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Personal Exploration of People, Personalities and Meaning
Browsing All Posts filed under »Studio East«
Shrek the Musical (Studio East)
Studio East kicks off summer with their 17th Annual Summer Teen Musical and all lights are green; ogre green and if opening night is any indication, Studio East’s “Shrek the Musical" is guaranteed entertainment for all ages. The talented cast had the audience eating from their hands and they were not serving up onions, but parfaits all the way, drawing repeated laughter throughout the performance. While Shrek may believe he is a "crackpot magnet", Studio East proves they are a talent magnet with its latest production “Shrek the Musical", playing through August 3 at the Kirkland Performing Arts Center.
For those not familiar with the play, “Shrek the Musical tells the story of an anti-social ogre named Shrek. Shrek’s normal routine is disrupted one day as his swamp home suddenly turns into a fairytale refugee camp, courtesy of a mandate from wicked Lord Farquaad. The mandate requires that all fairytale creatures be rounded up and confined to the swamp. To reclaim his home, Shrek, played by the gifted Christian Obert, must travel to Duloc and confront Lord Farquaad. Farquaad, played by the deliciously evil and brilliant Alex Ascanio agrees to hand over the deed to the land, if Shrek completes a task for him first. Ascanio, even walking on his knees, stands tall, nailing the role of villain to perfection, much to the conflicted joy of the audience.
Along the way, Shrek meets his initially unwanted companion, Donkey, played by the irrepressible Keenan Barr. In Duloc, Farquaad convinces Shrek to rescue a princess for him in exchange for the deed to his home. In the end, Shrek gets more than he bargained for and his life is never the same the again.
The Hobbit – A Musical (Studio East)
October 30, 2013
Studio East brilliantly brings the enchanted lands of Middle Earth to the stage with their 2013-2014 season kickoff production of “The Hobbit - A Musical”. Based on the 1972 adaption by Ruth Perry (music by Allan Jay Friedman and lyrics by David Roger) of the beloved classic by J.R.R. Tolkien, it recounts the story of the most unlikely of heroes, an unassuming Hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins. Directed by Lani Brockman and choreographed by Jenny Mitchell with musical direction by David Duvall, “The Hobbit - A Musical” runs from October 18 - November 3 over at Studio East Mainstage Theater in Kirkland. The show is double casted (I watched Cast B), so you may want to see the show more than once to experience both casts.
“The Hobbit – A Musical” begins innocently enough with Bilbo pleasantly listening to his high-spirited nephew Frodo outside of his hobbit hole. Bilbo Baggins, played with surprising empathy and warmth by the gifted Robert Kinsfather, lovingly indulges his young nephew played by the absolutely adorable Grace Hiley, as he reads from a book containing tales of magic rings, monsters and adventures which lay beyond their quiet home in the Shire. I was impressed by Kinsfather’s ability to so convincingly portray the gentle but honorable and fiercely loyal spirit which is Bilbo Baggins. His performance continues to get stronger, as the production goes on.
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Studio East)
March 24, 2013
Last Saturday evening, my daughter and I took in a show over at Studio East of Kirkland. It was the opening weekend of their two weekend production of Sondheim’s dark musical “Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street”. Clearly, this is not your average musical. Who else but Sondheim could envision a marriage between song and culinary cannibalism? Lovers of “The Sound of Music” be forewarned, “Sweeney Todd” it is not recommended for children under 13 years of age due to some mature content. There will be no ‘Edelweiss’ in this production unless it is being used to spicy up Mrs. Lovett’s special ingredient meat pies.
Awaiting the beginning of the performance, I found myself anxious and full of trepidation. Not only does “Sweeney Todd” deal with a multitude of disturbing and adult concepts, but it portrays the world of London as an inhabitation of characters driven by their most base human desires. It is a dark world, where injustice and moral corruption reigns. I wondered if a cast of young adults and children, some as young as ten years of age, could truly bring that world to life? Could they convey and manifest upon the stage, the desperate conflict of good and evil within each one of us and yet still inspire and entertain the audience?
The answer for the most part is a resounding yes. Studio East does a solid job of bringing that dark world of "Sweeney Todd", played by the capable Christian Obert, to life but also in offering us some hope. Obert shows that he is equally at home playing a morose, tormented lead character like Sweeney Todd as he is playing humorous supporting characters like Rapunzel’s Prince (Into the Woods) or Mr. Trevor Graydon (Thoroughly Modern Millie). Todd, to his inevitable detriment, is so driven by hatred for those which have wronged him that he can see nothing else. Love and happiness are unrecognizable strangers to Todd, having been replaced with a single-minded focus for revenge on those who have hurt him. Obert does an admirable job in conveying this obsession; being blinded to all else around him.
Into the Woods (Studio East)
March 1, 2013
Studio East fearlessly kicked off February with its triumphal production of Steven Sondheim’s challenging musical “Into the Woods”. Two casts take on the complex task of performing the limited run. “Into the Woods” tells the story of a childless Baker and his wife on a quest to remove a curse preventing them from having children. In their effort to lift the curse, they come across an assortment of fairy tale characters ranging from Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack (and the beanstalk), a pair of Princes and others. Act 1 deals with each of the characters seeking their ‘happily ever after”, while Act II reveals the rarely seen consequences which follow their “happily ever after”.
The play begins with spotlights on three scenes: Cinderella wishing that she could go to the Festival with her step-sisters; Jack and his mother lamenting the condition of their cow Milky-White, wishing that their cow would give them milk and a Baker and his wife melancholy over their inability to have a child. What is most interesting is not so much what each wishes for, but what each is willing to do in pursuit of achieving their wishes and the final state of each after their wishes has come true.
“Into the Woods” is a challenging production to execute successfully from the rapid scene changes and detailed sets, the assortment of characters, costumes and Sondheim’s sophisticated musical score and marvelously rich lyrics which are often required to be recited with varied meter, pitch and beat. Not an easy task for an adult professional production, but Studio East attempts and succeeds with young adults and children.
I Never Saw Another Butterfly (Studio East)
October 25, 2012
Studio East does not shy away from the challenging, unconventional or the controversial. On October 5, Studio East opened a limited run of Celeste Raspanti’s play “I Never Saw Another Butterfly” which wrapped up on Oct 13. “Butterfly” tells the heartrending story of 15,000 Jewish children who passed through the Terezin concentration camp during World War II most on their way to Auschwitz. Their story is told through Raja, one of only a hundred children who survived Terezin, and pieced together from the poems and artwork which the children of Terezin left behind as their legacy. It is a haunting tale made more visceral as Studio East tells it using young people and children. There are two different casts performing during this production and I was attending a production performed by Cast A.
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There were many wonderful touches that increased the experience of the play. In the lobby, I was impressed and moved by the artistic displays the participants in the production constructed to help reflect their experience of Terezin. The music played in the theater prior to the production was spot on and helped to immerse you into the experience. Costumes were wonderfully detailed and the Star of David set design was beautiful and functional for the production; effectively used by the cast during the play (kudos to Master Carpenter Erik Eagleson). The bold and effective use of projections on the wall behind the actors, especially the shots of authentic artwork from the children of Terezin, helped to tie in the illusion on stage with its real world events.
Scripta Manent 
July 28, 2014
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