Shaw Festival production of Gypsy well worth the wait

 Once upon a time our celebrated Shaw Festival in Niagara-on-the-Lake decided to headline their new season with the powerhouse musical Gypsy, with the equally powerful Shaw veteran Kate Hennig in the lead role.  Then the pandemic happened.  And continued...and continued...

So finally this year, the show is on and it has proven to be well worth the extended wait.  

I still have vivid memories of the last Shaw production of Gypsy back in 2005 with Nora McLellan in the lead role, and oddly enough Kate acted as occasional fill-in for that production.  Nora was magnificent then; Kate is equally magnificent now.

It's a very tough role and takes a huge, larger-than-life stage presence a lot of stage actors simply do not possess.  But with Kate you have someone who explores the driven mind of the ultimate "theatre mum", pushing first her youngest daughter June into the spotlight on the fast fading vaudeville circuit and when she bolts, pushing even harder to get her daughter Louise to not only fill that role but run with it.

For Louise it is not an easy transformation, as she is the shy, more reticent of the two daughters, very much aware the younger June steals the limelight and as a result, much of her mother's attention.  But in the second act when this transformation occurs, we see Louise change from that shy, reserved girl into a seductive, very sexy burlesque performer clearly revelling in the ability to get noticed.

But for Mama Rose, she still can't rise above the poverty level it seems and finally, via either daughter, be a showbiz success.  Set in the dirty 30s when rubbing two cents together might be the highlight of one's day, Mama Rose struggles to keep things going and remain positive.  That being said, throughout the show we see an impressive array of costumes for both daughters and their retinue and you have to wonder how in the world she could afford to get all that fabric and get the outfits made for them all.

Ah, the lure of musical theatre...sorry I forgot to check my reality at the door...

While not perfect, this production of Gypsy, directed by Jay Turvey, hits all the right notes.  He allows all the characters to grow as much as the musical and Rose will allow.  There is depth to most every role save for one of the pivotal ones...that of Rose's long-suffering manager and husband-in-waiting, Herbie.  Jason Cadieux does an admirable job with the role, presenting a Herbie full of gentlemanly qualities.  Still, one wonders how the role could have been beefed up somewhat to counteract the bombastic nature of Rose.

Perhaps it's just me, but Herbie, what do you see in this woman anyways?!  Ah love...

Without exception the cast is uniformly strong, leading of course with Hennig in the demanding role of Mama Rose.  Cadieux is likeable, as is Drew Plummer in the lesser role of Tulsa.  Baby Jane and adult Jane, played respectively by Ariana Abudaqa and Madelyn Kriese are well suited to their roles and provide just that right amount of nauseating positivity needed to keep the "show" Mama Rose has crafted for them on the rails.

But the second act belongs to Julie Lumsden as daughter Louise, pushed into the role vacated by sister June.  Her charisma grows, she learns how to tease and titillate the patrons without getting carried away, and develops the confidence needed to cope with an overbearing stage mom.

But with all that success, what becomes of  Mama Rose?  The answer comes late in the second act when Hennig gives us a tour-de-force performance of Rose's Turn.

That's just one of the fine musical numbers crafted by June Style and the young, up-and-coming Stephen Sondheim.  It is full of endlessly optimistic numbers everyone knows almost by heart now, including Let Me Entertain You, Small World, All I Need is the Girl and of course, Everything's Coming Up Roses.

Oh and special mention must go to the gravelly-voiced Jenni Burke as the large-and-in-charge burlesque performer Mazeppa, singing You Gotta Get a Gimmick.  What a treat!

The orchestra under the direction of Paul Sportelli is in fine form and the choreography by Genny Sermonia is inventive and fun.  The sets are sparse but what's there is just right, and as mentioned earlier the costumes by Cory Sincennes are just wonderful.

There's lots to like in this production of Gypsy, and yes, it was indeed worth the long wait.  It rates a strong three out of four stars and runs at the Festival Theatre until October 7th.

Call the Shaw box office or go online to Shawfest.com to book your tickets.

Have a great day!

June 26th, 2023.

Looking for some musical inspiration this weekend?

 The wondrous thing about this time of year is you have music all around you wherever you go, thanks to the birds from morning to night.  Some may not like it, but I love it, especially as I am an early riser.  But having worked the night shift for many years I do commiserate with those trying to sleep during the day, especially at this time of year.

That being said, if the birds are inspiring you to find some music elsewhere this weekend and you don't mind being indoors for a couple of hours on a beautiful spring day, The Gallery Players of Niagara have just the ticket tomorrow afternoon.

The Players present the Odin Quartet in a performance of string quartet music composed over the last 225 years.  The group promises to cover a lot of ground from Schumann to Schickele, Dvorak to Price in what they call an Odin-Edition anthology bridging that very long period of time.  Personally, I think the price of admission would be worth hearing the music of Schickele, which is certainly wanting these days in recital halls.

The Odin Quartet is made up of Alex Toskoy, violin; Tanya Charles Iveniuk, violin; Matt Antal, viola; Samuel Bisson, cello, and Alexander Panizza at the piano.  Okay, the piano is a special addition at this concert of largely string quartet music, but what a nice addition he is!

The spring concert season largely comes to a close with this concert, and indeed this will bring The Gallery Players' entire season to a close.  They will be announcing the new season for 2023/24 come August.

The concert featuring the Odin Quartet along with pianist Alexander Panizza takes place tomorrow afternoon, May 28th at 3 pm at St. Catharines Mennonite Church at 335 Linwell Road, where I have attended many a concert over the years and in fact during my mail carrier days at Canada Post I delivered that particular route quite often.

For tickets, go to the Gallery Players website or pick them up at the door.

With the start of June we really get into the summer music festival season announcements, so I will offer some of those as the month progresses, as well as some of the summer theatre performances I attend this season at both the Shaw and Stratford Festivals.

But for now, out to chase some sunshine...

Have a great weekend!

May 27th, 2023.

Looking for an early Mother's Day surprise?

 It's Mother's Day weekend and that means lots to see and do in Niagara, including of course hitting up your local market for some home-grown goodness as I did this morning, and of course, flowers!  Either bunches for sale or head out with Mom to the Niagara floral displays along the Niagara Parkway this weekend.

It's the traditional weekend for the Pelham Art Festival too, which draws fans - and Moms - from far and near and has been for years.  If you are planning to head down to the Pelham Art Festival today there is another, musical, reason to go.

I received word the A Capella Niagara spring concert is happening this afternoon at 2 pm at Fonthill United Church at 42 Church Street in the heart of Fonthill, and it promises to be a great outing for you and Mom.

A Capella Niagara is a male chorus singing a wide range of repertoire, all unaccompanied, throughout the Niagara Region.  The spring concert is called "It's a Good Day for Singing a Song!" and indeed it is.  And joining the chorus this afternoon is renowned jazz singer and St. Catharines resident Juliet Dunn, who of course is also Executive Director of the TD Niagara Jazz Festival.  That festival has come to define jazz music in Niagara pretty much year-round, with concerts in venues both large and small throughout the Region.

I have not met up with Juliet in person for some time now, but in spite of losing her beloved husband and business partner Peter not that long ago she keeps busy with music and of course the jazz festival she has fronted for several years now.

There is no program listed in advance of the concert but it promises to be varied and more than a little jazzy at times, I suspect.

Tickets are available at the door this afternoon for only $20 and children under 12 years of age are admitted free.

Take Mom, enjoy the drive and the Pelham Art Festival, and some great music this afternoon as well!

Have a great weekend!

May 13th, 2023.

Three for the show this weekend in Niagara

 It's a grey, dreary weekend in April, so by way of a diversion this weekend I have an arts-related menu of two performances to perhaps tempt you out of the house...

Tonight at 7:30 at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines the Bravo Niagara! TD Jazz Series continues their spring season with a performance by jazz/fusion band Yellowjackets in Partridge Hall.  

The group has been around for 43 years now and have recorded 26 albums, snagging 18 Grammy nominations along the way and winning two.  The group always seems to keep re-inventing themselves in order to move with the times, which is no doubt a major contributing factor to their longevity.

The current group comprises Russell Ferrante on piano and synthesizers, Bob Mintzer on woodwinds and EWI, Will Kennedy on drums and Dane Anderson on bass.

The performance tonight will feature a good measure of music from their latest Grammy-nominated album, Parallel Motion, released last year.

Tickets should be available through the PAC box office either in advance or at the door, or by going to the Bravo Niagara! website.

Over in Niagara Falls tonight, local theatre is alive and well with the current Firehall Theatre season well underway.  Last night was opening night for The Drowning Girls, written by Beth Graham, Charlie Tomlinson and Daniela Vlaskalic.  Directed by Jerome Black, the play stars Claire Freel and Margaret, Daisy Hollohan as Alice and Heidi Nickel as Bessie.

The haunting play carries an important message while these three cast members tell their stories.  Based on the individual and shared histories of real-life women, The Drowning Girls tackles a number of very current topics including the violence and manipulation of women and by extension, the plight of missing and murdered indigenous women in our society.  The Drowning Girls won the Betty Mitchell Award for Best New Play.

The show continues tonight at 8 and performances continue until May 14th at the Niagara Falls theatre.  More details and tickets are available by going to www.firehalltheatre.com.

There you go...no reason to stay inside if you don't want to!

Have a great weekend.

April 29th, 2023.

A couple of events coming up this week in downtown St. Catharines

 At this time of year it is difficult to stay inside for any length of time, especially if you can't wait to get out into the garden, but if you need a break at some point over the next week I have a couple of arts events coming up you might be interested in.

First off, tomorrow afternoon at 3 Gallery Players of Niagara host "La Stravagante", an intimate ensemble drawn from Toronto-based baroque orchestra Tafelmusik.  Tafelmusik of course has gone on to international fame in their own right, first recording for the Sony Classical label back in the 90s.  Those heady days are now gone, as they are for many recording ensembles dealing primarily in classical music now, but Tafelmusik still performs and records regularly so quite frankly, they ain't going anywhere...

But the smaller ensemble is in Niagara this weekend, and it is made up of Patricia Ahern and Christopher Verrette on violin, Patrick G. Jordan on viola, Keiran Campbell on violoncello, Lucas Harris on lute and Charlotte Nediger on harpsichord.

The term "stravagante" means quite literally, "extravagant", and the the style was all the rage in 17th-century Europe, where performers were encouraged to embrace a, well, extravagant or exuberant style of playing of music.  It fit quite well the music produced during the Baroque era too, and can also be seen in the often elaborate costumers both male and female performers would don for the performance.  Not to mention the powdered wigs back in the day...

Anyway, the extravagant style will be on full display in The Recital Hall at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre in downtown St. Catharines at 3 pm tomorrow.  Tickets should be available at the box office on your way in or in advance by going on the Gallery Players of Niagara website.

Next Friday evening the Big Time Fundraiser will be held at the Oddfellows Hall on James Street downtown, in support of local charitable arts organization Suitcase In Point as they raise $5,000 as part of their $12,000 annual donor campaign.

The evening begins with a Silent Auction Reception from 6 to 8 pm which will feature music by Juno Award-winning artist Sammy Jackson beginning at 7.  The reception will be followed by a comedy show at 8 featuring performances by such people as Deanna Jones, Rob Feetham, Edwin Conroy Jr., and others. The evening will wrap up with DJs Dave Stiles and Chance Mutuku as the dance floor opens up.

Hosts for the evening will be Brian Foster and Natasha Pedros.

Tickets to the fundraiser are $50 and includes access to the Silent Auction Reception with light refreshments along with the comedy show and DJ Afterparty.  If you just want to attend the afterparty from 9:30 onwards it is a pay-what-you-choose event at that point.

Suitcase in Point heavily relies on the generosity of donors and contributors, and monies raised will go directly towards artists and arts workers tied to their original productions, which includes of course the annual In The Soil Arts Festival each June.

If you have silent auction items to donate email tamara@suitcaseinpoint.com.

As there is limited capacity it is recommended you get your tickets in advance by going to the Suitcase in Point website, and remember to dress for a party, whatever you might want to interpret that to be!

Have a great weekend.

April 15th, 2023.

Two for the road this weekend in downtown St. Catharines

 It may be a rainy Saturday in the city but at least it's spring now, so things can only get better...right?!  Ah the early spring, ready to spring a surprise on us all at a moment's notice!

No surprise we have a wealth of entertainment options this weekend in Niagara, but I'll focus on two this weekend in downtown St. Catharines that might interest you, both taking place at the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre on St. Paul Street.

Bravo Niagara! Festival of the Arts kicks off their spring season as part of the TD Jazz Series with a performance by Juno and Grammy Award winner Alex Cuba tonight in Robertson Hall.  Cuba is, oddly-enough a Cuban-Canadian singer-songwriter performing music that reflects his many and varied Latin and African influences, fused with a mix of funk, jazz and pop.  

This will be an intimate solo concert and will highlight music from his recent Grammy Award winning album "Mendo".  The concert begins at 7 pm tonight and tickets are limited, but you can log on to www.bravoniagara.org to see if there are still tickets available if you do not already have them.

Also at the PAC tonight and again tomorrow afternoon in the spacious Partridge Hall the Niagara Symphony Orchestra presents their final POPS! concert of the current season, with a concert entitled "The Music of Phil Collins and Genesis".

The NSO comes by their affinity for the music of Genesis naturally, it seems, as Music Director Bradley Thachuk often performs the music of Genesis with the band's original guitar player, Steve Hackett.  In fact, after the Sunday concert Brad travels to Europe to perform again with Hackett in both England and Germany.

In the recorded world, Bradley and Steve collaborated on the release "Steve Hackett - Genesis Revisited Band & Orchestra:  Live at Royal Festival Hall".  Filmed in London, the concert features Thachuk's own arrangements of many of Phil Collins' solo hits as well as many Genesis classics.

While Hackett will not be in attendance for the performances this weekend at the PAC, Bradley and the NSO welcome and all-star band to join them along with vocalist Jeremy Saje.

Tickets might be hard to come by for this evening's 7:30 performance but for both that and tomorrow afternoon's 2:30 matinee performance you can contact the FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre box office for tickets or if you dare, just turn up at the door prior to the performance.

Music is in the air this weekend in downtown St. Catharines...

Have a great weekend!

March 25th, 2023.

Warm up this week with a couple of arts-related events

 Spring officially arrives on Monday afternoon, but you'd never know it from what I am looking at outside my office window this morning...cold, windy and snow flurries.  Take heart, better weather is coming I'm told, but until it does here are a couple of arts related events coming up this week you might be interested in.

Gallery Players of Niagara present their next concert in the current winter season tomorrow afternoon at 3 pm in the friendly confines of Silver Spire United Church in downtown St. Catharines at 366 St. Paul Street.

The concert is entitled "Inside the Music" and will feature the Eybler Quartet and Suzanna Clark, who is Morton B. Knafel Professor of Music at Harvard University.  Professor Clark will be hosting a conversation with members of the Quartet, exploring essentials such as harmony, phrase structure, and the social significance of the works on the programme including Haydn's String Quartet in F minor, Op. 20, and the Mozart "Hunt" Quartet in B-flat major, K. 458.  This latter work was famously dedicated to "my dear friend Haydn" and indeed they were good friends during Mozart's relatively short professional life.

The Eybler Quartet consists of Julia Wedman and Patricia Ahern on violins, Patrick Jordan on viola and Margaret Gay on cello.

The concert is available both in person and online as it will be recorded tomorrow and available online from March 21st to the end of July.  

You can purchase tickets to both in person and online virtual events through the Gallery Players website, or if you are going to the concert, at the door as well.

Later this week when the weather promises to be a little bit warmer, you can journey through a guided tour  of downtown St. Catharines, with a focus on site-specific audio, visual and performance installations that it is hoped will allow you to re-imagine a variety of downtown St. Catharines public spaces.  Offered by our local arts theatre group Suitcase in Point, "Metanoia:  The Experience" is an evolution of "Metanoia: The Mixtape, bringing various artistic interpretations of change to life in the heart of the city.

This is largely an outdoor event, running evenings starting at 8 pm each night from this Thursday, March 23rd to Saturday, March 25th.  There is a limited capacity for each tour, which will be about 40 minutes in length as participants trek to outdoor locations within just one downtown block of St. Catharines City Hall.  Those who attend will also be able to enjoy the after show lounge each evening at Wandering Spirits, located right downtown at 31 James Street.

The evening is produced by Suitcase in Point with contributing artists including Sodienye Waboso Amajor, Roselyn Kelada-Sedra, Shannon Kitchings, Mayumi Lashbrook, Heryka Miranda, Chance Mutuku, Phil Davis, Deanna Jones, Alex Ring and Lauren Garbutt.

Tickets are available in advance by contacting Suitcase in Point.

Have a great weekend and stay warm!

March 18th, 2023.