Daring glam rock divas are just the thing you need to destress after finals season and as the holiday season starts. Natalie Portman stars as Celeste, a music prodigy who survived a school shooting when she was 13. As her talent becomes known during the memorial service, she spends her next years rising to celebrity status. Now at the age of 31, scandals and personal struggles threaten her career as she’s trying to make a comeback. Vox Lux explores the life of trauma, fame, and narcissism through this twisted drama that opens at the State Theater on December 14.
Author: Angela Lin
Angela is a senior studying English and the Environment. The only thing she loves more than writing and the arts are wombats.
REVIEW: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Six children with distinct personalities battle to become the champion of the 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Griffin Silva, Lolly Duus, Diego Roberts Buceta, Chan Yu Hin Bryan, Camille Mancuso, and Emily Goodrich embodied these children in their goofy and youthful portrayal of Chip Tolentino, Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre, Leaf Coneybear, William Barfee, Marcy Park, and Olive Ostrovsky respectively. Four audience members were also brought onstage to participate along with the Bee, an aspect of every production of this musical that truly makes every single show ever unique. As the audience members were gradually eliminated near the beginning, the final participant was serenaded off the stage by the comfort counselor Mitch Mahoney. Additionally, the show took its course as a pure Ann Arbor/University of Michigan production. During “Pandemonium,” a Bird appeared, and references to mumps were made as well.
Everyone had their own insecurities and anxieties that displayed onstage in a theatrical yet realistic way. As they struggled with those anxieties, losing the Bee meant something different for everyone. From Leaf Coneybear’s acceptance that he is smart to Marcy Park’s realization that it’s okay to not be perfect and the best at everything, all the kids leave the Putnam County Spelling Bee stronger and better.
Familial relationships was a large part of the character development. Logainne SchwartzandGrubenierre’s two dads put so much pressure and expectations on her, and Olive’s yearning for her parents came out during Olive’s “The I Love You Song”, where her mother and father appear telling Olive how much they love her. This moment is heartbreaking, especially in the context of the word “chimerical”, meaning “existing only as the product of unchecked imagination,” but Olive’s own love remained undeterred, and she she encourages William Barfee to win the Bee after she misspells her word in the finals.
Throughout the course of the musical, the audience got highly invested in every single participant and every one of his or her special quirks. Whenever a bell rang signaling the elimination of a student, people gasped and murmured “oh no,” because even though we all knew this was a scripted show that had a single winner, we were still rooting for every single one of the children.
Probably the star of the show was Amelia Dahmer, playing the official word pronouncer Douglas Panch in the most humorous and enjoyable way, eliciting thunderous laughter from the crowd with her bluntness and ridiculousness. Overall, this entire show is ridiculous, yes, but it contains the perfect balance of nonsensical silliness and touching self-discovery to make The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee a J-O-Y to watch.
PREVIEW: The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Get ready for the most ridiculous and entertaining spelling bee yet! Putnam County has some interesting characters in it, and its 25th annual spelling bee follows the lives of 6 special contestants who, while trying to spell long hard words, struggle with their personal lives in finding love and connections. Watch these quirky kids try to win The Bee, and in life, in this wonderfully hilarious musical at the Arthur Miller Theatre December 7 at 8pm and December 8 at 1pm and 8pm. Tickets are only $3 and are available at the door or online.
PREVIEW: Can You Ever Forgive Me?
Lee Israel makes her living as a celebrity biographer. However, when that no longer pays off, she uses her talents for deception as she tries to maintain her failing writing career by forging letters from deceased authors and playwrights. Based on Lee Israel’s memoir of the same name, Melissa McCarthy stars as the infamous forger as we explore the underlying motives and consequences of her actions in Can You Ever Forgive Me?. This biographical drama is now playing at the Michigan and State Theaters.
REVIEW: The Reign of Pops
The Michigan Pops Orchestra never fails to be entertaining with its program and exception with its music. This semester, we entered the Pops Kingdom and were greeted by many crown jewels of the classical music scene as Music Director Rotem Weinberg and Assistant Music Director Tal Benatar walked out dressed like kings and directed some royally magnificent songs.
The orchestra started with the “Overture to Nabucco,” followed by songs from Enchanted accompanied by a wonderfully-produced adventure video. There was some friendly banter where the person who claimed that he could play the violin with both hands tied behind his back was dubbed the “Lyin’ King,” which was a perfect segue into the Lion King Medley. Other selections from movies also featured some stunning soloists, including Mikaela Secada in “Almost There” from Princess and the Frog, Lorna Courtney in “Just Around the Riverbend” from Pocahontas. More quintessential royal pieces included Swan Lake, “Emperor Waltz,” and “The Prince of Egypt,” and we also explored the video game world with the “Kingdom Hearts Overture” that continued the journey of Enchanted. Finally, we ended with an out-of-this-world performance of the Star Wars Suite before wrapping up with the traditional “Hail to the Victors” encore.
The interactive piece of the program was a game called Name That Royal. We started off easy, with Queen Elizabeth, and then the responses became more clever, such as King Kong, Burger King, and Princess Fiona, so props to Pops for being just as witty as always. The music, though it seemed to fall apart a bit towards the end of the program, was enchanting and beautiful, parking during the “Kingdom Hearts Overture” and “The Prince of Egypt.” The Pops Orchestra took us on a magical journey, and the music they delivered was certainly worthy of a king.
REVIEW: Cabaret
Life is a cabaret. And MUSKET delivered a show set in Nazi Germany that made stark connections to America today. It was hard to walk away from the Power Center without realizing the many parallels that are still present, almost a century later, and it was certainly unsettling, which means these artists succeeded in delivering their message through an exceptional performance.
Wilson Plonk was a wonderful Emcee, setting the stage with the Kit Kat Klub girls and boys with many dance moves. The Emcee and Sally Bowles provided insightful commentaries as they performed at the club, the most striking number for me being “Money.” The Emcee started out as purely entertaining, being humorously risqué and joyously but as he became more distressed and terrified throughout the show, that unsettling fear about the actions underlying the show became more stark and drastic. When the Emcee held up the phonograph that played the recording of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me”, with a solemnly grim and pained look on his face, my stomach dropped, but that was only the beginning. As Fräulein Kost and Ernst Ludwig sang the reprise with a haunting pride, Clifford Bradshaw’s horrified face explained it all. Later, the scene with the Gorilla in “If You Could See Her” was shocking and impactful in how ridiculous it appears and how implicit we all are in its perceived ridiculousness.
Caroline Glazier delivered stunning performances as Sally Bowles, not just in the Kit Kat Klub with the rest of her girls, but particularly “Maybe This Time” and the iconic “Cabaret,” where she was shaking with anguish as she belted out these words. Samantha Buyers and Aaron Robinson portrayed Fräulein Schneider and Herr Schultz very realistically, and their duets, “It Couldn’t Please Me More” and “Married” were very moving. I think their performances were the most exceptional and compelling, since these college students brought the pains of old age and young hopes very much alive.
The director Isabel K. Olson made an interesting choice with the ending, having the characters step forward and say the line that embodies their way of approaching and handling and going through life. In the program, she said it beautifully: “are we the audience to injustice or active participants working against it?” As Sally Bowles shrugs aside politics and chooses to live in ignorant bliss, Herr Schultz desperately claims that everything will be okay because he is a German and Fräulein Schneider laments that she has no other choice. As the Emcee reveals his concentration camp outfit, strobe lights go off and all the actors jolt in a horrifying final moment before the ghost light is brought onstage and the actors take a single bow, leaving the light, and its impact, behind.
