Rating: NNNNN
SOY good
Since one good turn deserves another, Studio 180 – about to open its remount of The Laramie Project at Buddies in Bad Times Theatre – holds a performance to benefit Supporting Our Youth (SOY), a volunteer group working with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and transsexual youth. Last season, when the company was rehearsing what turned out to be one of the year’s best shows, a docudrama about the murder of gay student Matthew Shepard, director Joel Greenberg invited members of SOY to share their own experiences with cast members. The benefit performance (Friday, February 27) is the company’s thank-you to SOY. Tickets are $50. See One-Nighters, page 61, for details.
Rhubarb! wrap
That Rhubarb! sure is tangy, especially in the Retro Rhubarb! fest curated by Franco Boni and Moynan King . It closed last Sunday. We loved revisiting Rhubarb! shows from past years, especially I’d Kiss You But , with director Ruth Madoc-Jones and performers Susie Burnett , Anna Chatterton and Mackenzie Muldoon bringing their own exuberant energy to a 1990 piece by Victoria Ward , Diane Flacks and Wendy White .
Chatterton, Evalyn Parry and director Sue Miner pieced together a version of Ann-Marie MacDonald ‘s and Beverly Cooper ‘s 1984 Nancy Drew (Without A Clue) , a time-travelling mystery with lots of laughs.
And no one can bring dark comic rawness to life like Ann Holloway , who lit up R.M. Vaughan ‘s 1996 A Visitation Of St. Theresa Upon Constable Margaret Chance under King’s direction.
Best of the new stuff? Daniel Karasik ‘s surreal Night’s Swift Dragon , directed by Soheil Parsa , with the strong chemistry of performers Kevin Rees-Cummings and Michelle Polak Dennis Frey ‘s Spaceman 2459 , an a cappella opera performed with note-perfection (and no pitch pipe) by Frey, Michael Chipman and Peter Reitzel and Mirha-Soleil Ross ‘s engaging home-movie-style storytelling in ‘Bini . Besides presenting new works, the festival provides a great chance for talented performers like Veronika Hurnik and Allison Rees-Cummings to work on their directing skills.
