Curtainup Founder & Editor Elyse Sommer's Epilogue -- I've passed the torch for reviewing and editing new theater productions on and off-Broadway and elsewhere. However, I'll continue to sound off here with my take on Live and Onscreen Entertainment. As for Curtainup's extensive content since 1996-- it's all sill available at www.curtainup.com

Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Elyse's Blog update -- Includes review of Angela's Ashes: The Musical

 Elyse's Blog— An in-person finale of Richard Nelson's Rhinebeck Panorama. . . the Atlantic Theater comes back to live performances with a new play, The Last of the Love Letters, and Gingold Theatrical Group with a Shaw crowd pleaserMrs. Warren's Profession. . . .An on-screen treat, Angela's Ashes: the Musical.


September 14, 2021 Update
— An in-person finale of Richard Nelson's Rhinebeck Panorama. . . the Atlantic Theater comes back to live performamces with a new play, The Last of the Love Letters, and Gingold Theatrical Group with a Shaw crowd pleaserMrs. Warren's Profession. . . .An on-screen treat, Angela's Ashes: the Musical.


It would be boorish not to be pleased by all the publicity showered on Waitress and Hadestown, the first musicals to come back to Broadway. Senator Chuck Schumer's attendance at the Waitress opening and the fact that Sara Bareilles —the show's creator and composer — will be starring through October 17th has no doubt contributed to healthy ticket sales. Sadly, Nick Cordero who played a major role in the Broadway production I reviewed was a COVID victim. (Read my review here ) Here's hoping, that Hadestown, which I reviewed off-Broadway in 2016, and on Broadway in 2021 (Broadway Review Off-Broadway Review).will also continue to thrive.

While Broadway is indeed essential for the city's economic well-beng, Off-Broadway theaters are where so many shows begin life. These always adventurous theaters too have suffered enormous losses and need attention and support to keep the city's cultural heart beating.

Like the big Broadway houses, these small venues are returning to live performances with strict safety protocol in place. Some, especially the Irish Rep Theater have actually used the lockdown to win new fans from far away with previously presented plays inventively filmed for the screen. Though they are opening the doors of their 140-seat theater again, their screened plays are still available to rent inexpensively OnDemand. The Rep is tthe perfect host tor the New York screen debut of the Pat Moylan poroduction of the musical adaptation of Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize winning memoir Angela's Ashes. My comments on seeng the film's opening performance comfortably seated at my dining table will follow my comments on Off-Broadway plays that are or will soon be offering plays for audiences to see in person. . All offer a chance to go back to the theater in a less populated settting.

What Happened?— The Michaels Abroad by Richard Nelson.

When the Michaels last shared a meal and conversation around a table in Rhinebeck, the family matriarch Rose, a distinguished choreogrspher, was dying of cancer. In the concluding play she's been dead for six months, not from the cancer but COVID and the Michaels family has been cleared to fly to France for a conference of her work. The table around which they are gathered is the home of Rose's wife Kate in France. As usual, the two hours are more about character than plot. The table talk includes some dancing, but above all, these characters are all living through the same present as all who are watching.

Maryann Plunkett and her husband Jay O. Sanders, who've been in every play , including the Zoom trilogy, are on board for the finale. Their presence in the last of these basically under-dramatized plays may have some of their many fans conquer their Delta Variant nervousness.

For ticket information, go to https://www.huntertheaterproject.org/

The Last of the Love Letters If CurtainUp were still in old "cover every new show coming to town" mode, I'd certainly check out the world premiere of The Last of the Love Letters at the Atlantic's Linda Gross Theater at 3336 West 20th Street. It's a limited run engagement that began August 26th and will end September 26th. Playwright Ngozi Anyanwu also performs and Patricia McGregor directs Playwright and player Ngozi Anyanwu is joined on stage by Daniel J. Watts and Xavier Scott Evans, the former listed as "You No.2" and the latter as "Person." They contemplate the thing they love most and whether to stick it out or to leave it behind. To stay. Or to go. That is the question. Sounds like a challenging choice.

Next up at the Atlantic is an intriguing new musical based on David Lindsay-Abaire's Kimberly Akimbo, with book and lyrics by Lindsay-Abaire, music by Jeanine Tesory. Directed by Jessica Stone and starring the golden voiced Victoria Clark as Kimberly, this sounds like a show with legs to take it to Broadway. Still, there's nothing like seing it in a more intimate space . That opportunity will be from November 5 to December 26, 2021.

Mrs. Warren's Profession Just once every year Gingold Theatrical Group departs from its modus operandi of play readings to put on a fully staged play at Theater Row. And they're doing so now with a revival of Bernard Shaw's Mrs. Warren's Profession. The play has had its share of outstanding thespians portray the main characters. Director David Staller too has assembled a fine cast. Tony Award winner Karen Ziemba stars as Mrs. Warren. She's supported by Robert Cuccioli, David Lee Huynh, Nicole King, Alvin Keith and Raphael Nash Thompson. The limited engagement runs from October 12th to November 20th. To read the half dozen other productions of this play reviewed at CurtainUp, see Playwrights Album chapter on Shaw here.

Angela's Ashes: The Musical enjoyed a number of widely praised live productions in Ireland. Now the filmed version is making its New York debut. Having that debut hosted by the Irish Rep is an apt choice given their own history with Frank McCourt. They successfully produced McCourt's revue The Irish and How they Got That Way, and revived it after his death in 2009. Like the Rep's archive of past live productions innovatively filmed for screen viewing, Angela's Ashes: The Musical is also smartly filmed, making the Rep the premiere's perfect host. However, unless things change, the Pat Moylan film will be available only for its short run, unlike the ones produced by the Rep that can still be accessed OnDemand.

To cut to the chase. . . Can the source book really work as a musical? After all, anyone who's read McCourt's memoir about his difficult Irish childhood, or seen the film adaptation that's still available at Amazon Prime, may find it hard to imagine young Frank and his impoverished family members singing an dancing.

I'll admit that I had my doubts. But that was before attending the first performance courtesy of the laptop on my dinng room table. Thanks to Thom Southerland innovative direction and Jacinta Whyte and Eoin Cannon superb acting and singing as Angela and Frank, Paul Hurt's book and Adam Howel's music and lyrics, McCourt's story does indeed come to vivid life as a musical drama.

Hurt's book remain true to McCourt's recollecions of his unhaooy Irish childhood in Limerick, the town to which his family returned after failing to survive their first journey to America. That was when Frank, the oldest, was just 5-years-old. The years of extreme poverty resulting from his father's drunkenness and failure to supprt the family was exacerbated by the Limirick citizenry treatment — often, mistreatment. No wonder, the dream that took more than a dozen years to realize that Frank's mantra was to go to America.

Eoin Cannon deftly jumps back and forth between Frank as the show's adult narrator, and Frank as an active member of his large, troubled family. I usually don't like to see adult actors playing children, but Cannon won me over here. Jacinta Whyte inhabits the role of a woman whose love match results in too many children and incredible hardship. Her powerful vocals add some of the best solos and duets to the show. While Cannon and Whyte are thhe show's stars, The ensemble too does finw work portraying the Limerick citizenry, many of whom add to the pain of the McCourts' return to Ireland.

Best of all, this musical adaptation brings some light into the memoir's darkness. The heartbreaking moments are still there, but so are some rousing dance numbers and funny moments. Not to be overlooked in the musical's assets is Francis O’Connor's clever stage design with its use of a moving staircase, suspended window frames and a balcony.



For ticket details go to https://irishrep.org/tickets/


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