that still resonates with people of all ages and carries a message that is as genuine and poignant now as it was when it was first written back in 1843. This splendid musical version captures the true spirit and meaning of the holiday season for one and all. David Coffee returns in triumph for his 26th time of playing Scrooge. Audiences have been lucky once more this season by seeing David in “Freaky Friday” and as always are beyond thrilled that he is returning to this iconic role once again. This show marks David’s 60th production at NSMT. Current artistic director Kevin Hill directs this year’s presentation of its favorite holiday show once again and makes it fresh and new with new dances, clever new ad libs and more comic moments.
‘Tuck
Everlasting’– Book by Claudia Shear and Tim Federle. Music by Chris Miller;
Lyrics by Nathan Tysen; Based on the novel by Natalie Babbitt, Nancy Curran
Willis, Director; Matthew Stern, Music Director; Lara Finn Banister,
Choreography; Janie Howland, Scenic Designer; Brian Simons, Costume Designer;
SeifAllah Sallotto-Cristobal, Lighting Designer; Elizabeth Havenor, Sound
Designer. Presented by The Umbrella Stage Company, 40 StowStreet,
Concordthrough
December
22
The 1975 classic children’s story, Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt is the story of Winnie Foster and her search for adventure in Tree Gap, New Hampshire in the year 1893. It has won the hearts of many a child as well as literary awards that include the Janusz Korczak Medal and the Christopher Award as best book for young people. The book has twice been adapted to film, and as a Broadway musical. The second film, by Disney (2002) is the best-known adaptation, featuring ‘Gilmore Girls’ star Alexis Bledel as Winnie.
Christmas celebrations are everywhere in Boston this month.
There’s new life to downtown streets as shoppers flit in and out of stores.
There are colorful lights on the Common, events for children, holiday parties
at local eateries. And there are shows scheduled back-to-back at the Emerson
Colonial (Dolly
Parton), Irving Berlin’s White
Christmas at the Boch
Wang Theatre, and at other smaller venues in and out of town.
Amidst all this fanfare, throughout this month, there’s the
venerable Holiday
Pops at Symphony Hall featuring maestro Keith Lockhart, the Boston Symphony
orchestra, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and, of course, Santa Claus.
There are many reasons to attend, and here are three of
them:
Symphony Hall is gussied up in bright reds,
greens, and golds, with wreaths and holly everywhere, a feast for the senses.
Inside, the light show continues with a palette of colors projected on the
walls high above the stage and a sound system that enhances, but does not
distract, from the famed acoustics of the hall itself.
A dramatic reading of The Polar Express, Chris von Allsberg’s classic tale of Xmas
wonderment, read aloud from the stage, during the performance I attended, by
veteran Boston actor Will LeBow who gives a flawless delivery of the text by
endowing the words with the excitement of a child’s discovery of his wintry
world.
The musical selections themselves which include
a sing-along of Christmas favorites.
In years past, I have applauded the surprises that Lockhart
brings to Holiday Pops. These have included photography projected on a large
screen – of the winter landscape of Concord, Mass. and the Asabet, Sudbury and
Concord rivers by BSO’s talented principle horn player Richard “Gus” Sebring,
for example, and a film of the northern lights dancing in the winter sky above
Yellowknife, Alberta, way up north in Canada.
If I were to have a Xmas wish, it would be to encourage
Lockhart to program more of these visual surprises, especially among the players
of the orchestra itself, who he has long championed.
(There is a visual surprise that closes the concert, and I
will not give it away so as not to be a spoiler, but here’s a hint: in a city
that has long been torn by racial discord, the end-of-concert images are
unifying and healing).
Attending the Holiday Pops is an annual tradition for many,
including this reporter, who finds his seat on the floor, orders a cup of
holiday grog, and basks in the warm tones of the musicians and their instruments.
It is an event I look forward to every year, and I strongly encourage you to
make it part of your Xmas list, too. For tickets and information, go to: https://www.bso.org
(Cast of “Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol.” Photos by Jesse Faatz)
By Michele Markarian
“Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas
Carol”. Adapted by David H. Bell, Paul T. Couch and Curt Wollan. Book by David
H. Bell. Music and Lyrics by Dolly Parton. Directed by Curt Wollen. Presented
by Red Tail Entertainment and Paul T. Couch, Emerson Colonial Theatre, 106
Boylston Street, Boston through December 29.
“Dolly Parton’s seated in our row,” my friend texted to me as I arrived at the Colonial Theatre in downtown Boston to see the world premiere of “Dolly Parton’s Smoky Mountain Christmas Carol”. Indeed, the diminutive, pretty woman in the bright red dress was Dolly Parton! This was excitement enough, and the curtain hadn’t even gone up yet.
Arctic Playhouse’s holiday shows these year are three short Christmas plays. The first one is based on O. Henry’s story, “A Gift of the Magi”, which centers on a husband and wife who are very young, terribly in love and want to buy Christmas gifts for each other but both have little money to do so. They each want to find a gift that will express their warmth and closeness they feel towards each other. What happens is they find out the true meaning of the Magi gifts of giving of yourself to each other. “The First Noel” is about a homeless and hungry girl, Noel who returns to the site of her childhood home which is now a Chinese takeout. Will her journey get her the handout she wants or the nurturing she needs? “Balls” centers on five eccentric Christmas ornaments who find out just how fragile life can be and who don’t seem to get along with each other – but is that really the case? Each of them are different colors and have different temperaments and their wild and crazy antics keep the audience rolling in the aisles. Director Rachel Hanauer directs “Magi” and “Balls” while Jeff Blanchette directs “Noel” and assistant directs “Balls” with both of them doing double duty by appearing in the shows. They choose topnotch performers for ten roles and infuse them with the insight and energy to make the audience choke up, cry and laugh at all the right times.
What do Charles Dickens, two escaped convicts, a mama’s boy, a red-headed detective, a smitten D.A., and a slightly dippy if not delightfully naive mama have in common? Well…you’ll just have to go and see A Christmas Cactus, by Eliot Byerrum, currently playing at The Newport Playhouse, to see for yourself.
(Ben Choi-Harris, cast in New Rep’s “Oliver!” – Photos by Andrew Brilliant/ Brilliantpictures Inc.)
by Linda
Chin
‘Oliver!’ – Book, Music and Lyrics by Lionel Bart. Michael J. Bobbitt, Director; Sariva Goetz, Music Director; Luciana Stecconi, Scenic Designer; Rachel Padula-Shufelt, Costume Designer; Frank Meissner, Lighting Designer; Kevin Alexander, Sound Designer. Presented by New Repertory Theatre at Mosesian Center for the Arts, 321 Arsenal Street, Watertown through December 29
Oliver! at the Mosesian Center for the Arts powerfully demonstrates that the arts can build community and that live theater can bring people – of different ages, backgrounds, classes and cultures, denominations, educational levels and generations – together in a shared human experience. Michael J, Bobbitt does triple duty as not only the New Rep’s new artistic director, but the production’s director and choreographer, and leads a diverse and talented cast. Broadway, film and TV veteran Austin Pendleton plays Fagin and 11-year old Ben Choi-Harris (whose resume includes a national tour, a string of regional professional credits and two IRNE Award nominations) plays the title role. The cast of 11 adult and five child actors is first-rate, with Pendleton’s “Reviewing the Situation”, Choi-Harris’ “Where is Love”, and Daisy Layman’s (Nancy) “As Long As He Needs Me”, wonderful renditions of classics and beautiful examples of storytelling through song. The production numbers were nicely staged and energetically executed, with special shout outs to Jackson Jirard (Noah Claypole), Sydney Johnston (Artful Dodger), and Youth Ensemble members Ian Freedson Falck, Jane Jakubowski, and Mark Johnson.
(Cast of Lyric Stage’s‘Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express’ – Photo by Mark S. Howard)
by Michael Cox
‘Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express’ – Adapted by Ken Ludwig.
Directed by Spiro Veloudos. Scenic Design, Brynna Bloomfield; Costume Design, Gail Astrid Buckley;
Lighting Design, Scott Clyve; Sound Design and Original Music, Dewey Dellay; Projection
Design, Seaghan McKay. Presented by
the Lyric Stage Company, 140 Clarendon Street, Boston, MA, through December 22.
In 1934, when “Murder on the Orient Express” was first published as a novel, this country was looking for a way out – a way out of the joblessness, poverty and the endless ache of day-to-day existence. The economic agony that the United States felt quickly spread to Europe and around the world. And it certainly hit Great Britain, where Agatha Christie’s prolific career as a mystery writer was well underway. Christie had an astounding career. According to her estate, she is the world’s most published English novelist, and only those who have read Shakespeare and the Holy Bible (King James) outnumber her readership. A key ingredient to Christie’s success is the escapism she provides. So it should come as no surprise that the era of “The Great Depression” is one of Christie’s most critically successful periods. This is interesting because although the characters in the “Murder on the Orient Express” are plagued by a variety of dramatic problems – kidnapping, extortion, death threats, suicide, and of course, murder – there is one thing that never troubles them. Money.
(Emilio Delgado as Don Quixote in the Huntington Theatre Company and Alley Theatre production of ‘Quixote Nuevo’ . Photo Credit: T Charles Erickson)
By Mike
Hoban
Written by Octavio Solis, Directed by KJ Sanchez; Scenic Design, Takeshi Kata; Costume Design, Rachel Anne Healy; Lighting Design, Brian J. Lilienthal; Composer & Sound Design, David R Molina; Co-Composer, Eduardo Robledo; Music Director, Jesse Sanchez. Presented by the Huntington Theatre Company, 264 Huntington Avenue, Boston through December 8
Quixote Nuevo, playwright Octavio Solis’ clever re-imagining of theCervantes’ classic Don Quixote, now being staged at the Huntington Theatre, might well be described as giving a contemporary twist to a traditional “estofado” (stew). Taking many of the main ingredients from the original, Solis adds dashes of subject matter that give the story a more modern flavor, beefs up the comedy quotient, and in the process produces a palatable new offering, but one that may not be to every theatergoer’s taste. Equal parts comedy, love story, and social commentary, Quixote Nuevo is often wildly imaginative, but the items in the new recipe may not complement each other well enough to conjure up a classic new dish.
Ghost of Christmas Future (Taavon Gamble) visits Scrooge (Jude Sandy) in Trinity Rep’s ‘A christmas Carol. Photos by Mark Turek
Reviewed by Shelley
A. Sackett
‘A Christmas Carol’ – by Charles Dickens. Original Music
by Richard Cumming; Directed by Kate Bergstrom; Music Direction by Michael
Rice; Choreography by Taavon Gamble; Set Design by Patrick Lynch; Costume
Design by Olivera Gajic; Lighting Design by Barbara Samuels; Sound Design by
Broken Chord. Presented by Trinity Repertory Company, 201 Washington St.,
Providence through December 29.
Trinity Repertory Company’s 2019 musical version of A Christmas Carol starts out promisingly. Produced in the Elizabeth and Malcolm Chace Theater, Director Kate Bergstrom makes use of that venue’s intimate theater-in-the-round configuration by staging pockets of singing performers above every seat section. The pageantry of a live orchestra, quality-voiced actors in Dickensian-era costumes, and an excellent sound system is enough to enrapture a toe-tapping audience. Unfortunately, uneven performances and an overreliance on gimmicky, ostentatious staging trickery will soon burst that magical bubble.
