Those out-of-work Buffalo factory workers have taken their Chippendales-style strip show to Candlelight Dinner Theater, and the result is the San Gabriel Valley musical theater event of the season.

 Despite falling victim to the 2001 Tony Awards juggernaut that was The Producers (and losing all nine of its Tony Award nominations to the Mel Brooks megahit), the David Yazbek-Terrence McNally musical has since then become a regional theater staple, and Candlelight’s topnotch revival makes it amply clear why The Full Monty is such a crowd-pleaser

Helping to make it an audience favorite is a can’t-miss book by four-time Tony winner McNally, a cast of true-to-life three-dimensional characters, a jazzy score by Yazbek which recalls the early 70 hits of Chicago, and sexy, hip-thrusting, pelvis-swiveling choreography. It also gives musical theater performers almost a dozen to-die-for roles.

For those who have somehow never seen The Full Monty, the musical centers on six cash-strapped unemployed upstate New York steelworkers who, having seen their wives go gaga for a touring Chippendales show, decide to call themselves Hot Metal and stage their very own strip extravaganza. When the working women of Buffalo seem ill-inclined to shell out their hard-earned bucks to see men who are nowhere near as built as the strippers they’re accustomed to, our six heroes decide there’s only one sure way to insure a full house—give their audience The Full Monty.

 Louis Pardo is 32-year-old Jerry Lukowski, “out of work, divorced, in debt up to my balls, and if I don’t make some money soon they won’t let me see my kid.” Sharing custody of 12-year-old Nathan (Tanner Davis) with ex-wife Pam (Stephanie Draude), Jerry is behind on child support and in serious danger of losing his son to Georgie’s dutifully-employed live-in lover Reg (Jeremy Magourirk).

Sheldon Robert Morley is Jerry’s best bud Dave Bukatinski, dubbed “fat bastard” for his considerable avoirdupois and so frustrated by days spent defrosting the family refrigerator and vacuuming the Bukatinski living room that he finds himself unable to perform his husbandly duties.  All this leaves wife Georgie (Stacy Huntington) wondering what happened to the wonderful man she married and Dave wondering if it’s because his belly has grown in proportion to his financial woes.

 Among the would-be strippers recruited for Hot Metal are Momma’s Boy (and self-described “complete loser”) Malcolm MacGregor (Nick Tubbs); Ethan Girard (Kristofer Sundquist), embarrassingly inept at replicating Donald O’Connor’s Singing In The Rain wall-climbing trick and seemingly unaware of what a sweetheart he is; Noah “Horse” T. Simmons (Paul David Bryant), a middle-aged “big black man” whose “break-dancing days are probably over,” but whose presence in Hot Metal is sure to guarantee ticket sales to lovers of men of color; and Harold Nichols (Neil Dale), an out-of-work mill supervisor who’s been hiding his six months of joblessness from his luxury-loving wife Vicki (Jackie Cox).

There’s also male stripper Buddy (Keno) Walsh (Jackson Tobiska) whose pelvis-thrusting, buns-baring solo at the local strip club inspires Jerry to recruit the men henceforth known as Hot Metal, the better to put on that one-night-only strip show and pocket a $50,000 take.

 Completing the cast of principal players is rehearsal pianist Jeannette Burmeister (Jennifer Lawson*), a bawdy retiree who brings with her plenty of sass along with story upon story to tell of her checkered showbiz past.

Candlelight regulars are advised that despite the presence of a twelve-year-old character, The Full Monty’s R-rated language and thong-sporting male strippers make it appropriate for adults only. Still, it’s hard to imagine a musical with stronger family values than TFM—if by family values you mean unconditional love, mutual support in times of trouble, and diversity celebrated rather than condemned.

Under John LaLonde’s assured direction and featuring John Vaughan’s sizzling choreography, The Full Monty is Candlelight Dinner Theatre at its most professional, a production blessed by a cast that not only can sing, dance, and act with the best of them, the sextet of triple-threats playing Hot Metal look actually as if they could be the Buffalo blue-collars they’re playing, and not the drop-dead-gorgeous, seriously buff romantic leads that have, rather improbably, played many of these roles in past productions.

Pardo once again proves his versatility as Jerry, investing the role of divorced dad with heart, drive, and parental warmth—and singing “Breeze Off The River” in a gorgeous, soaring tenor. Morley, who himself played Jerry some years back, is equally terrific as Dave, giving us one great big mensch of a guy whether fully dressed or wrapped in saran. In a performance that reveals both Malcolm’s loneliness and his goodness, Tubbs sings with power and clarity, and never more so than when duetting “You Walk With Me” with an equally marvelous Sundquist as the eternally sunny Ethan. Bryant is a bona fide powerhouse as an aging but still vital Horse, and belts out a funky “Big Black Man” to make James Brown proud. Dale brings his trademark twinkle to white-collar Harold, and proves quite the ballroom dancer opposite a vivacious, zesty Cox as wife Vicki. Huntington (Anything Go’s Reno Sweeney) is a foxy, feisty Georgie, Draude gives Pam poignancy and depth, 13-year-old Davis is the son any dad or mom would be proud to call their own, and classically sculpted Tobiska makes Keno far more than a gay stereotype.

 Chelsea Emma Franko (Susan), Michaelia Leigh (Estelle), and Jessica Mason (Joanie) are sensational triple-threats each and every one, while Edward Chamberlain (Minister), Jeremiah Concepcion (Tony). Paul J. Lange (Teddy), and Magourick (Reg) do all-around tiptop work as well. Last but most definitely not least is the scene-stealing Lawson*, not afraid to be big, loud, and bold as Jeanette, a role she invests with abundant pep and pizzazz, stopping the show with “Jeanette’s Showbiz Number.”

Musical director Doug Austin’s ample contributions are reflected in the cast’s uniformly fine vocal performances, and if there is no live band backstage, you wouldn’t know it by the live-sounding tracks backing up these vocals.

 Circa ’21 Dinner Playhouse’s set design may not be National Tour caliber, but it has a great industrial look and more than does the job. SteveGDesign’s lighting design knows when to be subtle and realistic and when to be bright and bold. Jenny Wentworth scores high marks for her many costumes, from Keno’s stripper gear to the unemployed Buffalonians’ factory wear to the women’s blue-collar glam. Logan Grosjean is stage manager.

Families with children will doubtless be relieved to hear that next up for Candlelight is Rodgers & Hammerstein’s The King And I. In the meantime, leave the kids at home and enjoy The Full Monty’s celebration of American workers meeting economic challenges in the most ingenious and entertaining of ways.

Candlelight Pavilion, 455 W. Foothill Blvd., Claremont. Through June 16. Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 6:00. Sundays at 5:00. Saturdays and Sundays at 11:00 a.m. Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre tickets include meal and show. Appetizers, desserts, beverages and waiters gratuity are additional. Cocktails, appetizers, entrees, and desserts are to die for and the service courteous and attentive. Reservations: 909 626-1254 ext. 1
www.candlelightpavilion.com

*The role of Jeanette will be played by Beth Mendoza on June 8, 13, 14, and 16

–Steven Stanley
May 18, 2013
Photos: John LaLonde, except top, by Isaac James Creative

No, it’s not Effie White belting out a showstopper in Dreamgirls, but the spoken words of Dr. Philip Gottschall, an 81-year-old Texas megapreacher unwilling to give up the pulpit of a church he’s built up to a congregation of 30,000 and counting, and it’s not Deena Jones who’s in Eve Harrington mode, but 40something San Antonio pastor Jeremiah Mears, whom fully half of the pastoral search committee would like to see replace their aging leader. As for the other half, the status quo is fine, just fine.

Playwright David Rambo pits preacher against preacher in God’s Man In Texas, the latest offering from the newly re-energized Sierra Madre Playhouse, and if being forced to listen to considerable sermonizing by the kind of Christian fundamentalists who have recently made it their mission to “protect the sanctity of marriage” proved tough going in Act One, once Rambo’s central concern became evident in the play’s thoroughly compelling second act, this reviewer came to realize that any Act One discomfort was personal, and no reflection on what ends up one humdinger of a play.

To be fair, the subject of same-sex marriage never comes up in God’s Man In Texas, though its two protagonists’ overlong Act One sermons are indeed all Old Testament-based, and to be honest, the actual amount of time these sermons take up is probably considerably less than it feels like. Thankfully, too, a third character provides a good deal of comic relief before himself becoming integral to the more gripping drama of the play’s second act.

We first meet Jeremiah “Jerry” Meers (Christian Lebano) as he is about to give the first of several “audition” sermons and wishing only for a bit of meditation-friendly peace and quiet. Unfortunately, that’s the last thing he gets from Hugo Taney (Paul Perri), the chatty reformed drug/sex addict in charge of Rock Baptist’s TVBO (TV Broadcast Operation), a member of the church’s every single 12-step recovery group, and a man more likely to put his foot in his mouth than not. (“You look a lot taller on TV. Do you use a lower-than-average pulpit?”)

Jerry’s first sermon gets a qualified thumbs up from the venerable Dr. Gottschall (Ted Heyck), though Hugo, reading his boss’s mind, does suggest that next time Jerry start out “folksy, … with a cute story, something one of his kids said that was real cute,” advice which the younger preacher follows in sermon number two, which he opens by recalling a time when he convinced his broccoli-hating young son that he was being served “spinach trees,” thereby getting his boy to eat every last bite.

Unfortunately, Gottschall’s reaction to this second sermon is considerably less enthusiastic than Hugo’s, the older man finding it not, as Jerry would have it, “a parable from personal experience on obedience” but rather “a story about how you tricked your boy into eating broccoli,” just one of numerous times preacher and preacher will be butting heads, the octogenarian remaining steadfast in his belief that his word is and rightly should be law.

No wonder Gottschall ends Act One à la Effie White, booming out from the pulpit that “I’m not going anywhere until God says, ‘It’s time.’”

It’s in Act Two that things really get juicy, for sometime during intermission the abovementioned search committee has voted to have Jerry join Rock Baptist as Gottschall’s “co-pastor,” prompting the older man to react with righteous anger (and borderline paranoia) to his young competitor’s increasing popularity. Meanwhile, Jerry finds himself almost equally dissatisfied with having to share the spotlight with a man whose church leadership and management he finds increasingly faulty.

 Father-and-son relationships weave a provocative leitmotif throughout God’s Man In Texas. Jerry has two growing boys, though his own traveling salesman-turned-street preacher father went missing when Jerry was a teen, never to be heard from again. As for Gottschall, a son and heir was apparently not in God’s plan for the father of one (an “impaired” daughter), while Hugo too has his own father-son story, about which no surprise-spoiling details will be offered.

To his great credit, playwright Rambo avoids demonizing Gottschall, a man whose refusal to cede power proves easy to empathize with, particularly for audience members of a certain age, nor does the playwright make a saint out of Jerry, whose ambitions threaten to get the best of his better nature. Hugo is equally complex, and ends up far more than merely the comic relief he seems at first to have been created to provide.

Fascinating too is the picture Rambo paints of a church so gigantic, it comes complete with college, Christian school, dinner theater, bowling alley, eight-screen Cineplex for family movies, Christian satellite network, restaurants, coffee shops, snack bars, fully-equipped gymnasium, two swimming pools, baby care, day care, counseling center… The list goes on and on.

Playwright Rambo has modernized his 2001 script just enough that Tim Tebow merits a mention, smart phones get used, and the play avoids becoming a ‘90s period piece, since as the French say, “Plus ça change …”

Nancy Youngblut makes a noteworthy Sierra Madre Playhouse directorial debut, and under her incisive guidance all three actors do splendid work.

Outstanding Lead Actor Scenie winner Lebano not only makes Jerry the kind of charismatic preacher the search committee’s more change-seeking  faction would surely favor, he invests the part with depth and a just-right balance of strength and self-confidence tempered with some less laudable though entirely human weaknesses.

Heyck’s Gottschall may be a good decade younger than Rambo has written him, but what a powerhouse performance the stage and screen vet gives, making the still vital octogenarian a boiling caldron of vanity, arrogance, folksiness, paranoia, obstinance, self-doubt, and pride.

 Last but not least is Perri’s masterful, eminently watchable work as Hugo, whose assorted quirks and tics Rambo’s text only begins to suggest, which is to say that Perri takes an already well-written part and makes it arguably the evening’s most memorable, and never more so that when Act Two gives Hugo (and Perri) some truly meaty scenes on which to chew.

God’s Man In Texas looks quite splendid on the Sierra Madre Playhouse’s classic proscenium stage. (Is there any other 99-seat theater in town that so resembles a scaled-down Pasadena Playhouse, minus the architectural frills?) D. Martyn Bookwalter’s scenic and lighting design combine to suggest opulence on a shoestring budget, with special snaps for the sound and light extravaganza that is the megachurch’s annual Christmas parade, the latter aided and abetted considerably by Scot Q. Merry’s sound design and Garrett James Mayer’s original music, both of them excellent throughout. Holly Victoria’s excellent costumes tell us much about the men who wear them even before they speak. Deborah Ross Sullivan’s dialect coaching is evident in the three actors’ Texas drawls.

Samantha R. Else is production stage manager, Annalise Lowry and Jake Miner Perri are assistant stage managers, and Roberta Barns and Barry Schwam are sound operators.

Following this past winter’s superb Lebano-directed Driving Miss Daisy, God’s Man In Texas provides even more challenging fare, offering fresh evidence that the New Sierra Madre Playhouse is no longer your parents’ or grandparents’ community theater. Though I can’t help wishing that Rambo had pruned down the Act One sermonizing that this particular reviewer found so alienating, God’s Man In Texas turns out to be quite a play, and one well worth driving over to picturesque Sierra Madre to experience.

NOTE: The role of Hugo will be played by Ken Lay on May 3, 4, and 5.

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre. Through May 18. Fridays and Saturdays at 8:00. Sundays at 2:30. Reservations: 626 355-4318
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
April 26, 2013

Director-choreographer Cate Caplin captures Berlin at its most glitzy and at its most grim as Inland Valley Repertory Theatre presents the 1966 Broadway classic Cabaret, its 50th production, a revival sparked by a pair of stellar performances and choreography as imaginative and ably-executed as you’d see in many an Equity production.

 Cabaret’s tale of star-crossed lovers in pre-WWII Berlin was dark stuff indeed for mid-‘60s New York audiences accustomed to considerably brighter shows like Hello Dolly, She Loves Me, and Mame. Still, that first incarnation of Cabaret was positively sunny compared to its 1998 revival and the addition of Kit Kat Boys to the previously all-female entertainers, more than a suggestion of homosexuality stirred into the mix, and the buoyant “Why Should I Wake Up?” and the Yiddish ditty “Meeskite” excised in favor of the considerably darker “Mein Herr,” “Maybe This Time,” and “I Don’t Care Much.”

Director-choreographer Caplin combines key elements of the original Broadway production and its smash hit revival and comes up with a best-of-both-Cabarets sure to please the musical’s many fans while at the same time providing newcomers with a splendid introduction to one of Broadway’s longest-running musicals—over 3800 performances if you combine the original and its two revivals.

As any musical theater aficionado will tell you, Cabaret takes as its source material Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories, autobiographical tales which recount the then 20something British medical student’s stay in the sex-and-sin capital of Europe. As Wikipedia relates, “rejecting his upper-class background and attracted to males, (Isherwood) remained in Berlin, the capital of the young Weimar Republic, drawn by its deserved reputation for sexual freedom. There, he fully indulged his taste for pretty youths. He went to Berlin in search of boys and found one called Heinz, who became his first great love.”

Clearly, Isherwood’s real-life adventures would have been more than a tad too gay for mid-‘60s Broadway, and even today’s Cabaret centers around its hero Clifford Bradshaw’s very heterosexual love affair with Brit expatriate slash night club entertainer Sally Bowles. Still, this Cliff has a past (as an early phone chat with one-time lover Bobby reveals), and this Berlin is clearly a place where people of just about any orientation could find a way to express their sexuality openly and freely, as director Caplin’s pansexual pairings make abundantly clear.

It’s on a Berlin-bound train that Isherwood’s alter-ego Cliff (Chris Giroux) makes the acquaintance of Ernst Ludwig (Steve Siegel), the jovial Berliner who will introduce him to the city’s nightlife. First, though, Ernst escorts Cliff to the boarding house of Fraulein Schneider (Ann Thomas), whose song “So What” expresses the been-there-done-that Frau’s “What Will Be Will Be” philosophy of life.

 It’s not long before Fraulein Schneider’s digs have morphed into the Kit Kat Club where Sally Bowles (Tomasina Abate) is cautioning club-goers “Don’t Tell Mama,” backed by a sizzling sextet of Kit Kat Girls. Cliff, seated at a table among Kit Kat Club regulars, gets a call at his table phone from Sally, who introduces herself to the handsome American, and before you know it, the “Toast Of Mayfair” has arrived at Cliff’s room, suitcase in hand, and the two expats are shacking up together.

It’s only a matter of time before Cliff and Sally have become lovers, and since we’ve already learned of Cliff’s past dalliance with Kit Kat customer Bobby, this hetero twist in Cliff’s life may even come as a bit of a surprise to our romantic hero.

 As Sally and Cliff become intimately involved, so does Germany’s involvement with Nazism take deeper root, and Cliff begins to have second thoughts about earning extra Deutschemarks as an amateur courier for Ernst. Fraulein Schneider too begins to think twice about marrying her Jewish suitor, greengrocer Herr Schultz (Frank Minano), who had previously won her heart by gifting her with a pineapple (“It Couldn’t Please Me More”). Berlin, which had seemed to Cliff such a perfect antidote to staid old England, now shows itself to be a considerably darker, more dangerous place to live.

With made-up face and elegant tux, handsome triple-threat John LaLonde returns Cabaret’s ubiquitous, all-seeing, all-knowing Emcee to his elegant Joel Grey roots, albeit at a considerably more towering stature than diminutive Tony winner Grey, giving us a Cabaret host who is charismatic, seductive, and creepy all at once. From his trilingual welcome to the Kit Kat entitled “Willkommen,” to the jaunty “Two Ladies,” which has our Emcee cavorting with a pair of pigtailed Kit Kat Girls, to his sexy salute to “Money,” to a leggy “Kick Line” which has an in-drag Emcee anchoring a high-kicking chorus line, to a Marlene Dietrich-esque “I Don’t Care Much,” the oh-so versatile LaLonde can now add a stunning Emcee to his long list of stage credits.

 LaLonde is more than matched by glamorous, raven-haired Abate, making the role of Sally very much her sensational own from the moment she launches into the sauciest, zestiest, most gleeful “Don’t Tell Mama” in memory, followed by a vampy “Mein Heir” which reveals in Sally more than a bit of Velma Kelly, a role which won Abate an Outstanding Lead Actress Scenie a couple years back. Abate belts out a dramatic, poignant “Maybe This Time” with the best of them and sings the title song as a joyous, defiant declaration of sexual independence by a woman who vows that when she goes, though not for long if she can help it, she’s “going like Elsie.” And with Caplin wearing her choreographer’s hat, Abate gives us one of the danciest Sallys ever, legs in constant movement even in a plot-propelling song like “Perfectly Marvelous.”

 Giroux provides fine support as Cliff, less the object of Sally’s true love at IVRT and more a convenient dalliance, though one can’t help wishing that Giroux got to sing at least one of the two songs Kander & Ebb wrote specifically for Cliff, either 1966’s “Why Should I Wake Up?” or even better 1987’s “Don’t Go,” Still, Giroux makes the most of a character who seems to have wandered in from a straight play (no pun intended).

Siegel proves his versatility as he transitions from American tough guy Harry Brock in February’s Born Yesterday to suave Berliner Ernst in this month’s Cabaret. Minano gives Herr Schultz a piquant charm and fine voice in “It Couldn’t Please Me More” and “Married,” while Downy CLO regular Jasso has a the time of her life juggling young man after young man as the frisky Fraulein Kost. Thomas’s Fraulein Schneider, on the other hand, could dig considerably deeper into her character’s pragmatic yet conflicted soul and also exhibit greater mastery of Schneider’s lines, though the musical theater vet does exhibit fine pipes in a dramatic, emotional “What Would You Do?”

 Lindsey Conway, Katie McConaughy, Angelina Mirenda, Brittany Rodin, Katherine Washington, and Sarah Winchester are a dance-tastic bevy of Kit Kat Girls, and never more so than in Caplin’s supremely inventive “Mein Heir,” which has all six of Sally’s backup dancers atop, astride, against, and in just about every other position imaginable vis-à-vis a sextet of straight-back chairs.

Cy Creamer, Jordan Killion, Michael Rodriguez, Jackson Smith, Peter Varvel, and Chantz Ward are a handsome and talented bunch of waiters and customers if ever there was one, while Killion and Jessica Guerrero display exquisite pipes in (respectively) “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” and a German-language “Married.” (The latter song provides one of Caplin’s best-staged sequences, one which has Heir Schultz and Fraulein Schneider sharing the stage with Guerrero’s chanteuse and a pair of wedding day dancers for a remarkably effective tableau.) Mark MacKenzie (Maitre d’) and Robert Meyer complete the cast effectively.

As Cabaret’s mood darkens, director Caplin has menacing, trenchcoat-wearing male figures begin to cast shadows over Berlin, Act One ending chillingly to actual Hitler-inspired cheers and “Heils.” Caplin’s choreography for Cabaret’s grand finale is chilling indeed (despite a couple of jarring ensemble missteps), and the ending she has devised packs as gut-punching a wallop as any I’ve seen.

Musical director Ronda Rubio conducts and plays piano in Cabaret’s terrific onstage band, also featuring David Catalan, Mark McConnell, Takako Nakano, Max O’Leary, Ian Roller, and Jorge Zuniga.

Jenny Senior scores high marks for a great big bunch of colorful, varied costumes which Daniel Moorefield makes even more vivid with his color-saturated lighting design. MacKenzie has skillfully adapted the concurrently-running Sweet Charity set to suit Cabaret’s needs, so much so that we almost believe that the New York skyline peeking over Rubio and her band is Berlin’s in the early 1930s. Cindy Smith’s properties and Cliff Senior’s wigs deserve high marks as well. Only some occasional microphone glitches hampered Nick Galvan’s otherwise excellent sound design. Cabaret Germans’ have been dialect coached by Phil Elhai to varying degrees of authenticity, and in some cases, a bit less heavy an accent might prove more subtly effective and believable.

Terre Gunkel is stage manager. Hope Kaufman is assistant director. Dawnellen Ferry is dance captain.

Performed on the Candlelight Pavilion Dinner Theatre stage (with drinks and desserts available rather than the traditional Candlelight dinner), IVRT’s Cabaret seems more like a top-drawer weekend Candlelight offering than a midweek visitor. Whether you’ve seen Cabaret more than half-a-dozen times before, as this reviewer has, or are seeing it for the very first time, this is a “Perfectly Marvelous” revival of a bona fide musical theater classic.

Candlelight Pavilion, 455 W. Foothill Blvd., Claremont.
www.ivrt.org

–Steven Stanley
April 17, 2013
Photos: Mark Riley

 The now well-known standards “Big Spender,” “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” and “Where Am I Going?” are just three of the bouncy, hummable Coleman-Field hits that make 1966’s Sweet Charity one of the Swinging Sixties’ most tuneful musicals, while Simon’s delightful book is an early-career gem from America’s master comic playwright.

For those who’ve never seen Sweet Charity on stage or in its 1969 movie version starring Shirley MacLaine, Simon’s book (an Americanization of Federico Fellini’s Nights Of Cabiria) recounts the tale of New York City dance hall hostess Charity Hope Valentine and her search for true love.

And what a rocky road it is, since before we’ve even found out her name, poor sweet Charity (Tracy Pedretti on the Candlelight stage) has been robbed of her dowry and thrown into a Central Park lake…by the man she was planning to marry if only he had asked her. Thanks to the “fickle finger of fate” (Charity’s favorite expression), our plucky heroine soon gets to meet Italian film star Vittorio Vidal (understudy John LaLonde at the performance reviewed), then finds herself trapped in an elevator with shy tax accountant Oscar Lindquist (Bobby Collins) who may just have marriage on his mind. Meanwhile, Charity’s two best buds, fellow dance hall girls Helene (Tiffany Reid) and Nickie (Eli Menendez) are there to offer Charity hope and a shoulder to cry on.

Since Charity is scarcely ever offstage, any production of Sweet Charity will rise or fall depending on its leading lady, the role requiring a true triple-threat, and in its Charity Hope Valentine, Candlelight has struck pure gold. Pedretti not only captures Charity’s infectious charm and unsinkable optimism despite a series of setbacks that would lead most of us to throw in the towel, her vocals have just the right mix of vulnerability and pizzazz. As for her dance moves, they would surely get thumbs up from either Verdon or the man who choreographed Sweet Charity as a gift for his muse, the inimitable Bob Fosse. And Miss Pedretti twirls a baton like dynamite!

 Choreographer Renslow has done her Fosse homework by going as straight to the source as humanly possible, picking the brains of performers who worked with the Broadway legend to find out precisely what made his choreography snap, crackle, and pop, and it shows in production number after production number that pay tribute to Fosse’s trademark turned-in knees, jutting hips, sideways shuffling, and hand-and-shoulder rolls, while at the same time exhibiting the imagination and flair that helped make Renslow’s recent You’re A Good Man Charlie Brown such an all-around delight.

In addition to Pedretti’s finely-honed performance under Dale’s expert direction, Candlelight’s latest offering features one terrific performance after another, beginning with Collins, who makes Oscar as irresistibly charming a nerd as any Charity could hope to fall for, singing the title song and duetting “I’m The Bravest Individual” with Pedretti in a tenor that would do any crooner proud.

 Reid and Menendez are sassy treats as Charity’s seen-it-all, done-it-all coworkers, turning “There’s Gotta Be Something Better Than This” and “Baby Dream That Dream” into a pair of show-stoppers. As for LaLonde, the triple-threat’s tall-dark-and-handsome looks, comedic chops, and soaring vocals make European heartthrob Vittorio a perfect fit for Candlelight’s multitalented artistic director.

Kayla Ann Bullock gives Vittorio’s on-again off-again girlfriend Ursula plenty of Italian va-va-voom, Robert Hoyt’s velvety tenor makes Herman’s confession that “I Love To Cry At Weddings” an Act Two show-stopper, and speaking of show-stopping, a groovy Michael Wordly’s “Daddy Brubeck” leads his hippie church congregation in the super infectious “The Rhythm Of Life,” a veritable cornucopia of ‘60s psychedelics.

Dancehall girls Jeni Baker (Elaine) Angela Calderon (Carmen), Deborah Fauerbach (Frenchie), Marie Gutierrez (Rosie), Regina Laughlin (Suzanne), and Renee Rand (Betsy) combine deliciously deadpan vocals and the bar girls’ “signature poses” to make “Big Spender” yet another standout song-and-dance sequence.

 Not to be outdone, there’s also Fosse’s iconic “Rich Man’s Frug,” which has a lithe and leggy Fauerbach (as Ponytail Dancer) leading the entire ensemble in a three-part salute to the ‘60s as the rich and snooty might have danced it, the ladies joined this time by Marius Beltran, Ryan Chlanda, Nicholas Gutierrez, Josh Pecjak, Orlando Montes (Assistant to Brubeck), Bryan Overmyer (Assistant to Brubeck, Manfred), and dance captain Justin Matthew Segura, each more handsome and talented than the next, and given their own all-male showcase opposite Pedretti in the 76 Trombones-esque “I’m A Brass Band”

The entire cast impress vocally, their group numbers featuring no pre-recorded “sweetening” this time round. What you hear are live vocals, under Martin Green’s assured musical directorship, performed to prerecorded instrumental tracks that sound almost as good as live.

  Sweet Charity may well be the best looking multi-set production I’ve seen at Candlelight, scenic artist Kerry Jones suggesting the show’s many locales via various modular units that give us the dance hall, dressing rooms, and Vittorio’s apartment in front of a silhouetted New York skyline, and in two particularly fine bits of scenic design, a two-level elevator and a Ferris wheel which has Charity and Oscar seemingly suspended high above the audience. Main State Music Theatre Costumes has provided countless ‘60s outfits to make this Sweet Charity even more of a visual treat, particularly as expertly lit by lighting designer Steve Giltner of SteveGDesign. Logan Grosjean is stage manager.

If there’s any advice I could give to Candlelight general manager/vice president Michael Bollinger and artistic director LaLonde, it would be to keep bringing back Dale and Renslow for as many productions as the dynamic duo are available to direct and choreograph. Lightning struck Candlelight last year with their Miss Saigon. Sweet Charity disproves the notion that a firebolt can never strike twice in the same place, because strike twice it has at Candlelight, and then some.

Candlelight Pavilion, 455 W. Foothill Blvd., Claremont.
www.candlelightpavilion.com

–Steven Stanley
April 7, 2013
Photos: Isaac James Creative

 Whittier Community Theatre undertakes this gutsy challenge with largely positive results in this, its 91st Season.

Debuting on Broadway less than two years after World War II ended with Japan’s surrender, Miller’s examination of personal responsibility in time of war remains every bit as impactful and relevant today, sixty-six years after its New York premiere.

The 1947 Tony Award winner revolves around a day in the life of the Kellers, a Midwest family who seem from the outside to be living the American Dream. At curtain up, prosperous factory owner Joe Keller (Richard Large), his wife Kate (Candy Beck), and their adult son Chris (Justin Patrick Murphy) are welcoming a visit from grown up next door neighbor Ann Deever (Alexandra Ozeri), back in town for the first time since moving to New York several years earlier. Ann and the Kellers’ older son Larry were an item when Larry went off to war, but the elder Keller boy was declared missing in action three years ago, and there has been no word of his fate. Though Kate steadfastly refuses to believe that Larry is dead, Ann apparently feels quite differently about the matter. She and Chris have been corresponding secretly for the past two years, and Ann’s return home signals a change in their relationship. Friendship has turned to long distance love, and Chris is planning to propose to Ann. There’s only one hitch. An engagement between Chris and Ann would mean a tacit acceptance of Larry’s death, and this is something which Kate will never do.

 There’s one other stumbling block to the young couple’s potential happiness together. Ann’s father (and Joe’s business partner) Steve was sentenced to prison three years earlier for having knowingly sent out a shipment of defective airplane parts from Joe’s and his factory, cracked cylinder heads which led to the deaths of twenty-one pilots. Joe had initially been found guilty as well, however his insistence that he was home sick in bed the day the order got shipped out, corroborated by Kate, soon relieved him of any responsibility for the plane crashes, and he was subsequently released from prison.

When Ann’s brother George (Normal Dostal) shows up on the Kellers’ doorstep following a prison visit with his father, the stage is set for a two-family showdown which will forever alter the path of Chris Keller’s life and the lives of those he loves.

All My Sons works brilliantly on many levels—as a story of family, as a love story, as a mystery, and as a discussion starter. Even six and a half decades after its premiere, All My Sons’ questions still ring true. Does a person’s responsibility to his family trump his responsibility to his country? Does war bring out the worst in people, or their best? Can a person go on living without self respect or the respect of others?

 Director Roxanne Barker understands Miller well, and has cast a trio of lead actors whose performances rival those you might expect to see in a professional regional theater, particularly noteworthy since in the grand tradition of American community theater, everyone involved with All My Sons is doing so without monetary compensation for the unadulterated joy of making theater.

Despite a few scattered instances of tripping over lines, Large is as fine a Joe Keller as you could hope to see, a man who dropped out of school young, pulled himself up by his bootstraps, and succeeded through smarts, not education. Later, as Joe’s secrets are revealed one by one and we watch the downward spiral of a life falling to pieces, Large’s work transcends community theater and simply becomes acting at its most compelling.

 WCT staple Beck vanishes inside Kate Keller’s homespun skin, the actress’s natural warmth making it no wonder that the neighborhood loves her and that George falls quickly back under her spell. When Kate morphs into a lioness defending her pride against outside invaders bound and determined to destroy her faith and hope, Beck reveals the ice-cold steel beneath the surface in a rich, memorable performance.

As for Murphy, though the young leading man seemed slightly challenged at first by Miller’s vaguely dated turns of phrases, it didn’t take long for the WCT vet to prove his acting mettle—and then some—in a series of gut-wrenchingly powerful scenes opposite Large and Beck.

 A pair of supporting performances stand out. As George, Dostal faces the challenge of a character whose emotions change on a dime, and succeeds in making us believe both his anger at, and the love he can’t help feeling for, the Kellers. Shannon Fuller makes the very most of her pair of scenes as Keller neighbor Sue Bailess, giving us a finely etched rendering of a woman whose sunny exterior vanishes when the need arises to defend her marriage against potential interlopers.

Ozeri does some impressive work as Ann once the gloves have come off in her Act Three confrontation with Kate, though earlier scenes would play more effectively with some vocal coaching to deepen the actress’s naturally high-pitched tones.

Todd Rew and Casey Morlet both have good moments as Keller neighbors Dr. Jim Bailess and Lydia Lubey. As for Ernie Rivera (Frank Lubey) and John Noah Molina (Bert), experience will surely improve the youthful duo’s acting chops, though in their defense, neither appears the right age for his part.

 Set designer Suzanne Frederickson faces the challenge of filling a mid-sized proscenium stage on a very limited budget, and though the Keller home is considerably smaller and simpler than others I’ve seen, it does the trick, particularly as lit by Nancy Tyler, and the same can be said for Karen Jacobson’s well-chosen costumes and props. Rosalva Reza’s sound design insures that the actors’ voices are sufficiently amped for anyone without a hearing impairment.

Richard DeVicariis is producer and Emilie Brazeau is stage manager.

 Whittier Community Theatre deserves high marks for challenging its loyal subscribers with some decidedly serious fare and for giving three splendid “non-professional” actors the chance to prove that they can stand up quite nicely against the pros. Though somewhat rough around the edges, this daring WCT offering should leave audiences every bit as moved and shaken as Arthur Miller intended them to be when he sat down to write this great American classic.

Whittier Community Theatre, The Center Theatre, 7630 S. Washington Ave., Whittier.
www.WhittierCommunityTheatre.org

–Steven Stanley
February 24, 2013

 Theater buffs will recall Kanin’s 1946 play as the one that made Judy Holliday a Broadway star, while film aficionados will tell you that Holliday’s Billie trounced All About Eve’s very own Margo Channing in an Oscar upset that surely rankled Miss Bette Davis for the rest of her career.

Then again, if ever there were a comedy role destined to win accolades and awards, it’s the delectably, divinely dumb Miss Dawn, now brought to brassy but ever so huggable life on the Candlelight Pavilion stage by Scenie winner Adrianne Hampton.

Billie and her millionaire Bluto of a boyfriend, junk mogul Harry Brock (Steve Siegel), have arrived in mid-1940s Washington to do business with the bigwigs, though if you asked Billie why  (or what all those papers Harry’s been having her sign are), she’d probably respond that she doesn’t know or care. Call her dumb and you’ll get no argument from Billie. “I got everything I want. Two mink coats. Everything,” she declares with undisguised pride. And if Harry doesn’t come across? “If he doesn’t come across, I don’t come across. If you know what I mean,” she adds with a wink. Racy stuff for 1946, but this was after all Broadway, where you could get away with a lot more sexual innuendo than on the silver screen.

 Harry’s latest business brainstorm is to buy up every bit of scrap he can scout out in postwar Europe and sell it for megabucks in the States, if only he can find a way to avoid having to pay those pesky import tariffs. Enter corrupt Senator Norval Hedges (David Masters), whose Hedges-Keller Amendment would block any State Department interference in Harry’s business affairs and guarantee the Senator a hefty kickback from his crooked partner in crime.

There’s just one fly in Harry’s ointment and she’s an ex-chorine named Billie, whose lack of social graces could prove embarrassing to a man doing business with Washington bigwigs, that is unless Harry can get her educated pronto.

 Fortunately for Harry, reporter Paul Verral (Spencer Weitzel) has shown up on Harry’s fancy Washington hotel doorstep in search of an interview—and just in time for the millionaire junk king to offer him a tidy sum to put a little learning into Billie’s heretofore uneducated head.

Not surprisingly, Harry gets considerably more than he bargained for, since not only does a little education go a long way, there’s also the matter of the almost instantaneous attraction between this Henry Higgins for hire and his bottle-blonde Eliza Doolittle. Add romance to erudition and you’ve got a potent combination that an unsuspecting Harry will soon live to regret.

 Born Yesterday may be sixty-seven years old and its brassy heroine very much a product of her time, but as anyone following today’s political scene can tell you, there are just as many deals being made in 2013 Washington as in the mid 1940s, making Kanin’s play a still relevant period piece, and one that hasn’t lost an iota of its ability to entertain.

It helps of course when Born Yesterday is helmed by a director who understands both era and genre, and Kevin Slay is just such a director, eliciting pitch-perfect performances from his three leads and surrounding them with a first-rate supporting cast.

Hampton is so darned terrific as Billie that it’s hard to believe it’s the musical theater triple-threat’s first play. Clearly, Hampton is every bit as fast a study as Billie, and she scores laugh after laugh with her Jean Harlow voice and a walk that our heroine seems to have been picked up from watching too many high society dames on screen and not quite getting how they do it. If ever there were a character we embrace from first entrance, it’s Hampton’s Billie, and as Billie falls in love with her own newly-educated self, so at the same time do we.

 As Harry to Hampton’s Billie, Siegel has clearly done his Golden Era Hollywood homework, creating a classic movie tough guy in the grand tradition of James Cagney, Edward G.Robinson, Ernest Borgnine, and Broderick Crawford (who created the role of Harry on the silver screen) and giving us a Harry Brock we can’t help liking even as we recoil from his total lack of couth.

As for Billie’s partner in romance (and payback), it’s hard to imagine a better Paul than Weitzel, whose acting chops, stage presence, charisma, and charm make him just the man to win not only a bleach blonde’s heart, but the audience’s as well. Add to that the palpable romantic chemistry between Hampton’s Billie and Weitzel’s Paul and you’ve got a couple you can’t help rooting for.

Supporting performances are uniformly tiptop, and befitting the style of the era—Rob Foley as Harry’s lawyer Ed, who’s sacrificed his principles for a $100,000-a-year salary (that’s over a million dollars today) and drowns his disappointments in glass after glass of Scotch; David Masters as weasely Senator Hedges; Karen Lancaster as the Senator’s very 1940s wife; and Michael Buczynski as Harry’s wheel-greasing brother Eddie.

Sean Fesler (Barber) and Peter Varvel (Assistant Manager) make the amusing most of their cameos, with Jennifer Rubino (Helen), Jeremy Loechner (Bootblack), Bryant Watson (Bellhop), Anthony Nuno (Waiter), and Marshon Rayford (Another Bellhop) completing the first-rate cast.

Scheduling Born Yesterday to coincide with the run of Candlelight’s mainstage offering The Sound Of Music proves inspired, as the exterior of the Trapp Family villa now becomes the most over-the-top opulent “Garden Suite” any Harry and Billie could hope to call their Washington home away from home. Lighting, period costumes, and sound design add to the thoroughly professional quality of IVRT’s season opener.

Hope Kaufman is Born Yesterday’s assistant director.  IVRT is headed by Frank Minano (producing artistic director), Donna Marie Minano (executive director), and Terre Gunkel (artistic director).

Born Yesterday may be the product of a bygone era when all plays had three acts and as many walk-on characters as an author desired, damn the expense, but it remains every bit the crowd-pleaser it was in 1946 nearly seven decades later. In some ways, you might even think Born Yesterday was Written Yesterday—or at least that’s how it feels with Slay, Hampton, Siegel, and Weitzel in charge.

Candlelight Pavilion, 455 W Foothill Blvd., Claremont.
www.ivrt.org

–Steven Stanley
February 20, 2013
Photos: Isaac James Creative

 Yes, there are moments in The Sound Of Music that still prove more than a tad sugary to theater sophisticates. Yes, even a trio of singing nuns can still at times seem about three nuns too many. And yes, historical purists still have every right to carp about the show’s factual inaccuracies. (How’s this for fudging with geography? An escape over Maria’s beloved mountains would have taken her and the von Trapp Family Singers smack dab into Nazi Germany and not into Switzerland, 200 miles away!)

Still, when you’ve got a Maria who can steal your heart from her first entrance as Sarah Elizabeth Combs does on the Candlelight stage, the above gripes seem minor indeed.

Combs had only recently scored an Ovation Award nomination for her stellar performance as Johanna in Musical Theater West’s Sweeney Todd when the Las Vegas production of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom Of The Opera came a-calling. Now, two and a half years later, The Sound Of Music marks Combs triumphant return to our Southern California stages under the experienced direction of Douglas Austin.

 Not only is Combs as lovely to look at as her angelic soprano is to the ears, she imbues the role of Maria with warmth and spunk and heart. You may enter the theater with a certain Julie in your mind, but it’s Combs’ charming, effervescent, enchanting Maria that you will carry out of the theater with you.

 John LaLonde plays Georg von Trap, and a fine Captain he is, a tall, dark, and handsome “older man” likely to turn any vocation-doubting novice’s head, and as splendid as singer as they come, the romantic chemistry between Combs and LaLonde proving icing on the cake. (As a side note, LaLonde once played Papa to Combs’ Luisa on the very same stage.)

As for the von Trapp children, Courtney Cheatham, Katie Ochoa, Ross DeLong, Brennley Brown, Nathan Lightfoot, Jenna Heskin, and Sequoia Valverde perform with professionalism, harmonize to perfection, and act with infectious zest.

Cheatham in particular makes for a charming Leisl opposite the teen-idol handsome Zack Crocker as her romantic interest Rolf, the duo not only lending their lovely vocals to “Sixteen Going On Seventeen,” but executing choreographer Ann Myers’ lively, imaginative dance steps with vitality and verve.

 Kim Blake brings years of musical theater and opera experience to the role of the Mother Abbess, concluding Act One with a stirring “Climb Every Mountain.” Alongside Blake, Jody Orrison (Sister Sophia), Valerie Jasso (Sister Berthe), and Kate Lee (Sister Margaretta) join voices (and opposing viewpoints) in a futile but very funny attempt to “solve a problem like Maria” in song.

The role of Captain von Trapp’s would-be fiancée Elsa benefits from Dimyana Pelev’s glorious soprano, while Frank Minano plays Trapp family friend Max Detweiler with ebullience and flair. The duo’s “How Can Love Survive?” was cut from the movie but here provides a welcome dose of tartness amidst the sweetness around them. (Sadly, Elsa and Max’s second R&H song, “No Way To Stop It,” ends up on the cutting room floor this time round.)

The Sound Of Music’s other musical numbers, including its title song, “Edelweiss”, “My Favorite Things”, and “Do-Re-Mi,” will surely ring audience bells, as will “I Have Confidence” and “Something Good,” written for the movie adaptation, all of the above sung to perfection by Combs, LaLonde, and the von Trapp children.

Cameo roles are ably handled by Steven Biggs (Franz, the butler), Jasso (Frau Schmidt), Lee (Baroness Elberfeld), Robert Meyer (Baron Elberfeld and Admiral Schreiber), John Nisbet (Herr Zeller), Ochoa (Sister Bernice), and Orrison (Frau Zeller).

 In addition to the abovementioned “Sixteen Going On Seventeen,” choreographer Myers finds ingenious ways to integrate movement and dance into The Sound Of Music, in particular a charming Austrian dance which allows Combs and LaLonde to show off their dancing feet.

Doubling as musical director, Austin elicits all-around excellent vocal work from his cast. Acting-wise, some performances could benefit from greater attention to creating real, three-dimensional characters. Having numerous cast members in dual roles generally works quite well. Less successful is the cutting down of the usually exquisite “Preludium” to a handful of female voices. Orchestral accompaniment is prerecorded, but sounds almost live thanks to Candlelight’s excellent sound system. Voices and instruments were expertly mixed without mike problems at the performance reviewed.

Period Austrian costumes by Theatre Company look great, as do Cliff and Kat Senior’s wigs. A beautifully rendered von Trapp villa terrace represents the best of SteveGDesign, a set that looks particularly spiffy as lit for the Act Two party scene by lighting designer Steve Giltner. Non-terrace scenes, however, are mostly played in front of painted scrims, giving sequences set on an Alpine mountainside, in Maria’s bedroom, or at the abbey a cheap, bus-and-truck look.

Alternating as the youngest five von Trapp children are Matthew Funke, Haven Watts, Wyatt Larrabee, Brooklyn Vizcarra, and Alison Broabard, who appear in production stills but whose work is not reviewed here. Brittany Webb is their studio teacher.

Scheduling The Sound Of Music between the more adult oriented I Left My Heart: A Salute To The Music Of Tony Bennett and the upcoming Sweet Charity and The Full Monty is a savvy programming decision by General Manager Michael Bollinger, carrying on the Bollinger family tradition at Candlelight Dinner Theatre. That it entertains audiences of all ages is icing on the cake.

Candlelight Pavilion, 455 W. Foothill Blvd., Claremont.
www.candlelightpavilion.com

–Steven Stanley
February 10, 2013
Photos: Isaac James Creative

Though ovie fans will surely recall Urhy’s comedy-drama from its 1989 film adaptation starring Jessica Tandy and Morgan Freeman, one which won Miss Tandy the Oscar at the age of 80, “Miss Daisy” made her very first appearance in a tiny off-Broadway theater in 1987, with Dana Ivey and Freeman creating the roles of Miss Daisy and her chauffeur Hoke.

 Under Christian Lebano’s perceptive, nuanced direction, veteran Broadway star Mary Lou Rosato now brings the irascible “Miss” Daisy Werthan to quirky, three-dimensional life in a production sure to back fond memories of the film’s most unforgettable scenes: the fender-bender that brought Hoke into Miss Daisy’s household, Miss Daisy’s initial stubborn insistence on going to the Piggly Wiggly by trolley, her discovery that Hoke has filched a can of salmon from her pantry, Hoke’s refusal to join Miss Daisy at the Martin Luther King dinner because her invitation came too late, and more.

As Miss Daisy, Rosato breathes feisty new life into the crotchety old lady you love to hate, or hate to admit that you love. When she crashes her car, she blames it on the vehicle, and when her son gently insists that she herself is at fault, she lashes out, “You’re just saying this to be hateful!” Anyone who’s cursed out a senior citizen driving considerably under the speed limit will chuckle at Miss Daisy’s axiom, “The slower you go, the more you save on gas.” And any driver who’s ever been blamed for getting lost by the map-reader in the back seat will empathize with Hoke when Miss Daisy keeps giving him wrong directions and the two keep getting more and more lost.

 Making the February 1st performance a particular treat was Mitch Ward in the first of three scheduled appearances* as Hoke, and if Ward hasn’t had the benefit of Willie C. Carpenter’s weeks of intensive rehearsal, you’d never know it by his work on the Sierra Madre stage, as touching, as powerful, and as multi-layered a Hoke as one could possibly wish for.

Ward gives us every iota of Hoke’s insight, intelligence, and wit, as when, referring ironically to some stingy Baptists he’s met, “Them’s the people who’s callin’ Jews cheap.” Or when, a propos Miss Daisy’s grudging agreement to let him chauffeur her around, Hoke declares, “Only took six days. Same time it took the Lord to make the world.” Or when he tells his boss a plain and simple, “Miss Daisy, you needs a chauffeur and Lord knows I needs a job. Let’s just leave it at that.” Hoke is a man who has spent little time in school but has learned much about life, people, and self worth.

Uhry, Lebano, Rosato and Ward take us through twenty-five years of Miss Daisy’s and Hoke’s lives, she from age 72 to 97, he from 60 to 85, and the older the two characters get, the richer Uhry’s writing, Lebano’s direction, and Rosato and Ward’s performances become.

 Driving Miss Daisy the movie featured a large cast which included Boolie’s wife Florine, Miss Daisy’s longtime cook Idela, and others who are only referred to in Uhry’s play. Miss Daisy’s long-suffering son is very much present in the stage version, however, and portrayed here by Brad David Reed, absolutely marvelous whether reacting to yet another of his mother’s quirky behaviors or conducting business with Hoke in a way that defies geographic or racial stereotypes.

It’s hard to imagine a more artistically pleasing scenic design than Gary Wissmann’s, which suggests Miss Daisy’s succession of cars and lets our imagination (aided by Rosato’s and Ward’s finely delineated miming) do the rest. (A final transformation of the car into an entirely different locale is particularly inspired.) Pieces of Miss Daisy’s living room and Boolie’s office move in and out from the wings, all of the above in front of a full moon cut-out that dominates the black upstage wall.

Sammy Ross’s lighting, Kristen Kopp’s lighting, Barry Schwam’s sound design, Cristina Waltz’s wig and makeup design, and most especially Jonathan Beard’s exquisite original music complete a topnotch design package, and one that looks and sounds great on that rarity, an honest-to-goodness proscenium arch stage in a 99-seat house.

In fact, the only irritant at the performance reviewed was the audience’s assumption that every single scene in a play, no matter how short, must be followed by applause, and since there are literally dozens of scenes in Driving Miss Daisy, it soon got to be too much.

Deborah Ross Sullivan is dialect coach, Don Bergmann technical director, Kristin Weber production stage manager, and Andrew Espinosa assistant stage manager.

Spanning a quarter century of 20th Century history, Driving Miss Daisy (like last year’s smash hit movie The Help) puts a human face on the African-American Civil Rights Movement. In the hands of those bringing it to life onstage in Sierra Madre, it not only does that, and superbly so, it warms the heart and touches the soul as well.

*Ward returns as Hoke on February 9 and 17

Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd., Sierra Madre.
www.sierramadreplayhouse.org

–Steven Stanley
February 1, 2013
Production stills: Maia Madison