Aug 18

Mockumentary, not Mockery? Or, The Kids are Alright?: “Theater Camp”


Theater Camp the film
Directed by Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman
Written by Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman, Ben Platt
Featuring Noah Galvin, Molly Gordon, Ben Platt, Jimmy Tratto, Nathan Lee Graham, Amy Sedaris

Review by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

Find Your Local Listing — Like virtually every movie-about-theater that has come before it, Theater Camp features an audition montage. The young performers have barely unpacked for their summer at AdirondACTS (a rundown summer camp in upstate New York) when, one by one, they file onstage to determine their fates for the next three weeks. Stage lights in their eyes and Broadway dreams in their hearts, they begin to belt.

Watching the movie last week, I braced myself for secondhand embarrassment.

And yet, against every precedent set by other films in the mockumentary genre, no embarrassment came. Instead, I found myself beaming with joy. These kids are good, I thought. Nerdy and not great at choosing audition songs, but good. I breathed a sigh of relief.

It was this early audition montage that convinced me that Theater Camp is unique. Theater Camp plays with the expected mockumentary tropes, particularly in its characterizations: everyone at AdirondACTS is a caricature of a theater person, from Rebecca-Diane and Amos (Molly Gordon and Ben Platt), the overly serious co-writers of the summer’s original musical, to Glenn, the thankless stagehand with a secret dream to be in the spotlight (Noah Galvin). Continue reading

Nov 23

Festive and Fun: “A Civil War Christmas: an American Musical Celebration”

Photo image courtesy of the Facebook Page.

Photo image courtesy of the Facebook Page.

Presented by Wellesley College Theatre
Written by Paula Vogel
Music by Daryl Waters
Directed by Nora Hussey

November 18 – 22
Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre
Wellesly, MA
WCT on Facebook

Review by Danielle Rosvally

Christmas theatre is a very specific genre that requires a very particular mix to make effective (or even palatable).  The recipe starts with good old-fashioned holiday cheer; add a dash of nostalgia, a hint of history, a generous helping of family values, and (of course) finish with a generous sprinkling of festive music.  Paula Vogel’s A Civil War Christmas: An American Musical Celebration has all the necessary ingredients for the Christmas genre, but actually performing it requires a special touch.  The piece’s simplistic dialogue which features such tropes as characters telling you who they are before they begin to speak (“In the West Wing of the White House, President Lincoln’s maid was cleaning the floor…. Hi, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show tonight?”) that have the danger to edge this play towards the realm of children’s theatre cheesiness, or satirical campiness. Continue reading

Oct 18

“Alice in Wonderland” but on More Meth: “The Lily’s Revenge”

Photo credit: www.GretjenHelene.com; Lily and the Mary’s shaking what their mother, Time, gave them.

Written and Conceived by Taylor Mac
Composed by Rachelle Garniez

presented by American Repertory Theatre
OBERON
2 Arrow Street
Cambridge, MA 02138
October 12, 2012 to October 28, 2012

A.R.T. Facebook Page

The Lily’s Revenge is the epic nursery rhyme turned homo-rific, drag-tastic fairy tale of Lily, an ordinary houseplant, who undertakes to be more than what others make him to be. His is a delicious allegory/metaphor/cautionary tale/simile/hyperbole/paradox that spans 4+ hours of dance, drama and breakage of the 4th wall that warns never to settle for less than what you want. Even if that means shedding the skin of who you think you are to become who you are truly meant to be. Continue reading