Month: July 2017

Reagle Delivers Terrific “Showboat”

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Reviewed by Tony Annicone

The second show of Reagle Music Theatre’s 49th summer season is the Goodspeed Musicals version of “Showboat” which combined the talents of Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II. The original version opened at the Ziegfeld Theatre on December 27, 1927 and ran for 572 performances. Kern and Hammerstein felt that the Broadway musical theatre was suffering from a lack of depth and wanted to steer away from the fluffy musical comedies and melodramatic operettas it was accustomed to.

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(GREASE at Ivoryton Playhouse, CT)

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Reviewed by Tony Annicone

 

Ivoryton Playhouse’s current musical is “Grease.” It opened off Broadway on February 14, 1972 and ran for 128 performances before moving to Broadway to run for a record breaking 3,388 performances, closing April 11, 1980. It was made into a very successful 1978 movie version starring John Travolta and Olivia Newton John. The movie is celebrating its 40th Anniversary this year. The audience is welcomed back to 1959 at Rydell High School to celebrate the high spirited days of gum chewing, hub cap stealing, hot rod loving boys with their D.A.’s and their wise cracking girls in their bobby socks and pedal pushers and enjoy the adventures of bad boy Danny Zuko and good girl Sandy Dumbrowski. This new version of “Grease” is directed and choreographed by Todd Underwood with musical direction by Mike Morris with a topnotch cast and orchestra. This musical is a high energy hit from start to finish with its multitalented cast. He casts each of these roles splendidly. The sense of professionalism comes through in the entire presentation especially the song and dance numbers that will take your breath away.

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