Category: Theatre

REVIEW: Michigan Pops Orchestra Concert “Tick Tock, It’s Pops O’Clock”

Sappy Leave a comment

*Photo of the conductor, Luca Antonucci, taken by @willzhang*

The Michigan Pops Orchestra concert “Tick Tock, It’s Pops O’Clock” had an impressive turnout despite being at the same time as the game, and there were many elderly people in the audience for an organization even students don’t know about. It was heartwarming to see the local community and the University come together.

The most memorable part of the concert for me is actually the opening piece: it began quietly and suspensefully before growing into a fascinating, powerful melody that really boasted how wonderful the acoustics in the Michigan Theater is. I normally attend orchestral performances in Hill Auditorium, which is renowned for its acoustics, but due to its sheer size, the music doesn’t reach the outer audience as well.

Another highlight was concertmaster Katie Sesi’s solo in Vivaldi’s Winter. I don’t know what to comment on her playing beside it being phenomenal. This will be the last semester Katie, who is also Executive Director, will be in Pops. Her speech was very bittersweet, and I’m glad she got to be featured in various ways like also being conductor.

How hard the students worked really showed in their performance: it was incredible how well-timed the OSTs and films were with each other, and I particularly enjoyed the scene in the Harry Potter film when Buckbeak, a dog, bites Malfoy by yawning. The audience’s offbeat clapping for the Victors was also hilarious.

Unfortunately, the singers’ voices didn’t project clearly, possibly because of the mics. The collaboration with the SMTD theater students was one of the pieces I was looking forward to the most, so that was rather disheartening.

Nevertheless, I still loved the event, and I look forward to what Pops will bring us in the future. 

Get it? Time theme? 😀

REVIEW: Spring Awakening

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

8:00pm • Friday, December 2, 2022 • Arthur Miller Theater • Spoilers 3rd paragraph

Last Friday I had the honor of being one of the first audience members to experience the new student musical theater organization on campus, In the Round, as they presented Spring Awakening at the Arthur Miller Theater. First, I must confess, I approached Friday night’s performance with some trepidation. I’m from a small town with a smaller art scene, and when I hear “new theater company,” my mind is drawn to uncomfortable hours spent watching community theater groups stumble through off-key musicals. Within the first few minutes of this performance my fears were assuaged: the brilliance which In the Round exhibited in this production redefined for me, as a non-art-student, what it means to attend a school with some of the top music, theater, and dance students in the world.

Photo credit: Juliet Bornholdt.* From left: Luke Mannikus (Moritz), Sam O’Neill (Melchior), Juliet Freedman (Wendla). Wendla wears a purple sash to reflect the harm done by her community.

The highlights of the performance, for me, included the heartbreaking duet “The Dark I Know Well,” performed by Leslie Meloni as Martha and Bianca Garfinkle as Ilsa as well as the wildly impressive ad-libs of Chad Marge as Georg during “Touch Me.” Beyond those shout-outs, I appreciated the thoughtful handling of the underlying messages and themes in the show. In the Round chose to use the color purple throughout the performance, gradually incorporating the color into each character’s costume to symbolize the moment “the community irrevocably harms them” (In the Round). At the end of the show, purple flower petals rained down as the actors sat facing us to sing “The Song of Purple Summer,” seeming to warn the audience of the costs of censorship.

The production illustrated in vivid detail how each character was wronged by a culture of silence. This manifests particularly in the story arc of Wendla, played by Juliet Freedman, who begins the plot by begging her mother to explain where babies come from, and ends the victim of rape and a botched abortion. I also found a kind of symbolism in the way two actors, Jamie Martin Mann and Jill Pierangeli, repeatedly donned different roles to collectively portray all of the adult characters. While the actors admirably recast their personalities for the changing needs of each scene, the repetitiveness also served to represent the way the characters’ world strove to manufacture its children into uniformly moral (a.k.a. censored) adults.

This performance was truly the best introduction I could have had to the story of Spring Awakening, and I wish I could have attended all of the showings this weekend to dig more deeply into the care put into every detail of the show. I can’t wait to see what In the Round creates in the future, and I am so excited about this necessary addition to the campus art scene.

 

* additional credits:

Director: Jack Rosenberg
Choreography: David Midkiff
Associate Choreography: Rixey Terry
Lighting: Ethan Hoffman
Costumes: Cole Carrico
Scenic Design: Benjamin Garcia

PREVIEW: Spring Awakening

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

What: rock musical Spring Awakening, the inaugural performance of In the Round Productions

When:

  • Friday, December 2, 8:00pm
  • Saturday, December 3, 2:00pm, 8:00pm
  • Sunday, December 4, 2:00pm

Where: Arthur Miller Theater

Tickets: $6 for students, $10 for adults, available on the MUTO website (click here)

Originally written in Germany in 1891 by Frank Wedekind, Spring Awakening was adapted into a Tony-winning rock musical in 2007 by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater. The play has always tested social acceptability, having been subject to extensive censorship for much of its existence, and even since its rewriting by Sheik and Sater in 2007. In their interpretation, In the Round Productions promises to present this coming-of-age story of sexual awakenings, morality, and rebellion through the lens of LGBTQIA+ culture. In the Round Productions is a new student organization sponsored by the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies which aims to “provide a space for queer stories and queer storytellers” (Maize Pages). I look forward to being among the organization’s first audience members as they make their debut performance this Friday night.

REVIEW: Little Shop of Horrors

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

2:00pm • Sunday, November 20, 2022 • Power Center

I’m so glad I had the opportunity to experience Little Shop of Horrors, presented at the Power Center this weekend by MUSKET. The performance began before the lights dimmed, as Chiffon (Arin Francis), Crystal (Maya Mcentyre), and Ronnette (Gilayah McIntosh) wandered the auditorium, interacting with the crowd. Eventually they disappeared backstage, only to reappear along with the rest of the cast, to open the performance with “Skid Row.” From that point onward I was continually impressed by the talent and personality of each actor. Forming the chorus, Francis, Mcentyre, and McIntosh were reliable throughout their performance both for their solid harmonies and for their affectionately eye-rolling reactions to Seymore and Audrey. In addition to his role as Orin Scrivello, Audrey’s abusive boyfriend, Caleb McArthur scrambled onstage in at least four other mini-roles, creating fresh personas for each. I appreciated the way that Michael Fabisch threw himself into the awkwardness required for the role of Seymore. And Mr. Mushnik, played by Dylan Bernstein, was a perfect drama queen.

My favorite human role was definitely Audrey, played by Mackenzie Mollison. In the beginning of the show, Audrey is trapped in an abusive relationship with a sadistic dentist, and while in “Somewhere that’s Green” she dreams of living a simple life in a suburban development, she doesn’t believe she deserves to be loved by someone kind. Mollison brought humor to the role with her excellent comedic timing without oversimplifying the show’s darker themes of abuse and self-hatred. Her powerful voice seemed subtly restrained throughout the performance to reflect Audrey’s situation: occasionally bursting out in full spirit but quickly stifled again.

The shameless Audrey II, however, voiced by Morgan Gomes, resisted all restraints. Gomes, while only appearing onstage in person for the final curtain call, defined the performance with her spectacular voice. The plant only begins speaking mid-way through the performance, but when Gomes’ voice finally echoed through the theater, I saw jaws drop.

Engineering the evil plant itself is notoriously difficult, and MUSKET pulled it off with humor and style. In its first form, the Audrey II was a single, tentacle-like shoot with a little flower at the tip that Seymore slung around the shop during “Grow for Me.” Upon the plant’s entrance, I figured this first edition was too small for the team to have bothered animating–but to my surprise, in response to the characters’ lines, it drooped, perked up, and even nodded, all without any visible assistance or puppeteering from onstage. As Audrey II continued to grow throughout the show, I never noticed the stage crew replacing it or making adjustments, which is doubly impressive for such a large and mobile prop. The choice to have Audrey II consume its prey by sucking them into its stem resulted in some entertaining visuals: because the shape of the plant was vaguely humanoid, we seemed to watch Orin, Mr. Mushnik, Audrey, and finally Seymore disappear between the plant-being’s “legs.”

Overall, a big congratulations to everyone involved in putting together this fun rendition of Little Shop of Horrors. I encourage everyone who missed the performance to consider buying tickets to MUSKET’s winter semester show, A Chorus Line. I can guarantee that I will be in the audience.

PREVIEW: Little Shop of Horrors

Ella Larsen Leave a comment

What: a comedy horror musical, brought to UM by the student theater company MUSKET

When: 

  • Friday, November 18, 8:00pm
  • Saturday, November 19, 8:00pm
  • Sunday, November 20, 2:00pm

Where: Power Center

Tickets: $7 for students, $13 for adults, available online, at the MUTO ticket office, by phone, or at the box office 1 hr before the performance. More details linked here.

Little Shop of Horrors is a Broadway musical in which Seymore, a nerdy plant shop assistant, pines hopelessly after his coworker, Audrey. The plot revolves around a strange plant, named Audrey II, which Seymore discovers will bring business and popularity to the failing shop–if only it is fed with flesh and blood! The show is produced by MUSKET, one of the university’s longest-running student theater companies. The organization produces two shows each year in the Power Center, and has tackled both classic and contemporary performances such as West Side Story, Oklahoma, Hairspray, and Rent. Scanning photos of past performances, I am blown away by their evident production value, and I can see how MUSKET represents a Michigan legacy of passionate, skilled students and their dedication to the arts. I look forward to getting a glimpse of this legacy during the Sunday performance tomorrow, and hope others will consider picking up tickets at MUTO for the darkly funny, campy experience that is Little Shop of Horrors.

PREVIEW: MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW MOSCOW

Himaja Leave a comment

That’s a lot of “MOSCOW”s in the title! Let’s abbreviate, shall we?

WHAT: A performance of the play “MOSCOW x 6” by UM’s own Department of Theatre & Drama!
WHERE: the Arthur Miller Theater inside the Walgreen Drama Center (that pretty light green building down the road when you get off the bus at Pierpont!)
WHEN: See all showtimes here! I’ll be catching tomorrow night’s 8pm show. This show is on the October 1-15 Passport to the Arts — you can redeem a passport for a FREE ticket at the League Ticket Office!

Besides being intrigued by this play’s unusual title (it sounds like it’s shouting at me!), I was curious about the blurb that states: “It’s Chekhov’s “Three Sisters” for the Fleabag generation. A deftly comedic (and undisputedly raunchy) exploration of unchecked privilege.”

Who is Chekhov? What exactly is the Fleabag generation? I wondered. If you’re wondering too, don’t worry I’ll share my research.

“Three Sisters” is a 1901 play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov that follows the lives of, you guessed it, three sisters. They feel trapped in their rural Russian town and long to move back to the big city of Moscow where they grew up.

“Fleabagging” is a dating phenomenon named after the hit dark comedy television series “Fleabag” created by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. It’s repeatedly dating the “wrong” person, careening from bad relationship to bad relationship, gravitating toward those who you know will never be “the one.”

Into this mix comes Halley Feiffer, a playwright who decided to reimagine “Three Sisters” for a contemporary audience. Add a splash of black comedy, a sprinkle of feminism, a slab of social critique and class commentary, and you get “MOSCOW x 6” — a play that seems startlingly relevant to our world today.

I am incredibly intrigued to see how our theater students will interpret this nuanced piece, especially given that the ongoing war in Ukraine has colored public perspectives of Russia and its crown jewel: Moscow. There will definitely be no shortage of interesting discussions after the show.

Note the following content warnings for this performance. Take care of yourself!
Contains suicidal ideation/mental illness; physical violence; homophobic language; depicted sexual content; foul language; misogyny; alcohol abuse