Latest news with #TheDrowsyChaperone
Yahoo
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
SCAD presents 'The Drowsy Chaperone'
SAVANNAH, Ga. (WSAV) — Get ready to laugh, sing, and tap your feet as the Savannah College of Art and Design's (SCAD) School of Film and Acting presents The Drowsy Chaperone, a musical-within-a-musical that brings the glitz and glamour of 1920s Broadway to life. The show runs from May 22 through 25 at Savannah's historic Lucas Theatre for the Arts. Get your tickets here. This Tony Award-winning comedy follows a lonely theater enthusiast—known only as 'Man in Chair'—who escapes into the world of his favorite forgotten musical. As he plays the original cast recording, the show bursts into life in his apartment, complete with mistaken identities, tap-dancing groomsmen, and a delightfully tipsy chaperone. The production brings together the work of more than 60 students across top-ranked degree programs including acting, production design, costume design, lighting design, music and sound design. 'This show has everything for everyone of all ages,' said director and SCAD acting director Christian Delcroix. 'There's comedy, entertainment, lots of surprise elements, and one show-stopping song and dance number after another. These student actors are incredibly talented and they will blow audiences away with their spectacular performances.' Delcroix performed on Broadway for over a decade before coming to teach at SCAD, appearing in shows like South Pacific, Follies, and The Book of Mormon. He is joined by other Broadway veterans who are mentoring The Drowsy Chaperon student cast. The musical is choreographed by Broadway actress/SCAD acting professor Margot de La Barre, and music directed by Broadway music director Jasper Grant. Originally written by Bob 'This is SCAD's latest act of bringing Broadway to Broughton Street!' said Andra Reeve-Rabb, the dean of the School of Film and Acting. 'With our team of creatives made up of talented students and Broadway veterans, we are thrilled to bring this musical favorite to the historic Lucas Theatre.' See SCAD's production of The Drowsy Chaperone through May 25. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
New York Times
08-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Boop! The Musical' Review: Betty Gets a Brand Extension
Some shows are 'what?' shows, leaving you baffled. Perhaps they involve roller-skating trains or shrouds of Turin. Others are 'how?' shows, as in: Dear God, how did that happen? But the most disappointing subgenre of musical, at least in terms of opportunity cost, is the 'why?' show: a well-crafted, charmingly performed, highly professional production that nobody asked for. Its intentions are foggy and sometimes suspicious. 'Boop! The Musical' — now playing at the Broadhurst Theater, in a production directed and choreographed by Jerry Mitchell — is a 'why?' show par excellence. And excellence it has. As Betty, the flapper of early talkie cartoons, Jasmine Amy Rogers is immensely likable. She sings fabulously, sports a credible perma-smile, nails all the Boop mannerisms and has a fetching way with a tossed-off line. I can't imagine anyone making more of the exhausting opportunity, let alone in a Broadway debut. She is ably supported by other young talent in featured roles, luxury-cast veterans doing their damnedest and a hard-working ensemble selling Mitchell's insistent, imaginative, precision-drilled dances. When his pinwheel kick-lines hop in unison, not one foot among 26 is left on the floor. Or make that 27, because Pudgy, Betty's pug, a marionette with a lolling pink tongue operated by the puppeteer Phillip Huber, sometimes shakes a leg too. And wait, there's more: David Foster's music, in a jazzy brass-and-reeds Cy Coleman vein, pops nicely; the lyrics, by Susan Birkenhead, are far better crafted than you dare hope these days. To the extent it is possible to enjoy the story's themes — the power of music, the way color comes into your life when you love — it is often because she encapsulates them so amusingly. I laughed out loud at her show-off rhyme of 'It girls' and 'spit curls.' But none of that explains or justifies the show's existence. Nor, despite enormous effort, can the book by Bob Martin. In building a case for a vintage piece of intellectual property — Betty was born as a half-dog in 1930 — Martin winds up replicating the kind of musical he roasted in 'The Drowsy Chaperone' (1998) and the delusional creatives he pierced in 'The Prom' (2016). That show's imaginary 'Eleanor! The Eleanor Roosevelt Musical,' is no less ludicrous than the real-life 'Boop! The Musical.' Granted, Broadway history has proved that ludicrousness is not in itself a deterrent to enjoyment. But laboriousness is, and it's only with the groaning of heavy machinery underneath it that 'Boop!' approaches the semblance of a lighthearted surface. The premise, though silly, is the least of it: Betty, a quasi-human cartoon in a black-and-white world, stars in animated Fleischer Studios shorts. (Max Fleischer created the character; the studio named for him made the movies.) Though reporters fawn over her as 'a singer, a dancer, an actress, a star beloved by millions,' she doesn't know who she really is. Yes, the musical rests on the identity crisis of a smudge of inked celluloid. A time-travel machine created by Grampy (Stephen DeRosa) provides the way out of the crisis, dumping Betty in current-day New York City. At the Javits Center during Comic Con, she adapts perhaps faster than we do to the bizarrely dressed and garishly colorful Oz-like new world. (Costumes by Gregg Barnes, lighting by Philip S. Rosenberg.) Also as in Oz, Betty acquires three companions: Trisha (Angelica Hale), a young Boop fanatic she meets at the convention; Dwayne (Ainsley Melham), a jazz musician who is maybe Trisha's cousin, but it's not very clear; and Carol (Anastacia McCleskey), a campaign manager who is maybe Dwayne's mother and definitely Trisha's guardian. Because wouldn't you know it, Trisha, like yet another piece of ancient IP, is an orphan. And then there's Valentina, an astrophysicist who, 40 years earlier, hooked up with Grampy when he visited the real world. The best thing to say about her is that she's played by Faith Prince, looking game, if understandably confused. In any case, Grampy and Valentina reunite when he returns to the real world to reclaim Betty, without whom the black-and-white world at home is fading. But will she go back with him, now that, with the help of her new friends, she is involved in a mayoral election, a sanitation scandal and a feminist quest to take charge of her identity? I wish the show had taken charge of its identity too. Instead, one feels at all times the heavy hooves of a marketing imperative. The brand discipline is punishing; in David Rockwell's scenic design, even the proscenium has spit curls. And poor Trisha, hasn't she lived through enough without being turned into a brand ambassador? 'Betty Boop has been famous everywhere for like a hundred years!' she says, as one does. 'Betty Boop is strong and smart and confident and capable.' She even gets a song, called 'Portrait of Betty,' that hymns Boop's praises as if she were, well, Eleanor Roosevelt: 'She is not afraid to fight / For all the people who cannot defend themselves.' In short, as a typically well turned Birkenhead lyric puts it: 'She has spunk, she has spine, she's a saint, bottom line.' And there it is. The bottom line. Betty Boop, if not the earliest cartoons she appears in, is still under copyright protection. No doubt the Fleischer heirs, with one eye on 'Barbie,' would like to exploit their biggest star before she goes bust. Fair enough; who wouldn't? But a merch grab — in the lobby a plushie Pudgy goes for $35 — is not the same as a musical. The answer to 'why?' should not come from mere marketeers.
CBS News
28-02-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Displaced Artisan Theater performers find new home at the Stand Performing Arts Ministry
EDITOR'S NOTE: CBS News Texas first brought you the story last year of a group of community theater actors, directors, and designers without a place to perform. The iconic Artisan Theater had its final curtain call after more than two decades in musical theater. Now, the performers are finding their second act. NORTH TEXAS – The stage of the Artisan Theater in Hurst went dark in August. A financial dispute with the landlord caused the community theater to close its doors, which left actors like 17-year-old Riley Hilsinger without a place to perform. "I was devastated," Hilsinger said. "Artisan has been my home for years, and whenever I found out it was closing, I didn't know what to do." "It was definitely a huge gut punch for the community, especially the youth," 18-year-old Dominic Norris said. The door closed for teachers and performers at the Artisan Theater, but it opened at the Stand Performing Arts Ministry, where displaced artists found a new home. That includes artistic director Renee Norris. "One of the things we were able to do at Stand was expand the number of shows we were doing so that we can accommodate for more directors, more music directors, and more designers," Renee said. About a dozen people who lost their jobs at the Artisan Theater are now bringing plays to life at the Stand in Keller. "We have nearly 12 mainstage shows, we have children's shows, we have special events, and we will be the first community theater in Keller," Renee said. A group of kids ages 13 to 18 recently traveled to California for the Junior Theater Festival. They're appreciative to continue performing and see the reflection of their future aspirations. "It's a crazy thing to think about because then I would end up losing my creative outlet, and I wouldn't be able to see all of the people I love so much anymore," Hilsinger said. "I'd love to do Broadway one day, if that's possible, but I just find so much joy and fulfillment working in community theater," Dominic said. The group of performers and directors from the Artisan expect to open their own space in June and are thankful for their temporary home at the Stand to continue creating the artform they love so much. You can watch their performance of "The Drowsy Chaperone, Jr." at the Stand beginning April 21.
