Porchlight Music Theatre

Porchlight ICONS: Celebrating Ben Vereen – Athenaeum Center – September 8, 2023

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I skipped the reception, because so did honoree Ben Vereen. He couldn’t make it because he was stuck in Romania. I can’t tell you how many times that’s happened to me (and Dracula).

Vereen’s filming a miniseries there about the American Civil War (huh?). To his credit, despite the last minute cancellation, he found time to sing a song and provide a very engaging interview for a tape played during the night’s festivities, which also featured wonderful performances by event cochairs Felicia Fields and Kenny Ingram, along with a group of regular Porchlight performers and musicians.

If you’re wondering how Vereen can be filming during an actors’ strike, it’s because his is one of at least 281 productions (as of September 5) that are working under an interim agreement approved by the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) negotiators, which, according to them, is not a waiver, but rather a contract that includes all the terms of the last SAG-AFTRA counteroffer to the producers.

There are those who aren’t happy about these agreements. Some big names, such as Viola Davis and Sarah Silverman, have declined to work on these films.

Meanwhile, with the writers also on strike, the public is relegated to watching game and reality shows (would Dracula qualify?), reruns of The Nanny or news conferences with its star Fran Drescher, who is the current National President of SAG-AFTRA.

While a taped Vereen was entertaining, Drescher in person might have been even more interesting. She doesn’t have Vereen’s theatrical resume, but a Broadway (not Romanian) musical version of The Nanny, book cowritten by Drescher and lyrics by Rachel Bloom (yeah!) has been in the works for a few years.

Broadway in Your Backyard – Washington Square Park – August 8, 2023

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This is what is it should be like every night of the summer (or year for that matter) – perfect weather, breathable air, terrific performers and a large, lively crowd that included friends strewn throughout the park. And let’s not forget the Venezuelan-inspired Latin American street food la Cocinita food truck, from which I tasted the arepas, plantains and churros.

It’s the second time and place this summer I’ve seen a production of the Porchlight Music Theatre’s neighborhood concert series, which over the years has never failed to please, and on this occasion was at its best.

It’s no secret that these are hard times for theaters (see the recent NY Times article), but that hasn’t stopped Porchlight from continuing to find ways to provide first-class entertainment.

Tonight’s presentation included Desiree Gonzalez, whom I recently saw in Pippin; Ciarra Stroud, whom I singled out for her performance nine months ago in The Apple Tree; Bryce Ancil, whom I’ve seen in another of Porchlight’s wonderful works, namely its New Faces Sing Broadway series; and Lorenzo Rush Jr., who is one of my favorite performers, and whom I’ve written about a number of times, most recently in Damn Yankees.

Last, but not least, a special shout out to Porchlight Artistic Director Michael Weber, whose spirited rendition of (Ya Got) Trouble from The Music Man was magnetic.

Ernest Shackleton Loves Me – Porchlight Music Theatre – May 11, 2023

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It’s been over 20 years since I saw the IMAX documentary Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure, but it has remained frozen in my memory.

Molly Brown may have been unsinkable, but she couldn’t hold a candle, or, in the case of this show, a banjo, to Ernest Shackleton. Just two years after the Titanic sank, the Endurance went down in Antarctica, the beginning of an amazing story that is faithfully told through dialogue, song, and actual video from the expedition on loan from the British Natural History Museum, all in the middle of a show about a Brooklyn woman trying to make ends meet and keep her baby warm while the father tours the country with a Journey cover band.

It’s a strange combination indeed, and not your mother’s musical (you won’t walk out humming any of the songs), but one that works, in no small part thanks to the two multi-talented stars of the show, Elisa Carlson and Andrew Mueller (I have now seen all three of the Mueller siblings perform on stage), and, in the midst of a show about hope and optimism, a lot of laughs.

Porchlight Sings Broadway Pop – House of Blues – March 27, 2023

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In the 26-plus years of the House of Blues, I’d never before been to it for a performance, unless you count my embarrassing, enraptured, emotional reaction to the restaurant’s jalapeño cornbread at many a lunch.

My absence ended with a bang, and some fiery crab cake appetizers, as I watched Porchlight Music Theatre’s Chicago Sings Broadway Pop erupt with performances from 22 explosive singers and dancers and a rocking seven-piece band.

It was so much fun that I almost forgot about my ongoing internal struggle over whether I prefer the spelling theater over theatre.

I had the good fortune to view the show from one of the boxes, which only augmented the experience, and made me wonder why Statler and Waldorf were always so cantankerous while watching the Muppets from their box.

Then I thought about the scene in the box in Pretty Woman and was grateful that this show was about Broadway pop, not Broadway opera, which made me think that opera would be so much better with tap dancing (think Hot Mikado), though sadly there also was none on this night, its only shortcoming.

I am a Camera – Porchlight Music Theatre – Feb. 9, 2023

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In 1951 Walter Kerr famously reviewed I am a Camera with three words – Me no Leica. So perhaps it’s no wonder that the show has never been revived on Broadway.

Having recently seen Porchlight’s still-running, fabulous production of Cabaret, the classic musical that sprang from Camera, I was curious to view the original play (which is, of course, why it was presented as part of the Porchlight Revisits series at this time and despite the fact that it’s not itself a musical). As the guy sitting next to me said, how did they have the vision to turn this play into Cabaret?

The legendary Julie Harris won her first of five Tonys for her depiction of Sally Bowles in Camera. She must have delivered a supernatural performance to convince the voters to care even a little bit about the character. I sure didn’t. Fortunately, the Isherwood self-portrait, which is the centerpiece, picks up some of the slack, and the acting all around was excellent.

Still, I kept wondering whether the unseen interactions between the secondary characters of Fritz and Natalia might not have been more interesting to watch than was the banal relationship between Sally and her mother, which seemed rather beside the point of the second act.

Cabaret – Porchlight Music Theatre – January 20, 2023

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What good is sitting alone in your room when you could be at Porchlight’s terrific production of Cabaret?  It’s well worth the money, money, money that makes the world go around.  

Come hear the music play. The band is great. Your table’s waiting, if you sit in the front row.  They’ll be happy to see you and you’ll be happy to see the extremely talented cast, assembled and directed by Michael Weber, and aided by some wild, wonderful, wanton, choreography provided by Brenda Didier to demonstrate the dance of the decadent, dysfunctional, divisive decade depicted.

I particularly want to highlight Josh Walker as the Emcee and Erica Stephan as Sally Bowles, iconic roles that these two performers give great justice to, just as justice is not given to the lives of the characters around them.

I’d never seen Walker perform before and thought I hadn’t seen Stephan either until I realized I saw her recently as Miss Scarlett in Clue, a quite different type of femme fatale. That show could have used the ovation-inducing singing and dancing she displays at the Kit Kat Club. 

The Apple Tree – Porchlight Revisits – Porchlight Music Theatre – December 8, 2022

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The Apple Tree, as the title suggests, starts in the Garden of Eden, so I’ll bite into that scene first. It’s too long. Mel Brooks did the whole History of the World, Part I, in 92 minutes.

The production started well, but bogged down under the weight of too many apples. They should have cherry-picked the best parts to get to the core of the story quicker.

My two principle takeaways from the garden were, first, that newcomer Ciarra Stroud, as Eve, is someone to watch in the future, and, second, I want to read Mark Twain’s The Diaries of Adam and Eve, upon which it’s based, because, as great as the authors Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, and Jerome Coopersmith have shown themselves to be in other shows, they don’t have a Prize for American Humor named after them.

I’ll pause here, as did the show for intermission, to mention that Mike Nichols not only directed The Apple Tree on Broadway, but, two years later, also directed Plaza Suite, another show featuring three distinct scenes with different characters played by the same actors (though not in this production), for which he won the Tony Award for Best Direction. That’s quite a niche.

I would have loved to have seen Barbara Harris’s Tony Award-winning performance in The Apple Tree in its entirety, but, in particular, I wonder how she attacked the second scene, The Lady or the Tiger. In this production, I thought the part of Princess Barbara might have been more effective played more light-heartedly. Monte Hall always had a good time when the contestants had to choose a door on Let’s Make a Deal, though I admit their lives weren’t at stake.

The finale, Passionella, made me think of Avenue Q, though not until I realized that I carry a photograph of the actress, Leah Morrow, with me next to some random puppets, on my phone, as evidence of when I saw her as Kate Monster in 2014. Do I think of her as a monster talent? I don’t know, but once again her wonderful comic chops were brought to bear, a joy to watch.

Rent – Porchlight Music Theatre – November 3, 2022

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I love the musical Something Rotten. So what does that have to do with Rent? The following are some lyrics from SR’s “It’s a Musical.”

“Some musicals have no talking at all
. . . .
All of the dialogue is sung
. . . .
You just sit there asking yourself
“Why aren’t they talking?”
. . . .
And people actually like this?
No, they love it . . . .”

I’m not one of those people. I’ll save a long explanation of why for another time, after I’ve had time to construct one. For now, it is what it is.

So, when one of the characters in Rent spoke/sang “it’s over” early in the second act, I momentarily got excited, until I realized the line wasn’t directed to me, and I had to sit through another three or four false endings.

That said, if I were on the Jefferson Awards committee, my report would contain numerous nominations, with excellent stage performances and behind the scenes work all around.

To mention only a few, the band rocked throughout, Lucy Godinez, as Maureen, brought the house down with a diva dive into her big solo, and Josh Pablo Szabo, as Angel, captured the audience upon first entrance.

I might have been less anxious for a swifter conclusion if the show had not been up against the fifth game of the World Series, though, to be fair, those broadcasts could use less, not more, talking.

Chicago Sings Stephen Sondheim – Porchlight Music Theatre, at the Museum of Contemporary Art – May 23, 2022

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Back when you were still allowed to talk about Woody Allen, people were fond of saying that they preferred his early movies, when he was funny, before Stardust Memories, though there has been good stuff after that, if not of the same madcap variety as say, Bananas.

What does this have to do with Sondheim. Well, I liked his early work better, and, dare I say it, in particular when someone else was writing the music – West Side Story and Gypsy.

But Chicago Sings was about Sondheim, so no Bernstein or Styne tunes. And, because those of us who support the theater are supposed to be aficionados, we were “treated” to a number of songs that the average Joe (not to be confused with last season’s 13-episode TV show I liked but that has not been renewed – again I’m on the wrong side) might not have picked from his other shows.

As for the performances, I will call out Laura Savage (as I have done several times before), who lights up the stage, and Mark David Kaplan, whose Pretty Little Picture as Pseudolus made me laugh (which was permitted in early Sondheim shows).

But enough about substance. The food was good. The registration line not so much. And, thankfully, no one fell down the winding staircase on their way back down to the auditorium for the show after drinking at the reception.

Spring Awakening – Porchlight Music Theatre – April 28, 2022

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This was my second opening of the week. I didn’t enjoy it as much as the first day of the new Whole Foods near me the day before.

The performances at both were fine, but, even though it’s not a classic, I prefer the song from the Whole Foods commercial, Every Beat Of My Heart, by the Du-Ettes, to anything I heard in Spring Awakening, even Totally F**ked, which mostly stood out for the impressive one-handed cartwheel one of the actors did during the “dance break.”

Spring Awakening won the 2007 Tony for Best Musical, beating out Curtains, Grey Gardens, and Mary Poppins. For my money, I would have given the award that year to the not-even-nominated Legally Blonde, which, I guess, wasn’t deep enough, but sure was a lot more entertaining.

So I had to find things other than the play’s hit-me-over-the-head messages to think about while waiting for the final curtain.

The intellectual Melchior made me yearn for Michael Fitzsimmons, the biker loner character who spouted poetry in Peggy Sue Got Married.

Melchior’s obsession with Faust reminded me that I still remember, from high school, the first eight lines, in German, of Goethe’s Prolog im Himmel, which I repeated over and over in my mind to help pass the time.

I also thought about Franz Liebkind, whose play, when put in the right hands, turned out to be a lot more fun.

And, finally, I wished, if I were going to see a musical based on a 19th century German children’s story, that it be an adaptation of the Katzenjammer Kids.