Lose yourself in ‘Yonkers’ fine performances
January 26, 2010
Jennifer Lee Taylor (center) and Suzy Hunt enact the climactic confrontation between Aunt Bella and Grandma Kurnitz, as (from left) Mike Dooley, Nick Robinson, Collin Morris and Karen Skrinde, as Uncle Louie, Arty, Jay and Gert, look on in a scene from ‘Lost in Yonkers.’ By Jay Koh/Village Theatre
Silently, Arty and Jay Kurnitz wait in their grandmother’s living room. They question why they’ve come so far to see a woman they barely know and they plot their escape.
But leaving isn’t on the agenda.
What unfolds onstage in the next two and a half hours is nothing short of dramatic perfection and well-timed comedic relief, provided by a talented cast who embrace the irony of one of Neil Simon’s best-known plays — “Lost in Yonkers.”
Typically, reviewers find time to take light notes in the margins of their program during a play, but “Lost in Yonkers” proved so captivating that it didn’t happen this time.
Comfortable suspense — if there is such a thing — kept everyone in the audience waiting for the next character to unravel.
As the son’s broken father, Eddie, played by Bradford Farwell, tries to heal himself and the family bank account after his wife’s death, the boys are faced with the realities of adulthood.
The touching coming-of-age story is marked by realism, not simplicity or comfort. Rather, the two boys — Jay, played by Collin Morris, and Arty, played by Nick Robinson — learn no matter how simple they may seem, familial relationships are messy, complex and laden with history. Read more
‘Lost in Yonkers’ readying for Village Theatre debut
January 19, 2010
Collin Morris, Nick Robinson and Jennifer Lee Taylor (from left) appear as Jay, Arty and Bella in the Village Theatre production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Neil Simon play ‘Lost in Yonkers.’By Jay Koh /Village Theatre
The skeletons hidden in the closet rattle loose in “Lost in Yonkers,” as the Neil Simon dramedy plumbs deep into the emotional trauma buried by the Kurnitz clan, a family led by a ruthless grandmother.
Enter Jay and Arty, teenage boys, the youngest family members and the latest to be thrust into the emotional maelstrom at Grandma Kurnitz’s apartment. “Lost in Yonkers” unfolds above a candy store where the stern grandmother is the proprietor, but the setting is saccharine only in the literal sense.
Village Theatre alumnus Brian Yorkey will direct the ensemble cast when the theater revives the period piece Jan. 20. The tale recounts the tense times after serious Jay and wisecracking Arty move in with Grandma Kurnitz. The boys arrive at the apartment after their mother dies and their father takes work out of town to pay back a bad debt.
Jay and Arty also share the apartment with dim-witted Aunt Bella. The scarred Kurnitz brood also includes Uncle Louie, a small-time thug.
“Lost in Yonkers” shares DNA with “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “Biloxi Blues” and “Broadway Bound” — other semi-autobiographical works in the Simon canon.
“He really, I think, dug deep for this one,” Yorkey said. “It’s one of his best, and the chance to work with a cast of some of Seattle’s best actors on a play this meaty, you can’t pass that up.” Read more
Patriot Players present double feature
January 5, 2010
Liberty High School actors star in ‘Broken Hallelujah’ and ‘Sorry, Wrong Number’
Liberty High School junior Kylie Ishimitsu, who plays Bridh, cradles junior Garrett Bagdon, a Union soldier, near the battlefield for the city of Petersburg in the play ‘Broken Hallelujah.’ By Chantelle Lusebrink
The Liberty High School Patriot Players will present a special double-feature production of “Broken Hallelujah” and “Sorry, Wrong Number,” beginning Jan. 8.
It is a new undertaking for many of the school’s drama students.
“It will show audiences what we can do here,” said junior Garrett Bagdon, who plays Hosgood, a Union soldier. “In the past few years, we’ve been doing a lot of comedies. This is our first play that’s been a true drama in some time.”
“I think it will really show the quality of our actors,” said junior Brandon Crader, who plays Stewart, a Union soldier.
“Broken Hallelujah,” commissioned by the A.C.T Young Conservatory of San Francisco in partnership with Theatre Royal Bath, was first staged in 2005. It is a contemporary play written by Sharman Macdonald.
In the battle-worn city of Petersberg, Va., the long days of the Civil War stretch on while people die from hunger, tensions are high and the deafening silence overwhelms young souls in a battle to defend a way of life.
“It’s a really beautiful, meaningful and relevant script that hasn’t been overdone,” Director Katherine Klekas said. “As a teacher and a mother, I don’t think [young people] realize that we’re involved in two wars. I know it’s something my kids could end up in. Read more
It’s a ‘White Christmas’ for Eagle thespians
December 1, 2009
Elise Swanson as Judy Haynes; Marcus Mitchell as Phil Davis; Sarah Meyer as Betty Haynes; and Mitchell Tant as Bob Wallace (left to right) are ready with the rest of the cast to perform the Issaquah High School drama production of 'White Christmas'. By Greg Farrar
A northeastern Christmas, full of snow, shows and singing is coming to Issaquah. Get ready to fall in love with Issaquah High School’s production of “White Christmas,” which begins at Skyline High School Dec. 8.
The production is at Skyline because Issaquah’s stage and theater is still under construction.
The production is one students and theater head and director Holly Whiting are celebrating.
“When we moved our musical from spring to winter, we knew we wanted to do something holiday themed,” Whiting said. “We knew we wanted to do ‘White Christmas,’ because everyone loves the music and everyone knows the music. So, there’s a familiarity and an added instant connection between the audience and the actors.”
“It’s really exciting,” said senior Elise Swanson, who plays Judy Haynes, one of two sisters in the classic show. “We’re the first ones in the state, if not the nation, to put on ‘White Christmas,’” Read more
Village Theatre presents a bold, fresh ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’
November 17, 2009
Clockwise from left, Ryah Nixon (Esther Smith), John David Scott (Lon Smith Jr.), Katie Griffith (Agnes Smith), Analiese Emerson Guettinger (Tootie Smith) and Bryan Tramontana (Rose Smith) share a scene together in Village Theatre’s production of ‘Meet Me in St. Louis.’ By Jay Koh/property of
“Thump, thump, thump, went my heartstrings” as Village Theatre’s energetic holiday cast of “Meet Me In St. Louis” gave audiences the musical equivalent of perfection wrapped under the Christmas tree.
Drenched in dazzling lace and lush velvet dresses, women twirled about by men clad in seersucker and linen suits and a rich wood-paneled Victorian home, set close to the stage’s edge, sucked me inside the Smith family’s 1904 St. Louis home.
Scene three was barely over and I was hooked.
The show’s details are what recreate a feeling of a simpler life and time, but it’s the incredibly well-selected cast and ensemble of 26 that makes this show shine and stand apart from a beloved film, familiar to so many.
With a fresh face and bold vocals, 22-year-old Ryah Nixon returns to Village Theatre in the role of Esther Smith. Her last role at the theater was as Princess Amneris in “Aida” during the 2007-2008 season.
Reprising one of Judy Garland’s most well-known roles, Nixon’s high energy electrifies the stage and her portrayal of Smith, a young woman struck by love, is spot on and full of youth’s innocent exuberance. Read more
Patriot Players debut new, clever production ‘Zap’
November 10, 2009
Audiences are in for a spectacle at Liberty High School’s premiere of “Zap” Nov. 13.
“It’s really fun and different, a new play that pokes good-natured fun at cherished theatrical forms,” Katherine Klekas, theater director for Liberty, wrote in an e-mail. “We’re always looking for something that is good but not overdone, and ‘Zap’ is quite clever and new.
“It also features a big, talented cast.”
With 27 actors playing 30 roles, your head is sure to spin. But add seven dramatic theater genres, hundreds of costumes, props and lighting cues, and you’ll be zapped into awe, Seattle Repertory Theatre’s Scott Koh, guest director for the production, said in a press release.
“I’ve collaborated with Katherine Klekas several times over the years and when this opportunity arose, it seemed like the perfect fit,” Koh wrote in an e-mail.
Liberty High School Patriot Players (from left) Casey O’Keefe, Rachel Galasso, Jonathan Julius, Jessica Queitzsch and Lindsey Vanosdoll, enact the British murder mystery scene from ‘Zap.’ By Greg Farrar
“‘Zap’ is a very audience-friendly play, in that it has something for everyone,” he added. “Without giving away too much of the plot, it is a fast-paced farcical comedy, where things go crazily awry. The challenge of the production has been to get really ‘good’ at being ‘bad.’”
Paul Fleischman, a Newberry Medal winner, wrote the production. Fleischman is an author of multiple poetry books for young readers and novels, like “A Fate Totally Worse Than Death” and “Sidewalk Circus.” “Zap” is his first play.
“Zap” is a combination of seven historical play genres presented on stage simultaneously.
The idea, according to Klekas, is that the audience watching the plays is given the opportunity to flip from one production to check in on another, just as one would use remote controls to change television channels.
For example, while characters are bantering about Shakespearean insults on stage during “Richard III,” other characters will be sleuthing to solve an English murder mystery based on Agatha Christie’s famous novels, while still others will arrive onstage to teleport the audience to scenes from a New York comedy with a style similar to that of Neil Simon.
“I like the hilarity of it,” said student Arielle Gordon, who plays Marsha, a pot-stirring, play-sabotaging gossip. “There are a lot of one-liners that are hilarious, and lots of actors who know how to be comedic with their bodies.” Read more
Holidays arrive early in ‘Meet Me in St. Louis’
November 3, 2009
Ryah Nixon, as Esther Smith (left), and Jason Kappus, as John Truitt, converse as (back, from left) Katie Griffith, as Agnes Smith, and Analiese Emerson Guettinger as Tootie Smith, look on, in the Village Theatre production of ‘Meet Me In St. Louis.’ By John Pal/Village Theatre
It’s time to deck the halls and stoke the hearth — the holidays are coming to Village Theatre.
Village Theatre’s cast and crew are taking audiences back to a time when horse and buggies were the mode of travel, home telephones were still novel, the World’s Fair was on the tips of all tongues and first love was anything but easy.
Welcome to St. Louis in 1904 as Village Theatre presents “Meet Me in St. Louis,” Nov. 11 through Jan. 3.
“The holidays are time for family. It’s a time when people think about their families, going home or having people over. The holidays are a time to reconnect with family,” said Steve Tomkins, artistic director for Village Theatre. “Really, what this show is about is the interaction of the family.
“It is delightful and energizing.” Read more
Don’t be afraid of this DEATHTRAP
October 20, 2009
‘Deathtrap’ cast members in the Skyline High School drama production are (from left) Jeff Stillwell as Sidney, Emma O’Melia as Helga, Derrik Petrin as Clifford, Alex Klee as Porter and Holly Griffith as Myra. By Greg Farrar
Gearing up for the first fall drama of the season, Skyline High School students are hard at work perfecting their lines to bring you “Deathtrap.”
The quintessential Ira Levin production will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish.
“It is a really interesting show that never leaves you knowing what is going on, and leaves you with plot twists you’ve never seen before,” said junior Holly Griffith, who plays Myra Bruhl.
Sidney Bruhl is a once-successful playwright whose last several productions have flopped at the box office. His desperation for a hit boils over after he receives a brilliant script from novice writer Clifford Anderson. Bruhl devises a plot to kill Anderson after telling him he will help write his script. Once Anderson is dead, Bruhl plans to take credit for the script and collect the royalties. It’s the perfect plan, he tells his wife Myra. Read more
Hijinks, hilarity ensue in ‘Chasing Nicolette’
September 22, 2009
Kate Jaeger (Nun), Tanesha Ross (Nicolette), Nick DeSantis (Valere) and Matthew Kacergis (Aucassin) star in Village Theatre’s production of ‘Chasing Nicolette.’ By by Jay Koh/Property of Village Theatre
How do you spell fun? C-H-A-S-I-N-G N-I-C-O-L-E-T-T-E.
That’s Village Theatre’s production of “Chasing Nicolette,” playing now on the local mainstage until Oct. 25.
Or maybe it’s N-I-C-K D-E-S-A-N-T-I-S.
That’s Nick DeSantis, the actor who plays Valere and nearly steals the show with his hilarity, hijinks and outrageousness.
You honestly may never see anyone funnier on a stage.
But every cast member is great and you’ll find yourself enjoying the particular vocal and comedic talents of each and every one. The voice of Timothy McCuen Piggee (playing King) is especially deep and sultry.
The silliness begins in the first scene with the musical’s 10 characters singing about life in the year 1224. It continues throughout the production, never really letting up. Read more
Theater marks 30th season with new musical
September 15, 2009
Tanesha Ross (left) stars as Nicolette and Matthew Kacergis is Aucassin in the Village Theatre production of ‘Chasing Nicolette.’ By John Pai / Property of Village Theatre
Village Theatre’s new musical, “Chasing Nicolette,” debuts Sept. 16 and promises to light up the stage as summer comes to a close.
“It is particularly exciting for me to open our 30th anniversary season with a wonderful new musical,” said Robb Hunt, executive director of Village Theatre. “Since I’ve been here all 30 years, I can say that it feels like quite an accomplishment to be established nationally as one of the few organizations which develops and nurtures new musicals that achieve national exposure. It is a key part of our mission and after 30 years, we are really doing it with two new musicals in the season.”
The year is 1224. War, hatred and prejudice fill the lands between Europe and the Middle East, but despite these obstacles, two young lovers — Christian nobleman Aucassin, played by Matthew John Kacergis, and a Muslim princess, played by Tanesha Ross — find a place for love. Read more
