EPAC’s ‘Sweet Charity’ has something for everyone

EDITOR’S NOTE: A regular attendee of Endicott Performing Arts Center shows shared with BAMirror the comments he posted on EPAC’s Facebook site following last week’s opening weekend of Sweet Charity. Performances conclude tomorrow (Sunday, March 24).

Reviewed by Ed Arnold

Another fine evening’s entertainment was provided by the cast and tech crew of EPAC for the musical Sweet Charity. When I go out for an evening, I want to be entertained with comedy, dancing, live music, and this show had it all.

‘Last Five Years’ puts pair in a pop opera time warp

Reviewed by Nancy Oliveri

Jason Robert Brown’s The Last Five Years opened last night (March 22) in Binghamton, a production of Half Light Theatre, one of the more recent entries into the theater community here. The show is not exactly a musical and is not exactly a play, but is more like an opera. I would call it a Pop Opera, but without any instantly sing-able melodies. I didn’t leave with any one song buffering in my head, just a sense of the work as a whole.

That’s OK, though, because it was good and, first and foremost, a love story — a story about the first and, no surprise here, what turn out to be the last five years of a couple’s angst-ridden, sometimes hopeful, but never really tender relationship. Performed in the intimate setting of the Roberson  Museum and Science Center’s third-floor ballroom, the show was accompanied only by Vicky Gordon, a fine pianist.

Mobility documentary is as endearing as it is informative

Reviewed by Lory Martinez

Monteith McCollum’s visually affecting 2010 documentary, A Different Path, is a stunning combination of animated work and cinematography. The film, screened this past weekend at Binghamton University as a part of  the Harpur Cinema series “Forces of Nature,” takes its audiences into the lives of several ordinary people who have come up with some fairly creative ways to communicate their transportation troubles.

As someone who isn’t a fan of the documentary genre, I expected to be bored by preachy commentary on people who are against cars as a primary mode of transportation, but McCollum does a brilliant job of making his point indirectly.

Cider Mill’s ‘Trying’ is a triumph

Reviewed by George Basler

At first glance the plot of Trying seems to be the worst kind of theatrical cliché. One character in the two-character play is a cantankerous, demanding old man. The other is a bright, efficient young woman who goes to work for him. Of course, they’re going to start the play clashing with each other. Of course, there going to end up feeling mutual respect and affection.
But don’t let the plot summary discourage you. Trying, now playing at the Cider Mill Playhouse in Endicott, is a funny, warm and poignant play that skillfully explores both the issues of aging and the stresses of young dreams yet to be realized. Canadian playwright Joanna McClelland Glass skillfully intermixes humorous and emotional moments without ever descending into false sentimentality. Like a skillful jazz musician finding new riffs on an old tune, Glass finds new insights in the off-repeated odd couple genre.
And the Cider Mill production is first-rate, with Paul Falzone and Marjorie Donovick giving outstanding performances.

Comedy and commentary ring true in ‘Dead Man’s Cell Phone’

Reviewed by Lory Martinez

Elizabeth Mozer’s Binghamton University directorial debut, Dead Man’s Cell Phone by Sarah Ruhl, follows a woman named Jean (Christina Catechis), who finds — what else? — the phone belonging to Gordon, a dead man, and begins to answer it. She meets his mistress (Jacobella Luongo); his mother, Mrs. Gottlieb (Sarah Lees); his brother, Dwight (Rob Tendy); his wife, Hermia (Arshia Panicker) and his organ-trafficking business associate, “the stranger” (also played by Luongo). On the surface, this is a situational comedy about a woman who keeps this man’s memory alive by keeping in contact with the people in his life, but ultimately it is a play about communication.

They Might Be Giants … of improv

Reviewed by Nancy Oliveri

OK, here’s the situation: Ten acting students, graduates of an eight-week improv class, gather to show the world what they’ve learned. On the barest of stages, and with only their wits, they need to think fast and act faster.

Last Saturday (March 9), Tim Mollen was about to put his improv students’ newly-acquired skills to the test at the JCC in Vestal, performing ad-libbed skits under his direction to a room full of people. Expectations were high.

Celtic Woman concert makes a mockery of Irish music

Reviewed by Lee Shepherd

Never underestimate the gullibility of the American concert-going public.
A sell-out crowd attended the travesty of Irish music by Celtic Woman Tuesday night (March 5). at The Forum in Binghamton.
The promoters should have billed the fare as Irish rock, as the show was far more about stage effects than music from the Emerald Isle.

One night + three BU shows = Lots of feelings

Reviewed by Lory Martinez

The graduate students of Binghamton University’s theater department presented their versions of Elizabeth Wray’s futurist parable, Forecast; Thornton Wilder’s 1930s comedy, The Happy Journey from Trenton to Camden, and Edward Allan Baker’s  family drama, Up Down Strange Charmed Beauty and Truth yesterday (Feb. 28) in Studios A and B in the Fine Arts Building.

Salsa Libre es muy caliente!

Reviewed by Nancy McKenzie Oliveri

According to its Facebook page, Salsa Libre, a Binghamton-based, eight-piece band with a Latin beat, was “formed in 1997  to give the Southern Tier spicy, sensual music for listening and dancing pleasure” The description continues that “the band has captured the sounds of the great Salsa, Mambo, and Merengue bands of Puerto Rico, Cuba and Santo Domingo,” prompting me to ask myself, “Where have I been?”

‘Rock of Ages’ delivers nostalgia with a capital N

Reviewed by Nancy McKenzie Oliveri

What was a girl to wear to a Broadway-caliber show, on Valentine’s Day (Feb. 14) no less, that promised to rock her and the rest of the audience right back to the wonderfully raunchy, tasteless decade of the ’80s?

For this girl, in her mid 50s, it meant faking it in black leggings, knee boots, a stretchy, black, not-too-mini skirt, red jacket with too many snaps, and an animal print scarf. Fetching, right?

But this review isn’t about me, although the highest praise I can give the touring company production of Rock of Ages is that it sure made me feel that the show was somehow about me, and everyone else in the house, and that I was right at home in that getup.

Ti-Ahwaga finds right balance in challenging play

Reviewed by George Basler

One thing can be said about the Ti-Ahwaga Community Players: They don’t shy away from taking risks.

Having turned in a very solid effort last fall in staging Arthur Miller’s classic Death of a Salesman, the company is now tackling Edward Albee’s challenging A Delicate Balance, play that is not for actors who are faint of heart.

‘Circle Mirror Transformation’ reflects fine stagecraft

Reviewed by Lee Shepherd

What a perfectly crafted and finely acted play!
I’m talking about the Know Theatre’s production of Circle Mirror Transformation by Annie Baker, directed by Tim Gleason and featuring Jason Hill, Ilana Lieberman, Jessica Nogaret, Susan Stevens and Jason Walsh.

‘Trovatore’ returns triumphantly to TCO repertoire

Reviewed by Lee Shepherd

You can see why there’s been so much fun made of Il Trovatore – even the Marx Brothers took a crack at it. Its crazy plot, set in the mountains of Spain, includes a gypsy’s curse, a child tossed into a fire, switched identities, several vows of vengeance, duels, madness, mayhem, poisonings, burnings at the stake, brothers who hate each other (who don’t know they’re brothers —  and that’s just on the personal level. On the larger scale, you’ve got battles and armies and bravado and nationalism and lots of bloodshed.
But if you succeed at suspending your disbelief, and discount the ridiculous plot twists, the  1853 Giuseppe Verdi opera affords you the most memorable few hours you’ll ever spend in a theater (in my case, The Forum in downtown Binghamton).

New Orford scores big on Super Bowl Sunday

Reviewed by Lee Shepherd

For most of the country, Super Bowl Sunday (Feb. 3) was all about competition. For the select crowd at Binghamton University’s Anderson Center Chamber Hall for the “pregame show” on Sunday afternoon, it was all about collaboration.
And what a fine demonstration of perfect coordination it was, as the New Orford String Quartet played Mozart’s Quartet in C Major (the “Dissonant”), Brahms’ Quartet in A minor, Op. 51, No. 2 and Quebecois composer Jacques Hétu’s Quartet No. 2, Op. 50.

The pipes, the pipes were calling at BU

Reviewed by Nancy McKenzie Oliveri

Last Thursday (Jan. 31), nearly 1,200 people came to Binghamton University to see the Pipes, Drums and Highland Dancers of the Black Watch 3rd Battalion, and the Band of the Scots Guards.  Throughout the night, the crowd was brought to its feet, and to tears. Repeatedly.