'Legally Blonde' shimmys to the stage at Fair Park Music Hall

12:06 AM CDT on Wednesday, July 22, 2009
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning Newsltaitte@dallasnews.com

You may not come out of Legally Blonde humming the tunes, but this show will leave you as pumped as a two-hour cardiac workout.

The stage adaptation of the popular movie, a modest hit on Broadway, arrived at the Dallas Summer Musicals on Tuesday. It keeps up a breathless pace as heroine Elle Woods, the seemingly shallow blond bombshell who follows an ex-boyfriend to Harvard Law School, discovers a whole new perspective on life.

Laurence O'Keefe and Nell Benjamin, who rewrote their Sarah, Plain and Tall for the Dallas Theater Center this spring, tell the story mostly in song. Their lyrics, as cute and clever as Elle herself, are worthy successors to those of their great Broadway predecessors. They give us good tunes, too, but the incessant melodic patterns seldom relax and luxuriate. They just keep percolating like a triple shot of espresso.

The real mover of this theatrical whirlwind, though, is director-choreographer Jerry Mitchell. Over the last decade, he has established himself as one of the American theater's great storytellers through movement. Like the score, the dancing seldom settles into a stand-alone number, at least before intermission. Throughout the musical someone onstage is stepping, shimmying or gyrating in ways that move the plot along. The second act finally gives us some release with production numbers based on exercise videos, sexy poses and, of all things, Irish step dancing.

As Elle, Becky Gulsvig looks a lot like the film's Reese Witherspoon. She sounds even more like Broadway star Kristin Chenoweth. (Those with strong negative reactions to squeaks and other high pitches may find themselves at risk.) Gregg Barnes' costumes expand the boundaries of pink, mauve, hot pink and not-quite-crimson. Gulsvig wears them smashingly.

For those who crave a bit of old-fashioned fun from their musical comedies, preferably with a smidgeon of uplift and optimism, with a bevy of shapely young bodies to boot, Legally Blonde is guilty as charged.

PLAN YOUR LIFE Through Aug. 2 at Fair Park Music Hall. Runs 160 mins. $15 to $85. Ticketmaster at 214-631-2787, http://www.ticketmaster.com/.

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Theater review: 'A Chorus Line' reclaims its energy at Fair Park Music Hall

11:55 PM CDT on Tuesday, July 7, 2009
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning Newsltaitte@dallasnews.com

A Chorus Line is a unique musical, a perfect musical. I'm not sure, in retrospect, it's one of the great musicals.
The tour based on the recent New York revival arrived at Fair Park Music Hall on Tuesday. It has restored the show's vivid energy and sharp characterizations, and it makes nearly as good a case for the piece as possible. To paraphrase one of Marvin Hamlisch and Edward Kleban's songs, it scores dance 10, acting 10, singing maybe a six.

At one point the longest running show in Broadway history, A Chorus Line grew out of workshop-style discussions organized by director-choreographer Michael Bennett. He asked professional dancers, gypsies from Broadway chorus lines, to talk about their lives. Then he, with librettists James Kirkwood and Nicholas Dante, made a show out of their stories.

The musical, without an intermission, is built around a day of auditions. It also takes its shape from the process of putting together a big production number, from the first rudimentary steps to the high-strutting, show-stopping climax.

The personalities of the individual characters are indelible, but over the years productions have tended to blur or exaggerate them. Bob Avian and Baayork Lee, both part of the original process in 1974 and '75, have whipped things back into shape beautifully.

Emily Fletcher, for instance, nails Sheila's aggressive sensuality without making her too hard, and Bryan Knowlton, as Paul in the first week of the current run, keeps his dignity while making his sometimes shocking self-revelations.

I've never seen a completely satisfactory Cassie. Robyn Hurder at least dances the role better than most. Part of the problem is inherent: The starring role in this musical is that of a woman who keeps insisting she doesn't have star power or star pretensions.

Hamlisch's tunes retain their hummability, albeit in very '70s fashion. Kleban's lyrics tell the dancers' stories with considerable wit. Most of all, Bennett knew how to build a dance number.

Still, a nagging little voice keeps telling me that a really great musical should have characters who interact with each other and should be about something other than getting a job, even if the people do their jobs for love.

PLAN YOUR LIFE Through July 19 at Fair Park Music Hall. 130 mins. $15 to $85. Ticketmaster at 214-631-2787, http://www.ticketmaster.com/.

Theater review: 'Chitty Chitty Bang Bang' is a fun ride for the family at Fair Park Music Hall

12:36 AM CDT on Wednesday, June 24, 2009
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
mailto:Newsltaitte@dallasnews.com

Cute kids. A quartet of hilarious villains. A whole pack of trained dogs. A production number with a samba that sizzles. What more could a family musical possibly need?

How about a magical car that floats, flies and makes people ask it nicely if they want a ride?

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang chugged, sailed and soared into Fair Park Music Hall for the Dallas Summer Musicals on Tuesday. This road version more than lives up to the standard the Broadway version set in 2005. Largely overlooked in a bumper year for musicals, it struck me as the best Broadway family show since The Lion King. This tour, adapted and directed by Ray Roderick, sacrifices a bit of grandeur but gains in comic spontaneity.
Ian Fleming, an unlikely children's writer, shows his hand as the original storyteller in various ways: There are spies, though they're played for laughs. And recall that James Bond's cars always had tricks up their sleeves, just like the title vehicle here.

Richard M. and Robert B. Sherman's songs are almost as infectious as the ones they created for Mary Poppins. And, frankly, the plot in this show is more appealing. The father, hapless inventor Caractacus Potts (Steve Wilson), has boundless affection for his children (Jeremy Lipton and Camille Mancuso at Tuesday's performance). They all look after the grandfather (Dick Decareau), and the kids know before the dad does that there's chemistry brewing with a motorcycle-driving heiress (Kelly McCormick).

None of the performers are household names, but they're all solid pros and often more aptly cast than their Broadway counterparts. Dirk Lumbard is delightfully oily as the taller of the bumbling spies, and Scott Cote is his even dumber sidekick. As the evil baron and baroness, George Dvorsky and Elizabeth Ward Land are silly and sinister at the same time. Oliver Wadsworth may be entirely too sinister for younger children as the hideously creepy Childcatcher, although the happy ending defuses most of the terror.

You don't have to be a kid to have a truly scrumptious time at Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. But feel free to bring a couple of tykes along if you think you'll feel conspicuous without them.

PLAN YOUR LIFE Through July 5 at Fair Park Music Hall. Runs 150 mins. $12 to $71. Ticketmaster at 214-631-2787, http://www.ticketmaster.com/.

Original Dallas Morning News Post

5th Anniversary STAGE RIGHT Press Conference

Dallas TX
11:15am Breaking News
Steven Hall, Webmaster, DSM

We just completed the press conference for the 5th Anniversary of our "Stage Right" youth outreach program. Mayor Leppert and Chief of Police Kunkle spoke along with co-founders of the program DSM President Michael Jenkins & Dallas Police Detective "Monty" Moncibais. Details on the "Stage Right" below. Also in attendance were many more VIPs such as City Manager Mary Suhm, Mayor Pro Tem Dr. Elba Garcia, KLUV's Jody Dean and CBS's Ginger Allen. Very cool that in their busy schedules everyone could come together for this outreach initiative!

ABOUT STAGE RIGHT
Stage Right Raises the Curtain for Education and Spotlights Appreciation of the Arts through Experience and Positive Quality Lifestyles.

Dallas Police Department Assistant Chief Ron Waldrop and Michael A. Jenkins, President and Managing Director of Dallas Summer Musicals (DSM), held a press conference on June 4, 2008 in the lobby of the Music Hall at Fair Park to discuss the objectives and success of the Stage Right program that introduces at-risk youth ages 12-15 to arts and culture events as well as introducing them to “Positive Action” self improvement and self esteeming building summer curriculum.

Both Mr. Jenkins, the grass-roots visionary who helped create the Stage Right initiative to reach out to at-risk students and DPD Narcotics Detective Monty Moncibais, who heads up the program for DPD, will speak. Stage Right Steering Committee members also attended included Chris Hawkins, Federal Bureau of Investigation; Victor Burke President, North Texas Crime Commission; Gail Gray, Phoenix House; Lori Sirmen, Dallas Summer Musicals; Carolyn Jordan, Boys and Girls Club; Herbert Moncibais, Hispanic Business Alliance; Gloria Moncibais, Hispanic Business Alliance; and Susan Moncibais, community activist.

Also present at the conference were Gary Hodges, DISD, Assistant Chief; Mike Hathcoat, Director, the Phoenix House; Anita N. Martinez, Anita N. Martinez Ballet Folklorico Company; Charles English, Dallas Boys & Girls Club; Reginald Hurd, Dallas Parks and Recreation; Paul Monroe, the Dallas Mavericks; Steve Colmus, KIPP Truth Academy; Billy Walker, Coca Cola Bottling of North Texas; and Eddie Campbell and Ed Campbell, Campbell Concessions.

Stage Right’s mission statement is “Raising the curtain for education and spotlighting the appreciation of the arts through experience and positive quality lifestyles.”

The students are recommended by DISD teachers and counselors and other youth programs including Boys & Girls Clubs, Girls Inc., and Dallas Recreation Centers as part of their ongoing efforts to keep students from joining gangs or engaging in other activities that prevent their enjoying success in school. Stage Right seeks to raise awareness of the arts, increase appreciation for different lifestyles and also increase self esteem.
This year, over 800 students are participating in the program!

For more information about Stage Right, please contact DPD Detective Moncibais at 214-537-8954.

Theater review: Topol stays in character for Dallas Summer Musicals' 'Fiddler on the Roof'

10:15 AM CDT on Thursday, May 21, 2009
By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning Newsltaitte@dallasnews.com

Nobody finds it odd when a violinist or pianist is still playing a favorite concerto at the end of a 40-year career. So why be surprised that Topol is still playing Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof?

The Israeli actor had racked up a number of stage performances even before he made the 1971 movie. Now the total is around 2,500. In what is billed as his final tour, he arrived in Dallas for a one-week run at the Dallas Summer Musicals on Monday.

The performer still has what the role requires. That sonorous bass-baritone peals magnificently through the low notes. The stately, if world-weary, bearing and the soulful countenance, blazing eyes clearly visible in the back rows of the huge theater, give Topol, 73, a patriarchal aura. He could as easily be playing Moses or Rasputin – if it weren't for all the droll bits of low humor he tosses off so nonchalantly.

It must be said that spontaneity is not a factor here. Every mournful growl at a bit of bad news, every joyful roll of the eyes, appears calculated and polished to the nth degree. Naturalism also goes out the window in favor of this delicately calculated theatrical flair.

Many old-fashioned masters of comic shtick destroy their material by sending it up. Not Topol. No shred of cynicism or self-indulgence gets in the way of Fiddler's emotional journey. Before empty-nest syndrome had a name, this great musical explored the agonies of letting go – and the star plays them for all they are worth.

The current tour has selling points beyond its leading man. Susan Cella as Golde and Mary Stout as Yente are also masters of the broad comic style. Among the lovely daughters, Jamie Davis' Hodel stands out for her soaring voice. Steve Gilliam's storybook set invests the village of Anatevka with a quaint charm.

Best of all, director-choreographer Sammy Dallas Bayes has reproduced Jerome Robbins' exuberant first-act dances with fiery precision. An important secret of Fiddler's success is the sheer animal energy that drives these sequences. They keep this tale of loss and aging young and vital.

As young and vital as its septuagenarian star.

Theater review: RENT brings New York polish to Music Hall stage

By LAWSON TAITTE / The Dallas Morning News
ltaitte@dallasnews.com
12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, May 6, 2009



A little distance brings things into focus: Rent is incomparably the greatest Broadway musical in, say, the last 30 years, and the farewell tour that the Dallas Summer Musicals brought to Fair Park Music Hall on Tuesday is probably your last chance to see it in pristine shape, as good as when in opened in New York 13 years ago.

The back story, of course, is so sad and perfect it seems made up. The young genius who wrote Rent, Jonathan Larson, died of an aneurysm right before the triumphant first performance. His transposition of the story of La Boheme to downtown Manhattan won every prize going, and this tangled skein of sex and romance (straight, gay and bi) in which half the characters are trying to live with AIDS won a whole new generation of fans to the theater.

From the screeches that greeted the first two actors onstage Tuesday, you'd think all those fans were in attendance to greet the show's original stars. Anthony Rapp, as detached filmmaker Mark, looks just like he did in 1996; if anything, his timing and diction are sharper and his performance more engaged. Adam Pascal, playing alienated songwriter Roger, looks leaner and meaner, neither inappropriate to the character; his singing voice has taken on a rasping rocker's edge that works well, too.

Original director Michael Greif has knit the rest of the cast into a tight ensemble. Amazingly, you can hear almost every word in this often intractable space. Former American Idol contestant Lexi Lawson eases her way uncomfortably through Mimi's precarious dance on the fire escape, but her voice and her onstage presence are both gorgeous. Nicolette Hart makes a hilarious Maureen, and Michael McElroy brings his sonorous voice and vast stage experience to Tom Collins. Unfortunately, Justin Johnston doesn't have that seraphic aura you ideally want in the role of Angel, but he dies magnificently.

Ultimately, it's Larson's tingling melodies and handcrafted lyrics (and his skill at building large forms out of both) that make Rent so special. Its frankness about sex and drugs means it's not for everyone. Still, if you are curious or perhaps already know the score, but have never seen the show (or have only seen the dispiriting 2005 screen version), you owe yourself a trip to the Music Hall.



PLAN YOUR LIFE Through Sunday at Fair Park Music Hall. Runs 165 mins. $15 to $85.

Buy tickets here: http://www.ticketmaster.com/promo/vf0c6y?camefrom=DSM_WEB_RENT_BLOG

Theater review: Stacy Keach is a marvel in 'Frost/Nixon' at the Majestic

11:20 AM CDT on Thursday, April 30, 2009

By Lawson Taitte / The Dallas Morning News
ltaitte@dallasnews.com

President Richard M. Nixon may never have achieved the rehabilitation in public esteem he so craved in his lifetime. He's got it now, though, at least as Stacy Keach plays him in Frost/Nixon.

Peter Morgan's play about the TV interviews Nixon gave to talk-show host David Frost had its origin in that most fecund of London theatrical enterprises, the Donmar Warehouse. The show then traveled to Broadway and went on to become a major film, winning Tony Awards and Oscar nominations both for the vehicle and the star who played the president, Frank Langella.

If there's any actor on the American stage with more stature, more sheer talent, than Langella, it's Stacy Keach. He headlines the touring version that the Dallas Summer Musicals brought to the Majestic Theatre on Wednesday.

The marvelous Langella brought depth and tragic dignity to the role of the disgraced President three years after his unparalleled resignation from office. But he also brought a certain smarminess to the role and a whiff of parody in the ways he adapted some of Nixon's well-known mannerisms and vocal patterns.

Smarmy is not a word you'd ever use to describe Keach's Nixon. Tortured, self-regarding, yes, perhaps even venal. But this figure projects a fallen grandeur and canny, self-possessed intellect that command respect – and maybe even affection.

The touring version (directed, like the original, by Michael Grandage) does have its own quota of smarminess. Alan Cox's Frost oozes slime right up to the final moments when he at last gets Nixon to confess wrongdoing on camera (something that never actually happened in real life, by the way). Even that formidable journalist Jim Reston in this young incarnation (as played by Brian Sgambati) is lightweight and petty in comparison with the wounded-bear Keach as Nixon.

It's too bad that Keach probably won't be touring his version of King Lear (to be seen in Washington, D.C., this summer) and that he hasn't been seen more frequently in great plays in New York and around the country. He commands the stage as only a couple of American actors of his generation do. Whatever your politics, don't miss the chance to see him do his stuff in Frost/Nixon.