Into the Woods - UMD Theatre

Be Careful What You Wish for in UMD’S Into the Woods

Sheryl Jensen

Duluth New Tribune

April 13, 2018

“The cow as white as milk, the cape as red as blood, the hair as yellow as corn, the slipper as pure as gold.”  With these reverberating words, a childless baker and his wife set off on a frenetic treasure hunt in UMD’s production of the musical Into the Woods.  The other characters, taken from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, are each following their heart’s desire into the dark recesses of the forest.

Composer Stephen Sondheim is notoriously challenging to sing.  UMD’s 20 cast members have varying degrees of success with the nuances of his songs and with the layers of wit and double entendre of James Lapine’s book.

The evening’s musical highlight is “No More,” with the Baker (Zach Churchill) and the Mysterious Man (Brendan Finn).  Churchill and Finn blend beautifully, and Churchill’s solo work is stunning.

The accusatory song “Your Fault” is filled with lyric and musical landmines.  The Baker (Churchill), Jack (Jake Nelson), Little Red (Rachel Williams) and Cinderella (Amelia Barr) make this intricate musical blame-game seem effortless.

“No One is Alone,” with the same quartet, is a gorgeous musical statement of the play’s ultimate theme of both caution and caring, about growing up but still needing support from each other to depend on in times of trouble.

As the Witch, Amada Hennen struggles to project her lines and music in Act I where her large prosthetic nose and chin muffle her to such a degree that she is difficult to hear and understand.  When she hits her stride is in Act II and has transformed into the beautiful witch, we can hear the power, resonance and beauty of her voice in “Last Midnight” and “Children Will Listen.”

Rachel Williams is on point as Little Red with the right mix of adorable little girl and cute  bloodthirsty avenger.  Cinderella’s Prince (Reese Britts) and Rapunzel’s Prince (Ole Dack) are the comic standouts of the evening with their hysterical “Agony,” played with royal arrogance and preposterous swagger.  With the dark tone of the show, humor is needed.  These three provide the comic relief that is, at times, missed elsewhere.

Brandin Stagg’s colorful and inventive costumes and Mags Scanlon’s evocative lighting design help to create the fairytale world.  Curtis Phillips’ set features two large stacks of aged fairy tale books that work well as multi-leveled acting spaces.  Less successful is the set’s monochromatic brown (with nary a green leaf or vine is sight) and the towers that look like an Arizona landscape with stacked rocks.

While music director Andy Kust’s eight-piece orchestra is a little thin at times on what is a lush score written for twice that many, they do provide a solid underscore to feature the singers.

UMD’s production, with even-handed direction from Ann Bergeron, is successful on many levels in creating the lighter fairy tale world in Act I and the much darker vision in Act II where not everyone does get to live “happily ever after.”

  Yet even that dark ending is tempered with the final words “I wish,” echoed from early in the show, that they each can somehow achieve their dreams.

These Shining Lives - UMD Theatre

Performances Glow in UMD's These Shining Lives
Sheryl Jensen
Duluth News Tribune
March 2, 2018

"This isn't a fairy tale, though it starts like one.  This isn't a tragedy, though it ends like one."

Setting the framework for Melanie Marnich's lyrical script, These Shining Lives, the play's central character, Catherine Donahue (Sarah Dickson), warns us early on about the fateful journey we are about to go on with her.

Set in the 1920s and '30s outside Chicago, the play is based on the true story of women who worked at the Radium Dial Company, painting the glowing numbers on watches and clocks.

The lethal effects of exposure to the radium-based paint became even more direct since the women would moisten the tip of their paint brushes in their mouths and then dip them in the radium, repeating for every number.

After years of exposure, the women got increasingly sick as they moved slowly toward their excruciatingly painful deaths.  Denying the effects of the radium, the cold-hearted company fired the women when they were too sick to work any longer.

Sarah Dickson brings a nobility, elegance and luminosity to Donahue, who was one of the real-life "Radium Girls."  Donahue's courage and tenacity in fighting against the company helped pave the way for worker protections.

Lovely character work is also performed by the actresses playing Donahue's friends at the factory: Charlotte Purcell (Grace Kelly Smith), Frances O'Connell (Andrea Leonard) and Pearl Payne (Tolu Eskisola).

Each of the women has chances to shine as they show first their humor and camaraderie, and eventually their horror over what is happening to them.  Charlotte laments, "They did this, and they knew it!  They threw us away for a few watches!  That's what we're worth!"

Addison Sim has a sweet turn as Tom, Catherine's husband.  Mitchell Dallman is convincing as Rufus Reed, the smarmy company foreman who keeps silent, even as he knows too well what is happening to his workers.

Ellen Monzo's elegant costumes are spot on, both to evoke the time period and also to establish the characters' personalities.

Projections are used effectively on several panels to give a sense of time, place and mood through stills, film, abstract stars and constellations.  Newspaper clippings from the period also add power and veracity to the play's themes.

Performed without intermission, the scenes flow one into another with minimal changes in between.  Director William Payne decided to add period music sung by the cast as a chorus for pre-show music, as underscore for some scenes, and during shifts.

While the singing adds to the period flavor, at times it slows the pace.  Sometimes two or three verses are used where one might do.  The music is haunting but there are occasional pitch problems with harmonies.

The strongest of the vocal pieces is the stirring "Bread and Roses," an anthem that came out of the early women's trade union movement.

While this could just be a play about dying, the women's transcendent spirit to support each other, and to worry about those who followed them, keeps the torch of that anthem aflame.

Charlotte's Web - UMD Theatre

“Some Pig” Charms in UMD's Charlotte's Web

Sheryl Jensen

Duluth News Tribune

February 2, 2018 

Author E.B. White once wrote, "Although my stories are imaginary, I like to think that there is some truth in them, too — truth about the way people and animals feel and think and act."

In the University of Minnesota Duluth's magical and charming play adaptation (by Joseph Robinette) of White's Charlotte's Web, that truth shone through to the delighted opening night audience of children and adults Thursday.

White's beloved tale has been a favorite with readers since it was first published in 1952. It tells the life story of Wilbur, a rambunctious piglet, and his dear friends, Fern, the little girl who rescues him from the "chopping block," and Charlotte, the spider who makes him an unlikely superstar.

Recreating the world of White's classic, director Tom Isbell, the cast and production team also bring home the themes of valued friendships and heartbreaking separations.

Luke Harger captured all of "the runt of the litter" pig Wilbur's innocence and playfulness, with his leaping, cavorting and sliding around the stage. Amelia Barr's sweet, understated portrayal of Charlotte was a lovely contrast as she showed the spider to be the unlikely heroine of the show and, as Wilbur describes her, "a great friend and a great writer."

Many of the supporting cast play multiple roles. Ensemble standouts include Alyson Enderle and Brendan Finn as the frenzied Goose and Gander, Cally Stanich as the pessimistic sheep, and Ryan Richardson playing the snarky self-centered rat.

Curt Phillips's whimsical barnyard set, lit beautifully by Mark Harvey, provides just the right mix of a realistic farm ambiance with the "magic" of Charlotte's mammoth web as the central focus.

While Leah Benson-Devine's delightful animal costumes don't aim for realism, her selective choices for tails, ears, colors and fabrics are adorable representations of each barnyard creature.

Composer and musician Blake Thomas provided a subtle but effective underscore to the proceedings on guitar and banjo.

Charlotte's Web is one of those stories that appeals to children on one level and another to adults who get the subtler elements of comedy and pathos. This simple tale of friendship and salvation was well told in ways that touched the heart and elicited laughter and joy.

Noises Off - UMD Theatre

All About the Sardines in UMD's Hilarious Noises Off

Sheryl Jensen

Duluth News Tribune

November 3, 2017

In Michael Frayn's farce Noises Off, the play within a play is aptly named Nothing On. Lloyd, the hapless director, just wants to get through the play once before they open the next evening. In a rehearsal where nothing goes right, props are lost, and a drunken actor is missing, he searches for some words of wisdom for his mostly clueless cast.

He tells them that all they need to know is "Getting the sardines on, getting the sardines off. That's farce. That's theater. That's life."

Indeed, UMD Theatre's rollicking production is filled with the running gag of countless plates of sardines that are invariably in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The show depicts a company of third rate actors performing in a tour of a naughty British sex farce. The action is set in a beautiful country manor, brilliantly designed by UMD student Joe Johnson.

Johnson had to not only have the set look gorgeous, he also had to design it to turn completely around for the second act when we see the shenanigans happening backstage, and then have it turn back again to the interior of the manor for the third act.

Do stay in the theater to watch one of the two intermissions. It's theatrical magic "exposed" as part of the evening's fun.

While the pacing is slow in act one, it is necessary to set up the exposition for acts two and three when the wheels really come off the comic wagon and pandemonium reigns supreme onstage and off.

Playing dual and sometimes triple roles, the actors have an acting mountain to climb. Add to that the physical challenges of the show, and the cast is really put to the test. UMD brought in professional stunt coordinator and UMD alumni, Mathias Anderson, to help the company successfully nail the physical "schtick."

Reese Britts (Frederick) channels Dick Van Dyke in his prime, all rubbery legged and loose limbed. Britts' falls, fainting spells and hilarious tackling of a big staircase with his pants around his ankles jumping two steps at a time, are some of the evening's best comic moments.

Amelia Barr, as his onstage wife, Belinda, is all stiff upper lip and British reserve, the lady of the manor. Barr delivers a mature and elegant performance, with every facial expression, comedic physicality and line delivery top notch.

Less convincing is Haley Methner who underplays the sexy blonde bombshell role. Sarah Dickson as the housekeeper Dotty, keeper of the sardines, starts off slowly, but builds to a wonderfully comic and physical peak in the insane goings on of the third act.

Theater folks who have done shows that have bordered on the unintentionally chaotic both onstage and off will commiserate with the beleaguered cast and crew. And the uninitiated who may wonder what life backstage looks like, get a behind-the-curtain view.

Director Kate Ufema and her talented troupe successfully mine the comic potential in the script, providing audiences with a hot farce on a cold early winter night.

[title of show] - Stage 2

Antigone - UMD Theatre

Honorable Heroine Battles Narcissistic Tyrant in UMD's Antigone

Sheryl Jensen

Duluth News Tribune 

September 29, 2017 

Oh, those clever ancient Greeks and their timeless wisdom...

With his profound understanding of the human condition, prescient playwright Sophocles was able to speak through the ages, "knowing" that the moral clashes between the powers of the state and the rights of the individual would still be front and center in a far-off land in the year 2017.

Directed by Jenna Soleo-Shanks, the University of Minnesota Duluth theater department's production of Antigone, hits hard with enduring images of a lone, powerful woman standing her ground with a domineering man in a power suit towering above her.

King Creon's niece Antigone (Tolu Ekisola) begs for the right to bury the body of her traitor brother. Creon (Ryan Richardson) steadfastly refuses and sentences her to death when she defiantly takes the law into her own hands and buries her brother herself.

Ekisola elegantly portrays the nobility, integrity and determination of this iconic freedom fighter. Her passionate final confrontation with Creon before going off to her death is shattering, as she says she will die "unjustly, for upholding justice and the humanity of humankind."

Richardson is convincing as the charismatic leader who refuses to believe that his rigidity will set the world around him on such a savage path. He is most powerful in the final scene when Creon laments the deaths of those closest to him and is finally brought to his knees by the devastating impact of what his tyrannical actions have wrought.

Playing the tragic Ismene, sister of the doomed Antigone, Lauren Hugh vividly portrays the crushing effect on the innocent when events roll mercilessly over her as she watches the doomed path of her beloved sister.

The supporting cast of Chorus members is strong, with a few standout performances. Amanda Hennen, as Teiresias, the blind prophet and truth teller, commands the stage entirely as she ominously warns of the Furies to come for Creon and the country when the inevitable retribution will befall them. Her lamentation, "Are there any wise men left? Anywhere?" is one of the evening's strongest thematic moments.

As the soldier who serves as a messenger, Luke Harger provides both the brief comic relief and the crushing impact of the tragic events he reports to Creon and the senators in some of the production's strongest scenes.

Leah Benson-Devine's simple set, with two opposing platforms, stylized pillars, a single chair and a few wooden blocks, gives the actors the space to let the story swirl around the audience.

Music composed by UMD senior William Brueggemann — used during the pre-show, intermission and as underscore — enhances the dark tone of scenes in subtle but effective ways.

Dan Fitzpatrick's projected film images, using powerful war and burial scenes, and Laura Piotrowski's modern dress costumes help connect the play's timeless themes with the audience.

The play's reverberating message of the real Creons still in our midst serves as a cautionary tale from commentators who can only report and warn of the inevitable tragedies to come but are powerless to change them.

UMD Theatre - Disney's The Little Mermaid

UMD's The Little Mermaid Makes a Fun Splash

Sheryl Jensen

Duluth News Tribune 

April 14, 2017 

Expectations were high from the little Ariels in the audience at the University of Minnesota Duluth's The Little Mermaid, all anticipating the magical undersea world yet to come.

At the center of the tidepool is Ariel (Amelia Barr), who must win our hearts as the film princess that we loved and as the feistier young woman she becomes in the stage version. Oh, and she needs to be drop-dead gorgeous and sing like an angel.

Bubbly Barr splashes it out of the pond on all counts.

Her nuanced performance shows that Ariel's quest is more than just going after the hot guy (although that's a given) but is also a transcendent longing for a world where she can find more.

Barr also brings a natural comic sensibility to the role. She can do a pratfall with ease, when she sheds the tail and tries to walk for the first time.

The Prince is, well . . . charming. Ryan Haff wins the heart of every woman in the place from preschoolers to great-grandmothers with his princely good looks and powerful voice. His standout solo pieces in "Her Voice" and "One Step Closer" are among the musical's highlights.

Fun character work comes in all shapes and sizes including Sebastian, the screamingly red Caribbean crab (Brendan Finn); the adorable Flounder (Brian Saice); the ditzy seagull, Scuttle (Luke Harger), and the undulating eels, Flotsam (Reese Britts) and Jetsam (Kevin Dustrude).

Kayla Peters, as Adella, one of Ariel's mersisters; and Simon VanVactor-Lee, as the maniacally funny French chef, in his show-stopping song, "Les Poissons," both have great comic turns.

The show's most powerful vocals come in the hauntingly beautiful "If Only" in which Ariel, Prince Eric, Sebastian and King Triton lament "what might have been."

Disney villainesses require a dramatically heightened nastiness, with Ursula, the Sea Witch, a prime example. While Shannon Blomgren does powerhouse belting, particularly later in the show, she is not always entirely convincing in the queen of evil department.

Audiences expecting a bigger-than-life, "fill-the-stage" presence, will find this Ursula a bit too pretty and too slight. Blomgren would have been helped by a more expansive costume and more extreme hair and makeup.

Curtis Phillips' customary over-the-top set designs are less magical for this "under the sea" undertaking. Some of the set pieces seem too small for the vast expanse of stage, such as a solitary rock for Triton's throne.

Phillips' video projections, however, create some Disney-style fantasy with bubbles and swimming fish in the seascapes and some beautiful castle interiors.

Most of the production-side dazzle comes from the delightful costumes, courtesy of the Chanhassen Dinner Theatres (Rich Hamson). The eye-popping color palette and witty designs fill the stage, creating much of the visual splash.

Matthew Wagner's choreography is fresh and whimsical, particularly in the show's signature number, "Under the Sea," and in "Positoovity" with its hilarious tap dancing seagulls.

Director Kate Ufema keeps her school of characters in synchronicity for a magical evening, both for the pint-sized Ariels and for the adults along for the swim.