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Three Continents

From the ship at sea 1

From the ship at sea 2

From the ship at sea 3

From the ship at sea, 4

From the ship at sea, 5

From the ship at sea , 6

From Rio!!

The Trip Home

NEW SHORT STORIES

Nothing There For You

Nothing There For You, 2

Nothing There For You, 3

Nothing There For You, 4

Chase of The Thrill, 1

Chase of the Thrill, 2

Chase of the Thrill, 3

Chase of The Thrill, 4

Of Course, part1

Of Course, part 2

Of Course, part 3

Of Course, concluded

In Memory: Of My Cruise 1

In Memory: Of My Cruise 2

In Memory: Of My Cruise 3

In Memory: Of My Cruise 4

Las Vegas, 1

Las Vegas, 2

Las Vegas, 3

Las Vegas, 4

Las Vegas, concluded

Mad Moment #1

Mad Moment #2

Mad Moment #3

Mad Moment #4

Margaret Never Knows, 1

Margaret Never Knows, 2

Margaret Never Knows, 3

Margaret Never Knows, 4

Margaret Never Knows, 5

Remote, part 1

Remote, part 2

Remote, part 3

Remote, concluded

POETRY

April's Fools

Easter Sunday

...simple answers

And when they come at me

Fogged In

Barrington Stage 2018

7th Annual 10 x 10

BSC ARCHIVED REVIEWS

10x102017

10x10 Upstreet Five

10x10 Upstreet2015

10X10 Upstreet 2014

10X10 On North

10X10Upstreet

Absurd Person Singular

Alix Korey

All My Sons

American Son

An Enemy of the People

Art

Bashir Lazhar

The Best of Enemies

The Birds

BNelson's All-Male Revue

Breaking the Code

Brel in the Berkshires

Broadway Bounty Hunter

Butler

Camping with Henry & Tom

Carousel

Celebrating...William Fin

Character Man

The Chosen

Clybourne Park revisited

Company

The Crucible

Dancing Lessons

Dr. Ruth, All the Way

Engagements

The Fantasticks

Fiddler on the Roof

Freud's Last Session

Fyvush Finkel

The Game

Gaslight

Georgie - BSC

Going to St. Ives

The Golem of Havana

Guys and Dolls

His Girl Friday

I Am My Own Wife

Kimberly Akimbo

BSC's Kiss Me, Kate

KT Sullivan: Colored Lts.

Kunstler

A Little More Alive

Lord of the Flies

Lost in Yonkers

Love Letters

Lungs

Man of La Mancha

The Memory Show

Mormons, Mothers...etc.

Much Ado About Nothing

Muckrakers

My Name is Asher Lev

Mysteries of Harris Burdi

The North Pool

On the Town

The Other Place

peerless

The Pirates of Penzance

Presto Change-O

N. Coward's Private Lives

Ragtime

Romance in Hard Times

Scott and Hem. . . .

See How They Run

See Rock City. . .

Shining City

Sleuth

Southern Comfort

Speech & Debate

A Streetcar Named Desire

Sweeney Todd

Taking Steps

This

This Wonderful Life

To Kill a Mockingbird

Tribes

Trumbo

21st...Spelling Bee

Underneath the Lintel

Veils

Vincent

The Violet Hour

The Whipping Man

Working on a Special Day

Zero Hour

Berkshire Opera Company

Berkshire Fringe Festival

Le Nozze di Figaro

La Boheme

Berkshire Opera Festival

Ariadne auf Naxos

Madama Butterfly

Berkshire Theatre 2017

Lost Lake

BTG Arsenic and Old Lace

At Home at the Zoo

Children of a Lesser God

Million Dollar Quartet

BTF ARCHIVED REVIEWS

Anna Christie

BTF Archive

Babes in Arms

Bells are Ringing

Benefactors

Birthday Boy

The Book Club Play

Brace Yourself

Broadway by the Year

Candida

Candide

The Caretaker

The Cat and The Canary

Cat on a BTG Roof

Cedars

BTG's A Chorus Line

A Christmas Carol

Christmas Carol 2010

A Class Act

Colonial Christmas Carol

Constellations

Deathtrap at BTG

A Delicate Balance

Design For Living

Dutch Masters

Edith

The Einstein Project

Eleanor: Her Secret Journ

Endgame

Extremities

Faith Healer

Fiorello

Frankie and Johnny in the

The Guardsman

Ghosts

A Hatful of Rain

The Homecoming

Homestead Crossing

In the Mood

K2

The Last Five Years

The Lion in Winter

A Little Night Music

Little Shop at Colonial

A Lover's Tale

Eric Hill's Macbeth

A Man For All Seasons

Mary and Edith

Moonchildren

The Mystery of Irma Vep

Neighbor/Smile

No Wake

Noel Coward in Two Keys

Oklahoma!

Pageant Play

Period of Adjustment

Poe

Prisoner of 2nd Avenue

Puppetmaster of Lodz

Re-View Puppetmaster

Red Remembers

Same Time, Next Year

Sick

The Stone Witch

Sylvia

Thoreau or, Return to Wal

A Thousand Clowns

The Who's Tommy

Waiting for Godot

Bridge Street Theatre

F&J in the Claire De Lune

Bridge St. Thtr Archive

Dream Child

Frankenstein: etc.

Gamma Rays/Marigolds

Holiday Memories

How To Pray

...Kieron and Jade

Lucky Lindy

Redwood Curtain

Souvenir at Bridge St.

The Tavern

Broadway/Off-Broadway

Three Plays in NYC

Capital Rep

Blithe Spirit

Paris Time

She Loves Me in Albany

Sex With Strangers

CapRep Mamma Mia!

Assisted Loving

Chester Theatre - 2017

Folk

Every Brilliant Thing

Skeleton Crew

I and You

Chester Theatre Archive

Almost, Maine

Animals Out of Paper

Chester's Amish Project

Annapurna

Arms On Fire

The Betrothed

Blackbird

blink

Body Awareness

The Dishwashers

The Gospel. . .Discord

An Iliad

Madagascar

Memory House

The Mountaintop

My Jane

A Number

Oh God

Sister Play

The Swan

Tilted House

Copake Theatre Company

Nine Months

I Do! I Do!

Sour Grapes

Talking Heads

Grace & Glorie

Dorset Theatre Fest 2017

American Buffalo

Legend of Georgia McBride

Baskerville

Downstairs

Tarnation Russell Colvin

DORSET ARCHIVED REVIEWS

All in the Timing

Barefoot in the Park

Boeing-Boeing by Camolett

Christie's The Mousetrap

Clybourne Park

Deathtrap

Dear Elizabeth

Dial "M" For Murder

Fallen Angels

Good People

The Hollow

I Hate Hamlet

Intimate Apparel

June Moon

Lady Day at Emerson's Bar

Marry Me a Little

Mauritius

Merton of the Movies

Murder on the Nile

Noises Off

Out of the City

Outside Mullingar

Red

St. Nicholas

S Holmes & the Jersey Lil

Superior Donuts

Table Manners

The Novelist

The Pavilion

The Scene

The Way of The World

The Whore and Mr. Moore

A Year with Frog and Toad

Ghent Playhouse 2017/2018

Cabaret in Ghent

Clever Little Lies

The Little Mermaid. . .

Greater Tuna

Ghent Playhouse Archives

Ghent's "Almost, Maine"

Ali Baba...4 Tea Thieves

Ayckbourn at Ghent

Belles

Boeing-Boeing GPH

The Boys Next Door

Clue: The Musical

Complete Wm Shakespeare

The Countess

Dancing at Lughnasa

Enchanted April

Coward's Fallen Angels

Fantasticks

Ghent's "Dial M...."

Grapes of Wrath

Hair Loom!

Hay Fever

The Heiress

Heroes in Ghent

House of Dwarfs

The Imaginary Invalid

Jack and the Beanstalk

Jerry's Girls

Lettice and Lovage

Ghent "Little Shop"

Lost: The Grimm Years

Madwoman of Chaillot

Menagerie A Trois

Mothers and Sons

Mrs. Farnsworth

My Cousin Rachel

O.P.M. at Ghent

Once Upon a Mattress

Over the River, etc.

Pack of Lies

Picnic

Prisoner/2nd Avenue

Puss in Boots

Rabbit Hole in Ghent

Robin Hood: 50 Shades. .

6 Women...

Ghent's 39 Steps

True West Ghent

The Turn of the Scrooge

The 25th Annual Putnam...

Urinetown

The Weir

You're a Good Man, Charli

Goodspeed Musicals

Rags

Thoroughly Modern Musical

Chasing Rainbows

Bye Bye Birdie/Goodspeed

Goodspeed's Anything Goes

Hubbard Hall

The Velocity of Autumn

Mystery of Edwin Drood

menagerie

Book Club Play

HH - Crucible

Illiad

Tartuffe

Shakespeare's King Lear

Parellel Lives

Ondine

Hubbard Shirley Valentine

Shakespeare's Macbeth

The Drawer Boy

You Can't Take It With Yo

Literature

An Unlikely Hero

Antibes

B ob Dylan

Christmasville

A Lesser Saint

Upstreet, #1

MacHaydn Theater-2017

Hello, Dolly! '17

Spamalot

McH's Sweeney Todd

Saturday Night Fever

McHs Anything Goes

Dirty Rot. Scoundrels

Dreamcoat

MACHAYDN ARCHIVED REVIEWS

Mac-Haydn's Addams Family

The All Night Strut

All Shook Up

Annie

Anything Goes

The Baker's Wife

Beauty and the Beast

Best Little Whorehouse...

Brigadoon

Bye Bye Birdie

Carousel at the Mac

Chicago

Chicago (2016)

Chorus Line

Crazy For You

Damn Yankees

Drowsy Chaperone in Chath

Fair Lady

Mac Fantasticks

Fiddler in Chatham

forty-second Street

Machaydn's The Full Monty

Guys and Dolls in Chatham

Gypsy

Hairspray

Hairspray 2015

Hello, Dolly!

High Society

Into the Woods

Joseph. . .Dreamcoat

Jekyll and Hyde

The King and I

Kiss Me, Kate

La Cage aux Folles

Legally Blonde

Les Miz

Love a Piano

Mac-Haydn's Grease

Mame

Meet Me in St. Lou

The Music Man

Nice Work If You Can Get

9 to 5

Nunsense

Oliver!

Phantom

The Producers

R.D. Housewives of C.C.

Rent in Chatham

The Secret Garden

Show Boat

Singin' In The Rain

Sister Act

Smokey Joe's Cafe

Sondheim Putting It Toget

The Sound of Music

South Pacific

State Fair

Sweet Charity

Swing!

Thoroughly Modern Millie

West Side Story

Xanadu

Yng Frankenstein

Music

10 mini trios

Journeys by Robert Baksa

Mary Verdi: Precious Love

Mahagonny

New Stage Theatre Company

Death and The Maiden

Blood Sky

Fahrenheit 451

The Maids

Northern Stage

Living Together

NYSTI

Romeo & Juliet

And Then There Were None

King Island Christmas

A Legend of Sleepy Hollow

The Philadelphia Story

Yours, Anne

Orphan Train

Of Mice and Men

Twelve Angry Jurors

Anastasia

1776

Macbeth

Miracle On 34th Street

Arsenic and Old Lace

American Soup

Ordeal By Innocence

Reunion

Oldcastle Theatre 2017

Broadway Bound

A Comedy of Tenors in VT

Mauritius at Oldcastle

Moonlight & Magnolias

Shipwrecked

OLDCASTLE ARCHIVED REVIEW

"Almost, Maine" in VT

Around the World in. . .

Beauty Queen of Leenane

Big River

Black Comedy

Cabaret

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof

The City of Conversation

ConsulTrampAmerica'sSweet

Doubt in Vermont

4000 Miles

Fox on the Fairway

The Grass is Greener

Last Days of Mickey & Jea

Oldcastle Lion-Winter

My Fair Lady

Night and Her Stars

Northern Boulevard

One Two Three

Other People's Money

Rembrandt's Gift

The Ride Down Mount Morgn

S. Holmes-Knight's Gambit

A Song For My Father

Strange Disappearance of

Tallley's Folly

Third

39 Steps

Time Stands Still

Proctors Schenectady

The Humans

Proctors Les Miserables

The Bodyguard, the musica

Finding Neverland

Fun Home

The Color Purple

Wicked

Restaurants

Bezalel Gables

Blantyre

Brazillian

Burrito Bound

SPICE!

Sand Lake Center for Arts

SLCA Crucible

Sand Lake Annie

In the Heat of the Night

Schenectady Civic Players

Other Desert Cities

An Inspector Calls

Shakespeare & Co - 2017

Carnage, God of

Perfect Pair of Wharton

Tempest in the Garden

S&Cos Intimate Apparel

"Dream" in the Dell

Cymbeline 2017

S&C4000miles

Shakespeare & Co - 2016

Sotto Voce

The Two Gentlemen/Verona

Cry "Havoc!"

S&Co's "Or,"

Twelfth Night in the Dell

The Merchant of Venice

The Emperor of the Moon

Ugly Lies the Bone

The Taming

Shakespeare & Co. - 2015

An Illiad at S&Co

Red Velvet

Mother of the Maid

The Unexpected Man

The Comedy of Errors

Henry V

The How and The Why

Shakespeare & Co. - 2014

Private Eyes

Vanya, Sonia, Etc.

Henry IV, Parts One &Two

6-Actor Romeo and Juliet

TCWOWSabridged

Julius Caesar in Lenox

A Midsummer Night's Dream

The Servant of Two Master

Shakespeare's Will

Shakespeare & Co -2013

Private Lives

It's a Wonderful Life

Accomplice

Kaufman's Barber Shop

Beauty Queen/Leenane

Mother Courage...

Richard II

Love's Labour's Lost

Heroes

Master Class

Shakespeare&Co - 2012

The Liar

2012 Santaland

S&Co's The 39 Steps

Satchmo at the Waldorf

The Tempest

Parasite Drag

King Lear

Tale of Allergist's Wife

Cassandra Speaks

Shakespeare & Co-2011

The Learned Ladies

Cymbeline

Santaland

War of the Worlds

Red Hot Patriot

Broadway in the Berkshire

Baskervilles (Revisited)

Romeo and Juliet, 2011

The Hollow Crown

As You Like It

The Memory of Water

SHAKES & CO ARCHIVES

All's Well That Ends Well

Bad Dates

The Canterville Ghost

Cindy Bella

Real Inspector Hound

Dreamer Examines Pillow

Goatwoman of Corvis Count

Golda's Balcony

Hound of Baskervilles

Irma Vep, The Mystery of

Julius Caesar

The Ladies Man

Liaisons Dangereuses

Mengelberg and Mahler

Othello

Pinter's Mirror

Richard III

Romeo and Juliet

The Santaland Diaries

Sea Marks

Shirley Valentine

The Taster

Twelfth Night

White People

The Winter's Tale

Sharon Playhouse - 2017

Sharon's Music Man

Far Away

Minor Character

Sharon Playhouse Archive

Big River in Sharon

Georgie

Gypsy in Sharon

TriArts' Les Miz

Little Shop of Horrors

Merrily We Roll Along

Quartet

Special Attractions

The Last Flapper

Karaoke Killer

Capitol Steps 2017

Masked Man

capitol steps 2016

Die Fledermaus

Grinder's Stand

Babylon Revisited

John

Dracula's Grandmother

Mock the Vote-CSteps 2015

The Aliens

It Shoulda Been You

Cranwell's Capitol Steps

Kill Me Now

The Garden of Martyrs

Capitol Steps 2013

The Capitol Steps

Doubt

Four Dogs and a Bone

Zara Spook & Other Lures

Trial of F.D.R.

Autres Temp. . .

Real Desperate Housewives

Capitol Steps for 2011

Ludwig Live!

The Seagull

On The Verge

Seascape

Starcrossed

"Earnest" in Albany

Paris, 1890--Unlaced

BCC's A Christmas Carol

Sister's Christmas Catech

The Pajame Game

Her Name is Vincent

Property Known as Garland

12th Night

I Know I Came...Something

Doubt, a Parable

Voices' A Christmas Carol

Dickens A Christmas Carol

Marie Galante

Machinal

Capitol Steps

Late Nite Catechism

Rabbit Hole

Taming of The Shrew

Mystery of Irma Vep

I Love a Piano

The News in Revue

The Mikado

Saturday Night Liv

A Chorus Line

BCC - Christmas Carol

Morgan O-Yuki

Rent

Stageworks Hudson 2013/14

Tomorrow in the Battle

Stockholm

Looped

Play by Play Unchained

Stagework Hudson Archives

The Amish Project

The Divine Sister

Forbidden Broadway

Imagining Madoff

Or,

Play By Play Blue Moons

Play By Play Shadows

The Rivalry

Tennis in Nablus

Theater Barn 2017

Lucky Me

Guys and Dolls TB

Godspell-2012

Nunsense at TB

Christie's Spider's Web

A Comedy of Tenors

THEATER BARN ARCHIVES

A. Christie's The Hollow

The Addams Family

Agatha Christie's. .None

Altar Boyz

The Andrews Brothers

Better Late

Black Coffee

Boeing-Boeing

The Cocktail Hour

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels

Don't Dress for Dinner

Don't Talk to the Actors

The Drowsy Chaperone

Evita

Forever Plaid

Forever Plaid-2016

The Full Monty

Funny Thing Happened

God of Carnage

Grease

Great American Trailer...

Gutenberg! The Musical

Half and Half

Hello Muddah, Hello Fadda

Housewives of Columbia

How the Other Half Loves

TBarn's I Love a Piano

I Love You....Now Change

It Had To Be You

John & Jen

Leading Ladies

Lies & Legends

The Little Dog Laughed

Moonlight and Magnolias

Five Course Love

Moon Over Buffalo

The Mousetrap

Murder at Howard Johnson

A Murder is Announced

The Musical of Musicals

Red, White and Tuna

Romance, Romance

Same Time, etc.

Fantasticks at the Barn

Spider's Web

Stones In His Pockets

The 39 Steps

They're Playing Our Song

Towards Zero

The Unexpected Guest

Veronica's Room

Visiting Mr. Green

The Wedding Singer

You Should Be So Lucky

Young Frankenstein

Zanna Don't!

Town Players--Pittsfield

Prodigal Cow

The Rocky Horror Show

Love, Loss & What I Wore

The Whale

Win/Lose/Draw

The Shape of Things

Five Women..Same Dress

Skin Deep

Stop Kiss

Life Is Short

Visual Arts

Walking the Dog Thtr 2014

The Umbilical Point

WALKING THE DOG: ARCHIVED

BecomingFrederickDouglass

Bon Appetit!

Cyrano

daemons

Eurydice

The Gospel of John

i take your hand in mine

Lost Frontier of America

Our Town

The Owl and the Pussycat

Painting Churches

Under Milk Wood

Vritue, Desire, etc.

Walking the dog's HAMLET

Who Am I This Time?

WAM Theatre Company

The Last Wife

emelieredux

The Bakelite Masterpiece

Special

Holy Laughter

In Darfur

Emilie

The Old Mezzo

Attic, Pearls & 3 Fine Gi

Melancholy Play

Weston Playhouse -2017

Long Day's Journey Into N

Buyer & Cellar

Music Man

Tenderly

Once

Weston Playhouse Archived

Weston's All My Sons

Analog and Vinyl

Baskervilles in Vermont

Weston's Chorus Line

Educating Rita

Ella

42nd Street

A Funny Thing...Forum

Fully Committed

Weston's Guys & Dolls

The Light in the Piazza

Les Miserables

Mamma Mia

Weston's La Mancha

Murder For Two

Next to Normal

No Child. . .

Weston's Other Place

Peter and the Starcatcher

Pregnancy Pact

Pump Boys and Dinettes

A Raisin in the Sun

Rent - Weston

Round & Round the Garden

Souvenir

25th Spelling Bee

Weston's Uncle Vanya

V&S&M&Spike

Williamstown Theatre 2017

Actually

A Legendary Romance

Moscow, Moscow, . . .

The Clean House

Where Storms are Born

5x10

The Roommate

The Model American

WTF ARCHIVED REVIEWS

A Doll's House

A Month in the Country

After the Revolution

An American Daughter

American Hero

And No More Shall We Part

Animal Crackers

The Atheist

Beyond Therapy

The Blue Deep

Broke-Ology

Caroline in Jersey

The Chinese Room

Children

Cost of Living

David Storey's "Home"

The Elephant Man

Far From Heaven

Fifth of July

A Flea in Her Ear

Fool For Love

Funny Thing/Forum

Funny Thing II

A Great Wilderness

Hapgood

Importance of/Earnest

An Intervention

It's Jewdy's Show

Johnny Baseball

WTF's June Moon

Kinship

Knickerbocker

The Last Goodbye

Legacy

Living On Love

Moon for the Misbegotten

Off the Main Road

The Old Man&The Old Moon

One Slight Hitch

Paradise Blue

Pygmalion

Quartermaine's Terms

Romance Novels for Dummie

The Rose Tattoo

Samuel J. and K.

She Loves Me

She Stoops To Conquer

Six Degrees of Separation

Streetcar Named Desire

Ten Cents a Dance

Three Hotels

Three Sisters

The Torch-Bearers

True West

Unknown Soldier

The Visit

What is..Cause of Thunder

WTF's Our Town

Forever Plaid by Stuart Ross, with musical arrangements by James Raitt. Directed by Michael Marotta.

Reviewed by J. Peter Bergman

 


The Plaids: Rick Desloge, Hernando Umana, Wade Elkins, Christopher Johnson

"...getting lost in a D# minor chord"
 
         When four young men, a close harmony quartet, are suddenly killed in a freak automobile accident - their car is hit by a school bus full of Catholic school girls (all virgins) on their way to see The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show  (remember The Beatles? Remember the Ed Sullivan Show?) - the world is deprived of what they themselves describe as the next great "guy group," already a dying trend in the music business. Robbed by death of their big chance to perform in a decent venue, the boys are suddenly given a chance in 2008 to return to earth and sing once more for an audience of potential fans. That’s us. That’s the plot. Got it? Good. Now sit back and relax and enjoy one of the most enjoyable shows ever seen at the Theater Barn in New Lebanon, New York.

          It may help to know who Ed Sullivan was or what his show was like. It may help to know who The Beatles were and how their style of music affected the world of popular song. On the other hand you may not need to know anything about any of this. Just know that this is the nostalgia slot of the summer season. 

          Director Michael Marotta gives us "Moments to Remember" filled with "Heart and Soul" as he loads "Sixteen Tons" of talent into this "Shangri-La" road to "Rags or Riches" for the Plaids. The songs are the songs of the 1950s, the popular tunes that still litter period movies and piled up LPs and 45's in our basements. In that era when "Love" was "a Many Splendored Thing" guys could still get together in the garage after school and work on the close harmonies that brought groups like The Four Aces and The Temptations and The Kingston Trio into prominence. The dreams were no different than those of the groups that followed, but the sounds were something else. Hearing those sounds, live and in person, again makes this ninety minute one-act musical so much more fun than the plot would seem to allow. Nostalgia isn’t everything, but boy it helps.

          The talent on the Columbia County stage is terrific. Four young men making their local debuts in this production, all of them professional enough to be seasoned Actors Equity members, give what could be called the performance of their lives as the revived quartet. Sparky and Jinx are step-brothers; Frankie is the group’s lead-man; Smudge is the voice of reason and the only one wearing glasses. 
          Smudge also takes the low voice in the quartet harmonies and provides the bass tones for "Sixteen Tons." Smudge is played by Christopher Johnson who also solos on "Rags to Riches" and plays the inimitable Sunday night variety show host, Sullivan. He has a most wonderful comic sensibility, a sober-sided underplayed humor.

          Frankie is played by the tallest in the group, Wade Elkins. His earnestness is the touchstone here and he plays it to the hilt. Vocally he takes the lead in many songs and solos more often than anyone other than Jinx. Elkins plays the honesty of this character without blinking. His performance helps to bind us to the bizarre reality of what is happening on stage.

          Rick Desloge is Jinx and Hernando Umaña is Sparky. Together and apart they have immense appeal. Sparky’s mother is married to Jinx’s dad and that is the link between them. Clearly they have  enjoyed a friendship that is bound up more in their mutual love of the music they make than in the awkward family relationship that keeps them side by side. The friendship they feel is as glorious as the vocalism that they produce. Desloge is adorable - there is no other word for him. Every time he sings, every time he speaks to the audience or to his compatriots there is a joy that bursts out of him, visible in his smile, audible in his voice. His body plays his emotions front and center. He is ninety percent pride and it’s extraordinary.

          Umaña is the most fun of the foursome. His face is perpetually in motion, his eyes expressive and his hands constantly doing something. The choreographed movement for each song seems to provide him with a reason for existing. When he sits in quiet conversation with his brother he becomes a different man. It is the music and camaraderie that gives him animation and life. The actor here knows how to make this work and make it real, even emotionally telling. Leading the vocal in "Perfidia" truly gives him a chance to shine as does his heartfelt tribute to Perry Como (does anyone remember him?).

          Marotta is in his glory as a director with this show. The close harmony, the fifties-style movement, the involvement of the on-stage music duo of piano and bass (Bravo Adam Jones and Ray Jung!) and even the audience participation which cannot be pre-set and which provides the quartet with another period element that has been pervading the Berkshire region this summer since the opening night of "...Spelling Bee." This director truly gets the special needs of this musical and he has been fortunate in casting four actors who are not only willing to do what is asked of them, but have seemingly responded to even the smallest, most meticulously directed moments.

          On a simple set, in costumes that reek of the period - you can almost detect the mothballs (remember mothballs?) with concert style lighting that has a most wonderful theatricality, this show plays out its fantasy of last chance opportunities and songs you can sing in the parking lot with charm, grace, style and effect.

          And is this the perfect lead-in to the final show of the Theater Barn's "Summer" season? We’ll know when Grease opens in a few weeks. For now, however, its guy group time and for someone like me who actually mourned the loss of this style of singing when I was growing up, it is the perfect opportunity to join Jinx and "Cry."

◊08/08/08◊

 


Forever Plaid plays at the Theater Barn on Route 20 in New Lebanon, New York through August 17. For tickets please call the box office at 518-794-8989.


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