Just a few steps away from the buzz and excitement of Times Square is Theatre Row’s Kirk Theatre, a newly renovated Off-Broadway stage, situated on 42nd street between 9th and 10th avenue. Presently it has given home to John Gregor‘s musical comedy With Glee. I attended the first preview of this delightful Prospect Theater Company success on July 10th and I was truly amazed to see such energy and excitement exhuming from the stage. Nowadays it is not rare to find talent amongst Off-Broadway shows. However, it is substantially rare when you see that talent put to its full potential. I found that extremely the case in With Glee’s fun cast of seven.
Surely freshman year in high school is no picnic, especially when you’re a teenage boy being sent to a boarding school in a another state. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Prospect Theater Company,
Theatre Row,
With Glee
Illyria, a new musical by the Prospect Theater Company, was saddled with understudies in three central roles at the Saturday matinee, November 15th. Merely a day from its last performance, the roles of Viola, Sebastian and Feste all filled by understudies, and performing for a half-full audience, the musical was surprisingly restrained in its interpretation of the classic Shakespearian comedy, Twelfth Night.
The show was a modest production, with a simple staircase as scenery and blue curtains draped behind it. The small space belied a need for improved mikes, as more than once Feste’s quick patter was lost behind the impressive score. The costumes were appropriate and, as highlighted by the frilly pink costume Sir Andrew was suited up in, quite effective. The orchestra was a mere seven instruments seated directly to the side of the performers, although their sound was almost improbably full and compelling. The book relied coyly on lines from the Shakespearian original, and when it modernized the language it was subtle and careful with the alterations.
Yet, the economy of the production was in no way a restraint for the performance. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Illyria,
Prospect Theater Company
Illyria, a musical rendition of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, was musically very modernized, with songs that would be appropriate in any Broadway play. Fortunately however, Peter Mills, the writer, and the cast managed to retain a good portion of Shakespearean wit, despite the absence of most actual Shakespeare lines. For example, they had one character, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, played by Ryan Dietz, who kept mixing up words (describing himself as “the most illegible bachelor in Illyria”, a motif present in many of Shakespeare’s plays.
The Hudson Guild Theatre, which was small, gave the room an intimate feeling, as the stage was nearly on the same level as the audience. The set, which was a large staircase that came down on both sides, set the tone for the actors, who popped in and out with use of the stairs, sometimes gracefully and sometimes clumsily. The instrumental accompaniment, made up of piano, two reeds, a violin, a cello, a bass, and percussion, was located behind the stairs, and partially obscured to everyone in the audience. [click to continue…]
Tagged as:
Hudson Guild Theatre,
Illyria,
Prospect Theater Company
$5 Tickets
Facebook
Flickr
Twitter
