Jun 11

“A Chorus Line” as a Period Piece

Wahle as Zach with Ensemble. Photo by Herb Philpott.

Presented by Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston
Conceived and Originally Directed and Choreographed by Michael Bennett
Book by James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante
Music by Marvin Hamlisch
Lyrics by Edward Kleban
Originally Co-Choreographed by Bob Avian
Direction; Recreation of the Original Choreography by Leslie Woodies
Music direction by Dan Rodriguez
Assistant Director/Assistant Choreographer – Lauren Gemelli

June 7 through 17, 2018
Reagle Music Theatre of Greater Boston
617 Lexington St., Waltham, MA 02452
Reagle on Facebook

Reviewed by Bishop C. Knight

(Waltham, Massachusetts) I had never seen A Chorus Line so, for readers who are unfamiliar with this 1975 Broadway musical about life in show biz, please let me provide a brief summary.  On a bare stage, a group of dancers bring their headshots and personal histories to an audition where they share their birth names, stage names, birthdays, and ages, as well as their most formative life experiences.  There was a tough boy from the Bronx, another guy from a big Italian family, a saucy woman who flirted with the director, and fifteen more performers – all with large and extremely memorable personalities. Continue reading

Jul 15

Is God Laughing With You or At You?: FIDDLER ON THE ROOF

Photo Credit: Reagle Music Theatre; Scott Wahle sings “If I Were a Rich Man.”

presented by Reagle Music Theatre
book by Joseph Stein and a score by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick
based on the stories by Sholem Aleichem
directed by Kirby Ward
choreography by Jerome Robbins, recreated by Susan M. Chebookjian
music directed by Dan Rodriguez
conducted by Jeffrey Leonard

Waltham, MA
July 11th – July 21st, 2013
Reagle Music Theatre Facebook Page

Review by Craig Idlebrook

(Waltham) The tradition of Jewish wit has been honed through years of hardship, and the best productions of Fiddler on the Roof capture that teetering line between joy and pain.  It’s not an easy task.  To pull it off, you need an expert master of ceremonies to play Tevye, the central protagonist; through his lens, we are pulled into the world of a hardscrabble Jewish village eking out an existence on the margins of pre-revolutionary Russia.  The task is made more difficult by the fact that the 1971 film version of the play features an iconic portrayal of Tevye by Israeli actor Chaim Topol.  Topol kills it with an original scene-chewing performance, creating a man at once both larger than life and lost in the currents of change.  To go down Topol’s beaten path for Tevye is folly, even though that is what most audience-members expect, and many productions succumb to this error. Continue reading