Olney's outstanding 'Once' extended

Gregory Maheu, the "guy" and the ensemble of Once at Olney Theatre Center/Photo: Stan Barouh You can hear the music from the pictures.

It's a wonderful night (or day) at the theatre. They sing! They dance! They act! They play! 

You like music?  You're gonna love Once at the Olney Theatre Center and its common language which speaks throughout the world.

Malinda Kathleen Reese is "Girl" and Gregory Maheu is "Guy" in Once at Olney Theatre Center/Photo: Stan Barouh

The music starts before you enter the theatre when the troupe's music rings out in the entrance hall to welcome you and tease with the promise of a good time ahead.

How can things go wrong with such a dandy beginning?  What's a play, a novel, life, without a bit of contrast, some problems? It's all about ups and downs and taking advantage of every single day.

And isn't that what entertainment is all about?

John Sygar (Andrej), Carlos Castillo (Svec), Daven Ralston (Reza), Malinda Kathleen Reese (Girl), Somaya Litmon (Ivanka), and Emily Mikesell (Baruska) in Once at Olney Theatre Center/Photo: Stan Barouh

A "Guy" (Gregory Maheu) is down in the dumps in Dublin (or any city) suffering ill effects of unrequited love when suddenly (you never know what the day is going to bring), a "Girl" (Malina Kathleen Reese) appears.  She tries to drag him out of his slump from the dump in Dublin, and there they go!

A woman rescues the man!  (That they have no names means they are everybody.)

Mr. Maheu plays the guitar and Ms. Reese, the piano, and, like the rest of the cast, they sing and dance practically non-stop.

They've got talent!

Billy (Dave Stishan), one of my favorites who plays four instruments, is the virile shop owner, the "he-man" who takes guff from no one, including Guy who is a competitor for Girl, but she has no time for aggressors like Billy. 

In a post-show exchange with members of the audience, Baruška (Emily Mikesell) said one of the hardest demands on the actors is to sing while making music (she plays violin, ukulele, and accordion, but not at the same time), but the cast succeeds in making it look so easy.  

An actor's skill, no? 

At the audience session, actors credited voice and dialect coach Lynn Watson for their convincing Irish speech.

First a movie, then a play, Once's "Falling Shortly" received the 2007 Oscar for Best Original Song, and five years later, the production won eight Tonys. 

This band of strolling musicians  play banjos, accordion, piano, guitars, mandolins, electric bass, violins, cello, papoose (?), bodhran (?), ukulele, tambourine, melodica (?), castanets (?), and cajón (the instrument from Peru which looks like a box, acts like a box and sounds like a box when hit by fingers, hands and sticks).  

Except for the children, every actor plays at least one instrument in the show, and "Svec" (Carlos Castillo) plays six, and "Andrej" (John Sygar, the dance captain), five. (My notes say: "Buy the soundtrack" which is rarely found among my pages.)


As it should be, the set by Michael Schweikardt is simple and uncomplicated with colorful pieces of lumber hanging at angles for backdrop.  

The musicians sit in the shadows in a semi-circle while actors talk.  Scenes change quickly with movements of the piano, a chair or two, a cajón.

Costumer Frank Labovitz looks like he pulled every outfit straight from heaps of dirty clothes lying in millennials' bedrooms. It's the times!

Some of the memorable lines from the show: "This day has such promise. Every day has promise!" "Life is good." "Wasting life because you are frightened of it is terrible!"  "Those who live in fear die miserably in their graves." (Yogi Berra's name is missing from the credits.)

Congrats to Olney's music director, Christopher Youstra (four instruments) who acts as emcee in the show.

Other members of the cast are Katie Chambers, Nick DePinto, Craig MacDonald, and Brian Reisman. Daven Ralston is Reza, a "hot mama."  

At alternate performances, Kyleigh Fuller and Somaya Litmon share the daughter role. Swings are Linda Bard and Ian Geers.

It is astonishing that one person, Marcia Milgrom Dodge, directed and choreographed the show.

No wonder Once been extended.  A great way to celebrate St. Paddy's Day!

Other members of the creative team are Colin K. Bills, lighting; Matt Rowe, sound; Karen Currie, production stage manager; and Josiane Jones, director of production.
 
Music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglova. Based on the movie by John Carney.
 
What: Once by Enda Walsh

Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832.

When: Extended through St. Patrick's Day, March 17, 2019, Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. and a sign interpreted performance Thursday, February 28 at 8 p.m. 

Tickets: Begin at $42 with discounts for groups, seniors, military, and students

Ages: Olney rates Once as "R," appropriate for those age 16 and above. Adult language.

"Afterwords": After the matinees on March 2 and March 9

Duration: About two hours with one 15 minute intermission

Refreshments: Available and may be taken to seats

Parking: Free and plentiful on-site

For more information: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485.

patricialesli@gmail.com







 

All I want for Christmas is two 'Elf' tickets

David Schlumpf is Buddy the Elf with the ensemble in Elf:  The Musical at Olney Theatre Center. (Photo: Stan Barouh)

Who needs reindeer when this Christmas spirit will send you soaring?

It's just what Santa ordered for the grumps in the house and the cheery adults and hyper-excited children all together now to watch, laugh, and enjoy the newest production at Olney Theatre Center,
Elf:  The Musical.

It's lots of fun with superb dancing (by choreographer Tara Jeanne Vallee), colorful costumes (by Kendra Rai) action (Michael J. Bobbitt directs 23), and a plot to boot, all based on the hoot of the 2003 movie starring Will Ferrell.

I loved this version and sat in wonder, like watching a giant, magical sleigh led by eight tiny reindeer guiding Santa and his bags of toys across a dark sky, and, as a matter of fact, it happens. 

It's a slow few seconds at the beginning while the audience adjusts to the North Pole. Scenic designer Daniel Ettinger succeeds in transposing to onlookers the cold of the icy landscape with green and silver trees shimmering with snowflakes under a royal blue sky with twinkling stars.  

In this Land of Believe, an orphan elf, Buddy (David Schlump) has discovered he's not an elf at all but a real, live human! (Political side note:  Do you think if our president to the North Pole he would discover he's human, after all?)

Is Buddy always this cheery? After years of living happily in Elf Kingdom, as Christmas approaches and with help from Santa (Kevin McAllister), Buddy determines to find his real bad, sad dad who is like many in New York City who work night and day.
  
Bobby Smith, the dad named Walter Hobbs, is always perfect in his sour old man roles, with a demeanor and mannerisms to convey his intense dissatisfaction with life, except for his loving wife (Janine Sunday), another make believe character, right from Santaland.  She is the stepmom of Hobbs's son, Michael, age 12, who actually likes his stepmom. (Thank you, screenwriter David Berenbaum for not casting women as constant evildoers.)

Tyler Quintin Smallwood (and on alternate nights, Eli Langer) is Michael who says that children of workaholics are prone to self-esteem issues, and, "basically he's not even a dad." (Sad face.) Tyler is spot on in this role with a voice to match.

The show has lots of side angles, and you may be able to figure out the ending, but the entertainment is sure fun along the way. 

Two of my favorite characters were the sassy, prancing Nova Y. Payton who is Deb, Hobbs's office assistant, and Calvin McCullough, the manager at Macy's who hires Buddy and asks: Is this "corporate" or is it not?

The tunes are mostly unknowns which doesn't affect enjoyment. Sad solos are not my cup of eggnog, for I tend to lean towards multi-voices like the "fake Santas" who dance and perform splits simultaneously mid-air while singing "Nobody Cares About Santa." 

Elf is a delight, for most ages (with a few naughty words), and plenty of adult quips to spread audience laughter which sometimes overcomes the dialogue. That's good!

At the end, you may skip all the way to your car and be like the woman who sat next to me and turned to say: "I think I may see this again."  Pause. "I will see this again!" 

Angie Benson directs a nine-member orchestra in the pit.

Other cast members are Patricia Hurley, who is Jovie, Buddy's girlfriend, and Marty Austin Lamar, Mr. Greenway, the big, bad bossman.

In the ensemble are Jessica Bennett, Michelle E. Carter, Jennifer Flohr, Isabel Garcia, Andre Hinds, Christian Montgomery, Taylor Elise Rector, Connor James Reilly, Sarah Anne Sillers, David Singleton, and Lara Zim.

James Mernin and Amanda Kaplan are swings.

The crew includes Matt Rowe, sound director;
Max Doolittle, lighting; Kylie Clark, puppet master;
Sarah Tundermann, projection; Dori Beau Seigneur, wigs and hair; and John Keith Hall, production stage manager

Score by Matthew Sklar and Chad Beguelin. Jason Loewith, artistic director. Debbie Ellinghaus, managing director
 
What: Elf The Musical by Thomas Meehan and Bob Martin
 
Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832.

When: Now through January 6, 2019, Wednesday through Saturday at 8 p.m. with matinees, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 2 p.m. and more matinees at 2 p.m., Friday, Dec. 21, and Monday, Dec. 31.

Specially enhanced performances for the blind and hearing impaired Wednesday, Nov. 28 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, Dec. 1 at 2 p.m. with a sign interpreted performance Thursday, Dec. 6 at 8 p.m.

Post show discussions:  After matinees, Dec. 1, 8, and 15. 

Tickets: Begin at $59 with discounts for groups, seniors, military, and students

Ages: The movie was rated "PG."


Duration: 2.5 hours with one 15 minute intermission

Refreshments: Available and may be taken to seats

Parking: Free and plentiful on-site

For more information: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485.

patricialesli@gmail.com

'HMS Pinafore' is great family fun at the Olney

Now at the Olney Theatre Center

 When H.M.S. Pinafore ended last Saturday night at the Olney Theatre Center, a nine-year-old exclaimed: "It's the best play I've ever seen!" and being from a theater family, he has lots of play experience.

The cast interacts with the audience in the promenade during H.M.S. Pinafore /Photo, Teresa Castracane

A boatload of frolic and frivolity lies ahead, mates, for anyone looking for summer treats, to be found in Olney where two productions, Gilbert and Sullivan's The Pirates of Penzance and Pinafore have landed and play in tandem on different nights.

The shows come from Chicago and the Hypocrites to mingle successfully anew with the Olney.

The cast of The Hypocrites and The House Theatre of Chicago's H.M.S. Pinafore at Olney Theatre Center/Photo, Teresa Castracane

 In Pinafore the audience anchors a starring role, invited to play center stage, at stage sides, in top bunks and on the deck of the ship, too, throwing small stuffed animals and pillows at each other, at nonparticipating audience members, and at the moving cast who sometime scoot new actors off their ringside benches, if they get in the way.  

(Had the script allowed, a warning could have been sounded to those on deck: "Broomsticks, ahead, mates!" before stick handlers pushed the crew into the "water.")

Library of Congress, Public Domain, Wikimedia

Actors (included the newly recruited) "swim" and "float" in the "pool" of multi-colored pillows where they engage in a nonstop pillow fight, having a right jolly good time, skidding down the sliding board and dancing and singing.

Those in the audience who are not cast members sit in a clever L-shaped configuration with a live bar on one side and "the promenade," everywhere.

It's all about love, natch, with the serious question vexing most everyone now and then on the paths through life's seas:  Do you follow the money or do you follow your heart?

Beleaguered Joseph (Mario Aivazian) wails: "No one told me when I grew up that I would have to make my own decisions."

He is a real mama's boy whose mama (Tina Munoz Pandya) is on watch duty, the captain of the ship, searching the seascape for the best in dollars, security, and stability a mate can bring!

Her choice is Dame JoAnne (Lauren Vogel) whose delivery and appearance suggest the Evil Witch of the Icebergs, obviously the wrong one for Joseph. 

Roles are switched from the original 1878 (!) show, male to female and back again and are sometimes a bit overboard, like right at the launch when Matt Kahler, a "manly man," says he is  "Buttercup."  

Buttercup? Did I hear that right?  Mr. Kahler, I've seen many buttercups, and you, sir, are no "buttercup"!

Another of Joseph's paramours is Ralphina (formerly Ralph and here acted by Dana Saleh Omar), the one Joseph (and we) want for a match.

Costumes (by Alison Siple) fit what you might envision for a pajama party. The men wear furry slippers, shorts, mixed pajamas (ditto, the females), just what you'd find at the Goodwill in today's styles when millennials dress to impress no one and everyone.  ("Look, ma!  I've got holes and clothes that don't match!")

And just like at a giant coed slumber party, everyone screams, talks, and sings at the same time, and the audience can sing along, too, accompanied by  banjos, guitars, violins, a toy piano, an accordion, cymbals, ukuleles, and an oboe (or was that a flute?).

For all on board the Pinafore or watching, when the ship docks and reaches its end, the forecast is one of bright and happy.

According to Wikipedia, H.M.S. Pinafore premiered in 1878 in London and played 571 performances, becoming "an international success" with "great influence on the development of musical theatre in Britain and America."

Seth Graney, the director, adapted this Pinafore version with help from Mr. Kahler and Andra Velis Simon, also the music director.

More cast members are Eduardo Xavier Curley-Carrillo, Steven Romero Schaeffer, Leslie Ann Sheppard, Shawn Pfautsch, and Aja Wiltshire.

Other creative team members are Tom Burch, scenics; Heather Gilbert, lighting; Kevin O'Donnell, sound; Miranda Anderson, stage manager; and Dennis A. Blackledge, director of production.

What: The H.M.S. Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan
 
Where: Olney Theatre Center, 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832.

When: Now through August 19, 2018, Wednesday through Saturday at 7:45 p.m., Sunday, 5:30 p.m., one Tuesday evening performance, August 14, at 7:45 p.m. Matinees, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday at 1:45 p.m.

Post show discussions:  After matinees, July 21 and August 18

Tickets: Begin at $34 with discounts for groups, seniors, military, and students

Ages: Recommended for all. Rated "G" ("No swear words")

Duration: 70 minutes with one quick (one minute) intermission

Refreshments: Available and may be taken to seats

Parking: Free and plentiful on-site

For more information: 301-924-3400 for the box office or 301-924-4485

patricialesli@gmail.com