Roving Pittsburgher Report - A Review of Mamma Mia the Musical Feb. 11th 2014 Performance

A Review of Mamma Mia the SMASH HIT Musical on Feb. 11th 2014
From: Roving Pittsburgher and PositivePittsburghLiveMagazine.com
Written By: JoAnn R. Forrester, Host of Empress of Biz  |  Feb. 12, 2014

(photo courtesy: Pittsburgh Cultural Trust)

Mamma Mia…was Fun! Finger snapping, toe tapping, bouncing up and down in my seat fun…And shades of ABBA did I need that to get me through “the Winter That Will Never End Curse” that some evil Cleveland Browns fans has wished upon us.

Part of the fun of the night was to walk into the theater with people smiling who were ready to celebrate with the music of ABBA. As soon as the first scene opened with Sophie played by Chelsea Williams singing “I have a Dream” the audience was wrapped up and jumping on the Mamma Mia Love Boat as portrayed by ABBA.

The play, Mama Mia is about our favorite theme…Youthful rebellion, Youth Looking for Love, Finding love, Misunderstanding, Separation, (21 years) Love Lost, REUNION, LOVE FOUND and LIVING HAPPILY AFTER all played to the 22 tunes of ABBA.

All the familiar scenes played with youthful energy and a little more sexual dash and innuendo than the movie. I did find myself missing the beautiful background of the Mediterranean Sea and wishing that they had more visual scenery or a video of the sea playing in the background.

(photo courtesy:
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust)

The story of reunion plays well… First starting with the three young girls coming together to celebrate the wedding of Sophie , while the friends of the mother, Donna , played by Georgia Kate Haege arrive to lend their moral support to the marriage of their friends daughter. All soon, young and old friends, become involved in keeping Sophie’s secret. She has found her mother’s dairy and read it…and oh my three possible fathers. So what does she do? She invites all of them to her wedding and figuring that somehow she will know who her Father will invite him to walk her down the aisle. Oh my Days of our Lives soap opera played out on a Greek Island.

The dancing troupe was very energetic and pulled you along in a joyous activity. Love the women who played the older friends, Tanya (Gabrielle Mirabella) and Rosie Carly Sakolove who was a great scene stealer.

And of course the men, Harry Bright (Mark A Harmon), Bill Austin (Michaek Colavolpe) and Sam Carmichael, (Jeff Drushal) all were funny, delicious and amusingly perplexed as they discovered they may be the father of Sophie. All the men played and sung their parts well. Although gotta admit in my heart I was half expecting Pierce Bronson to show up.

When the play ended and the cast came out to take their bows and do the well known encore reprise the audience jumped up as one and was ready to dance and sing to all their favorite ABBA songs. And sing in dance we did. When it ended and we left the theater there were still many humming and singing along as they dance walked out the theater…Good time was had by all.

The PNC Broadway Across American series has itself another hit. We are really fortunate here in the burgh…our theater and art’s team consistently produces hits.

Great show…now if I could just stop singing and tapping my toes to the Mama Mia songs in my heard.

Additional Show Times:
Feb 12 - 13  |  7:30 PM  |  Heinz Hall
Friday, Feb 14  |  8:00 PM  |  Heinz Hall
Saturday, Feb 15  |  2:00 PM and 8:00 PM  |  Heinz Hall
Sunday, Feb 16  |  1:00 PM and 6:30 PM  |  Heinz Hall

JoAnn R. Forrester

Written By: JoAnn R. Forrester
Host of Empress of Biz
Anchor Internet Radio Show on PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com

JoAnn R. Forrester is co-host of the Empress of Biz Talkcast and co-founder, president and partner in S. I. Business Associates, Small Business Solutions, LLC and Celebrate and Share. She is an entrepreneur, writer, business growth specialist, teacher, columnist and award winning writer. JoAnn specializes in helping small businesses grow and prosper. She is the co-developer of the PRICE IT PERFECT™ cost management system for small business, and has secured over 40 million dollars in loans and investment for her clients.

For more information visit Empress of Biz on PPLmag.com

Posted By: Stephanie Curtice
Good News and Cultural Reporter
PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com, RovingPittsburgher.blogspot.com, TheNewGirlintheBurgh.blogspot.com
(c) PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com 2014

Priscilla Rocks, No, Discos the Benedum

Priscilla Rocks, No, Discos the Benedum
Priscilla, Queen of the Desert
March 5-9
Benedum Center
7:30 pm

                                                By Tamar Cerafici                                              

I hate March. March has a special, dark place in my heart that makes the knives in my house look particularly interesting, and not in a good way.

And when one wakes up to the white hellscape known as the North Hills and she has 6 inches of heavy spring snow to clear, she tempted to crawl back into the warm comfort of her bed and not come out until June. (I have to distance myself and speak in the third person this time of year.)

The bus, the queens, paint brush number

That is, unless one has the raucous fabulousness of Priscilla Queen of the Desert still ringing in her ears and creating microseizures in her brain. After last night’s performance, this morning’s heavy snow is a white wonderland, perfectly suited for memories of a pink bus and dancing paintbrushes.

Priscilla tries awfully hard to be a party from start to finish. Just to make sure we get the point, we’re occasionally bombarded with disco effects and party streamers. The trick succeeds, mostly. 

The show is based on the mid-90’s Australian offering, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Like others in the genre (think of Strictly Ballroom or Muriel’s Wedding) the movie boasts a thin plot line exploring the lives of outsiders who find their own place in the scorching Australian sun.

The DIVAS

This particular sun shines on three performers, the young drag queens Tick and Adam, and their transsexual mentor, Bernadette. Tick, who has a wife named Marion and a kid named Benji in Alice Springs, hatches a plot to see his 6-year-old son. Tick enlists Adam and Bernadette to join him on the promise of a gig at Marion’s casino. Since none of them can afford plane tickets to the Outback, they journey west in renovated bus purchased from three Swedes named Lars. During the road trip, they come to terms with their own loneliness and sexuality, and confront the bigotry of the hicks, and find security and even love. That’s about it. They reach Alice Springs, they’re a hit, and Benji helps Tick understand that a family is often just a hodgepodge of people who love each other. You know, the usual.

But these performances are anything but usual:

Three Divas (Emily Afton, Bre Jackson, and Brit West) literally fly in and out of the show like a Greek Chorus, if a Greek Chorus belted dance tunes suspended 25 feet in the air. Crazy, but glorious.

Tick, Adam and Bernadette, oh the costumes!

Wade McCollum (Tick) does his best with a character. Unfortunately, he really doesn’t have much to work with – to be fair, Tick is one of those types who lets “I dare not” wait upon “I would.” Tick is really more of a confused little boy, who stays a confused little boy until his relationship with Benji anchors him. McCollum’s voice is as sweet as his character, when he’s not lip-syncing to the Divas. 

But Tick emerges as a reluctant hero who modifies the extremes of Adam (Bryan West), the rebel escaping from his conservative and wealthy mother, Bernadette (Scott Willis), who has found her place and is content, and the chorus of Outback hillbillies.

Bryan West dominates the show as Adam and his alter ego, Felicia. West humanized Adam, whose lines are a string of bitchy quotes, and in doing so treats us to several fine covers of Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, and Verdi (his Violetta is literally over the top). Scott Willis’s Bernadette grounds his co-stars; his calm baritone and rock-solid acting give us permission to become emotionally invested in these characters. Bernadette desperately wants someone to care for her; Willis wins us over immediately.

In addition,the supporting cast is raunchy and funny and horrifying. Joe Hart’s Bob is heartfelt and sincere. Chelsea Zeno’s turn as Bob’s Filipino wife is worth the price of admission – she literally steals one of the many shows within the show, introducing a jarring punk vibe and a wickedly funny trick involving ping-pong balls.  Babs Rubenstein is unstoppable as the sex-starved, mullet-headed pub-keeper. The Ensemble is always strong and fun to watch. Each member plays their many parts with gusto; clearly they’re having a lot of fun. 

The hillbilly ensemble

Oh, the staging! The costumes! The bus is the center of all activity and is gorgeous. The set designers, stuck with and Australian Outback represented mainly by red screens, went to town on the bus. Any money saved on scenery was lavished on the costumes, which retained the Oscar-winning verve of the movie.

Finally, plumed-headdresses off to the remarkable off-stage army of costume changers who must coordinate this bacchanalia every night. Um, wow!

Unlike its bus namesake, Priscilla moves at lightning speed. Anyone caught under it should be ready to dance their way out, ‘cause this groove train ain’t stopping. 

I think I can stop hiding the knives – summer is only a bus ride away, as long as the bus is pink, and named Priscilla.

Tamar Cerafici is an environmental lawyer whose national practice includes nuclear power and sustainable development consulting. She is the author of “Dominate: How Lawyers Crush Their Competition (with these 4 Powerhouse Marketing Techniques),” and the founder of The-Barefoot-Barrister.com as well as LegalShoe, and The Lawyer’s New Clothes, new media channels on PositivelyPittsburghlivemagazine.com that teach lawyers how to build enterprises and find balance in their practices without selling their souls.

Roving Pittsburgher Report: Les Miserables Transports Audiences from a Dark Time in History to Enlightened Theatre

Roving Pittsburgher Report:  

Les Misérables Transports Audiences from a Dark Time in History to Enlightened Theatre

by Good News Reporter, Joanne Quinn-Smith

When I arrived at the theatre on opening night I had not read Les Misérables in forty years and scarcely remembered the plot but that did not stop me from getting swept away in the songs, the music, the acting and the multi-media scenery.  The scenery alone will become legendary.  Cameron Mackintosh presents a brand new 25th anniversary production of Boublil & Schönberg’s legendary musical, LES MISÉRABLES, with glorious new staging and dazzlingly reimagined scenery inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo.

One Day More (Photo by Deen Van Meer)

Set in the early 1800’s Les Miserables is a sweeping masterpiece that has been a record-breaking success worldwide since its London opening in 1985. Les Miserables has been translated into 21 different languages and been performed in front of more than 60 million people in 43 countries ... Here in Pittsburgh opening night was sold out.  At dinner before the theatre and on the way out the recurrent theme was how many times patrons had seen Les Miserables.  At dinner before the theatre I heard two people who were unrelated, one alone and one with her date talk about seeing the musical, 19 and 11 times respectively.

For those of you who are not familiar with the story it is set in 19^thcentury France, during a time when the effects of the French Revolution are being felt on society. Social instability and poverty created the environment that shaped the lives of the characters. Jean Valjean is released from prison and breaks parole to start a new life. He embarks on a lifelong mission to avoid recapture and redeem himself.  This is a story of higher values, of love and self sacrifice and of character like Eponine(Brian Carolson-Goodman) rising above her upbringing to become heroic and to serve love.

The video screen background transported us to another world. The audience was drawn through a sewer tunnel and battle scenes.  This performance was truly a triumph of multimedia so realistic that the audience could hardly contain their amazement. The costuming was horribly realistic in places and absolutely elegant in others.

Master of the House (Photo by Deen Van Meer)

Although the theme was dark, there are comic interludes like Master of the House performed by the character Thernadier (Timothy Golan), his Wife (Shawna Hamic) and Customers of the Inn and of course Beggars at the Feast.  But truthfully it is worth the trip to hear the voice of John Valjean (Peter Lockyer) sing Bring Him Home and Cosette (Lauren Wiley) in Castle on a Cloud. 

One Day More done by the Chorale!  Well the Mendelssohn and Morman Tabernacle choir can barely compete.  Any ensembles done on stage were epic.  The scenery was majestic and the story line compelling.  There is still time with eight performances left to see Les Miserables  or to SEE IT AGAIN.

Fall of Rain/Death of Eponine (Photo by Deen Van Meer)

8 Performances Remain

• Tuesday, January 22, 7:30pm
• Wednesday, January 23, 7:30pm
• Thursday, January 24, 7:30pm      
• Friday, January 25, 8pm
• Saturday, January 26, 2pm & 8pm
• Sunday, January 27, 1pm & 6:30pm

Ticket information at:  http://trustarts.culturaldistrict.org/production/32852/les-miserables

Radio Host and Serial Blogger, Joanne Quinn-Smith is the host of PositivelyPittsburghLive™ Internet Talkcast and TechnoGrannyShow™  On her shows, Joanne has interviewed over 1800 guests.  As an advocate for small Business, she was awarded the National Small Business Administration Journalist of the Year Award.  She is also the publisher of PositivelyPittsburghLiveMagazine.com which is a 2010 National Stevie Award finalist for best Media Website or Blog. PPL Mag features the GOOD NEWS, about Pittsburgh  and is  Pittsburgh’s First internet radio and TV network. PPL Mag attracted 2.25 million visitors last year.  Her radio network has accumulated over one million listeners. The Creative Energy Officer of Dreamweaver Marketing Associates, Joanne also teaches her online media platform building to small businesses in a client personalized, “Web2.0 Gorilla Branding Training™”.  Connect with Joanne at:  http://joannequinnsmith.com