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Boston Globe
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
With ‘Hairspray,' Theatre By The Sea is back to its signature sumptuous self
A ticket to Based on the high-camp, low-budget 1988 nonmusical film by transgressive cult filmmaker John Waters, the musical version for the stage – which opened on Broadway in 2002, came to Providence on tour in 2003, and first appeared on the Theatre By The Sea stage in 2011 – shares its light-weight story of a big girl with big dreams against a backdrop of the civil rights movement. Sixteen-year-old Tracy Turnblad lives to dance and despite her unfashionable girth, awkward parents, and liberal views, lands a spot on a local TV teen dance program, 'The Corny Collins Show,' which she helps integrate with her high school detention buddies and best friend, Penny Pingleton. Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up The film's subversive satire addressing racism, body conformism, big hair, and bullying is dipped in a candy coating for the musical, courtesy of a funny, uplifting script by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan, and up-tempo, Tony Award-winning songs by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. Advertisement All this is performed by an abundantly talented, high-energy company under Christopher Campbell's direction, and a superb seven-piece band (Nathan Urdangen and Jen Christina on keyboard; Heather Katz-Cote on reed; Shawn Baptista on trumpet; Nick Moreira on guitar; Garrett Campbell on bass; and Mike Sartini on drums) following Urdangen's lightning-quick baton. The musical is chock-full of production numbers overflowing with Campbell's explosive, period-appropriate choreography. Advertisement The show's scenic design (Cassie McKnight) is limited to just a few, hyper-realistic, standalone set pieces wheeled in front of a colorful, projected background and under several illuminated (Paul Jonathan Davis) proscenium arches. This serves to accommodate the small stage and a 28-member ensemble in perpetual motion, and it creates the illusion of greater size and depth. But, mostly, it accommodates all that is delightfully larger than life in this production, including freakishly huge wigs on the girls who populate 'The Corny Collins Show' and the stocky, 6- feet-4-inch tall Marc Christopher, who plays Tracy's mom, Edna. A guy in this central role has long been a nod to Advertisement As goes Edna, so too goes the production as a whole, into which the exceptionally gifted Niki Metcalf, as an accessible and thoroughly lovable Tracy, fits like a glove. With her powerful belt, remarkable dancing skills, and national tour experience in the role, Metcalf is a refreshing spritz of aerosol starting from the show's opening number, 'Good Morning Baltimore,' which introduces her and the world of this musical to the audience. Also triple-threat terrific is Madeline Glave as Penny, Sam Yousuf as Penny's love interest Seaweed, and the featured player in the high-energy, dance break-driven 'Run and Tell That,' Dominic Young as Tracy's love interest Link Larkin, and Olivia Allen as Little Inez, Seaweed's younger sister. Alana Cauthen is remarkable as Motormouth Maybelle, who is the host of the TV program's 'Negro Day' and whose superb and soulful 'I Know Where I've Been' is this production's show-stopping anthem. Unfortunately, there are some talented actors who simply can't escape the woefully over-the-top dialogue assigned to their characters. They include Dylan Lugosi as teen dance show goddess Amber Von Tussle, Ginger Kroll as her mom and snobbish show producer Velma Von Tussle, Melanie Souza as every out-of-touch female authority figure, and Fred Sullivan Jr., as every out-of-touch male authority figure. Out-of-step is Kevin B. McGlynn. His comic timing is superb and his portrayal of Tracy's dad, Wilbur Turnblad, is abundantly endearing. But he and Christopher miss all the loving, tender moments between Wilbur and Edna. Their second-act duet, the charming 'You're Timeless to Me,' is played to the audience rather than to each other, and fails to earn the automatic encore that is built into the song. Advertisement No matter. To quote from this musical's closing number, which serves as the moral to the story: 'You can't stop the motion of the ocean or the rain from above/ You can try to stop the paradise we're dreamin' of/ But you cannot stop the rhythm of two hearts in love to stay/ 'Cause you can't stop the beat!' HAIRSPRAY Book by Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan. Music by Marc Shaiman. Lyrics by Marc Shaiman and Scott Whitman. Directed by Christopher Campbell. At Theatre By The Sea, 364 Cards Pond Road, Wakefield. Through Aug. 16. Tickets are $74-$100 (including fees). 401-782-8587. Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him .
Boston Globe
18-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
How a chance meeting at a Providence market launched a friendship and an aspiring filmmaker's career
Advertisement 'We talked for a while. He said that he and his wife [actress and author Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up The two not only became fast friends, but Rockwell offered the 2019 Advertisement This film is about a flower delivery driver who, Osubor said, is trying to outrun the evils of his childhood. He's the success story of his town, because he's the only one of his friends who is not dead, in prison, or in rehab. 'On the contrary, he has a good, decent job and he stays out of trouble … but in life even though you might try to avoid trouble, trouble can still find you,' he said. The protagonist begins to suspect that the life he's been living isn't actually what he thought it was and, as Osubor explained, 'everything he knew and believed to be gospel was all just a facade. What happens when you have to choose not between 'good' and 'bad' options, but between the lesser of two evils?' The Hamilton, Ohio, native – an only child whose parents emigrated to the United States from Nigeria in 1997, a year before he was born – said he is 'very proud' of 'Big Daddy's Flowers,' which he made on a shoestring budget of just $2,000. Some of the cost-saving measures included starring as the lead – in addition to directing and producing – hiring non-actors, and working out a deal with Parsons to be in his film. 'Karyn is the author of children's books and runs a nonprofit that tells children stories about the achievements of African Americans. She needed help with her website, so I told her I would do that if she would be a part of this film, since I could never afford her,' said Osubor, who since 2020 has owned a multimedia consulting company that develops media narrative campaigns for clients, including Narragansett Brewing Company, Google, and the New England branch of the Environmental Protection Agency. Advertisement Osubor, who lives in Providence with roommates, said that filming in Rhode Island has been 'wonderful' not only because it is less expensive than elsewhere, but people have been 'so accommodating and supportive.' 'I've found the infrastructure/community more open to risk-taking and enterprising filmmaking,' he said. 'We had a lot of support rather than apprehension about what our intentions were.' Osubor didn't always want to be a filmmaker. His original plan was to go to law school after he graduated from Brown. But he changed his mind after an internship in a government legal office in Washington, D.C., where he witnessed behavior that 'went against much of what I stand for.' It was his disenchantment with politics and witnessing the polarization of people with different viewpoints – and the importance of compromise – that sparked Osubor's idea for his feature film, which he referred to as 'solid and vulnerable.' 'Films are accessible to people and often take up a fair amount of space in public discourse,' he said. 'I love literature [he majored in literary arts at Brown], but you don't hear people referencing [books] the way you hear them say, 'Hey, did you watch this series? Did you see this film?' ' Osubor is quick to point out that as much as he enjoyed making 'Big Daddy's Flowers,' it didn't come without challenges – mostly due to minimal funding. But he said obstacles led to the necessity to 'reorient your mind and look at things differently.' Advertisement 'Rejection should be viewed as a nudge … it had helped me to learn and grow,' he said. Rockwell, 68, a father of two who was raised in Cambridge, Mass., said he mentored and worked with many young filmmakers when he was at NYU, and he liked what he saw in Osubor and in his work. 'His way of seeing things, his voice, his narrative … it's unique. He's fun and interesting and kind of odd. Right away I liked his work,' Rockwell said. 'He's very talented and very eager and willing. He jumps right into a situation.' Osubor said he is grateful for Rockwell's support, mentorship, and now what has grown into a 'great friendship.' He said Rockwell has been very helpful and he's looking forward to working in tandem with him to navigate next steps and 'defy these norms, think differently and find solutions to whatever future roadblocks that might exist.' 'This industry is becoming more accessible for filmmakers like me to enter the arena,' Osubor said, 'and the sense of confidence I've gained from making this film has been a great takeaway.'
Boston Globe
10-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Indigenous composer Cris Derksen highlights R.I.'s history with ‘First Light'
Advertisement 'I always come to my work with an Indigenous lens, as it is my perspective,' she said. Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up As Derksen dug deeper into Rhode Island's history, she came across a 1771 advertisement for 'What if John Anthony managed to escape and leave behind a life that was not his and create his own life, reclaim his own light?' Derksen wondered. The question became the heart of her commission for Newport Classical: 'First Light,' a hopeful, reimagined future in which the boy escapes bondage and claims his own destiny, with a central message of resilience and renewal. 'First Light' will premiere on July 13 Advertisement The Boston Globe spoke with Derksen about how she continues to reimagine the classical music landscape by celebrating the past as well as pushing the art form forward. The interview was edited for length and clarity. Q. You debuted a work at Carnegie Hall in New York City. What was that like for you? Derksen: Oh, gosh, that was kind of a humbling experience. Carnegie was always so high – I never even put it on my bucket list. It was to write a piece for Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, he's the conductor there, he first asked me to write a piece for the opening of their season, and I was so stoked because it's pretty impressive. And then even before I even had the concept, he was like, 'Hey, do you want to go on tour? You want to go to Philadelphia and Carnegie Hall?' So even before I wrote the piece, I knew it was going there, so there's a lot of pressure. That piece is called 'Controlled Burn,' and it's about the forest fires that we've been having. What's your process when you are commissioned for a piece? The concept takes the longest for me. And once I know the story that I'm going to tell, then it's so much easier to actually write the story. And I definitely think of my compositions as a journey. Sometimes they come with parameters, and sometimes they don't. And the parameter (for 'First Light') was it has to be about Rhode Island. And I'm Canadian. I'm originally from northern Alberta, so quite far away from Rhode Island. I didn't really know much about Rhode Island besides that's where the fancy people go live [laughs]. Diving into Rhode Island's history was really intense because that's the first place of colonization. Advertisement The rad thing as a composer is I get to shed light onto anything I want to. I get to just put a little flashlight and be like, 'Hey, look at this. Like, let's think about that.' That's what 'First Light' is about, it's thinking about slavery and racism, and all the dark and dirty things that happened with making North America what it is today. In this piece, I was like, 'Let's do a historical reimagining of an Indigenous slave boy who escapes and gets free. And let's recreate history, or let's reimagine history and put some light into such an adverse situation.' We're seeing the story from his view, it's the journey of his perspective. It starts in the morning. I was thinking about first light: who is awake in the first light? It's farmers. And that's also like a really good time to escape, that kind of dark morning, and eventually, like a leitmotif, he escapes, and it's just hope. And that's it, it's a nice beam of hope. It's a cello quartet piece for the Galvan Cello players: Oh, man, they're so virtuosic. The Galvin Cello Quartet. © Todd Rosenberg Photography What's your feeling about the state of classical music today? I work with the Calgary Philharmonic as an artistic advisor, and I've sat on the Orchestras Canada Equity Board. And really, it's like, 'How do we make classical music look and sound more like Canada?' It's the same for the States. It is about diversity, it is about bringing in all perspectives. If you only have one perspective, it gets pretty mundane. But having a bunch of different perspectives, it gives a lot more color and a lot more history, you know? Advertisement As a composer, what kind of pressure is there to create music that's relevant for our time? What's rad about today's time is there's so much we can take from different genres, too, and it's still classical music. But I definitely add an element of the rhythm, in little bits it gets a little jazzy, almost, but it's still very much rooted in classical. My roots are totally romantic classical heavies. Like, give me Brahms, give me Rachmaninoff, give me the heavy, tonal stuff. I use that a lot, but we're making it relevant, too. I think music should be relevant. What inspired you to start with classical music in the first place? I feel like I've always been writing music, like even when I was a little kid. I started with piano at 5, and was writing my own things by 7. I'm better at getting my feelings out through music than I am with words. So it's always been a language for me. I just can't imagine not doing it. And what was it like for you as an Indigenous artist, to be in the classical music world? At first it was very lonely. When I was growing up, there was nobody like me. But I've started a classical Indigenous residency here in Canada. So now we have a network of folks, and there are folks that we are connected with down in the States. For me, it's about telling our stories, it's about getting our stories out there to all the people, and it doesn't really matter what medium it is. Advertisement How do you inspire other young people who are interested in the classical arts? What's your advice to them? Don't quit. Just don't quit. When I go to schools, I say, 'I got a secret for you, and that's the nerds win in the end.' If you like something now and you don't quit, and you just stick with it, and you just put the time into it, you are eventually going to get pretty good at it. And once you're pretty good at it, people are going to want it. And what's next for you after this? I'm currently writing this next ballet, and then I have a piece with the Toronto Symphony, where I live. So writing that in the fall, and then summer is the Vancouver Folk Fest and then Ottawa Chamber Fest. But really the summer is about writing this ballet.
Boston Globe
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Theatre by the Sea serves up ‘Waitress' with a side of extraordinary
Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up How formulaic? ' Advertisement Jenna is surrounded by standard issue sidekicks – outgoing Becky (Anny Jules) and woefully insecure Dawn (Emelie Latzer) – who are fellow waitresses tasked, as musical theater sidekicks tend to be, with providing most of the show's comic relief. The rest comes courtesy of the diner's adorable owner Joe (Kevin B. McGlynn), its adorable short-order cook Cal (Billy Goldstein) and the adorable, delightfully quirky customer Ogie (Matt DaSalva). Advertisement In diner jargon, the script that drives 'Waitress' is a blue-plate special: a platter of marginally nutritious and easily digestible fare doled out in pre-measured portions. But then there's the songs. Each is a captivating internal monologue that adds weight and dimension to the underwritten characters. And each is given pitch-perfect delivery by a very talented cast, accompanied by an outstanding six-piece band (music director Jacob Priddy and Alex Tirrell on keyboard, Adrienne Taylor on cello, Bruce Hagist on guitar, Garrett Campbell on bass, and Mike Sartini on drums). The show's opening number, 'What's Inside,' suggests that a pie is more than just a little flour, eggs, and sugar. There's heart. Every member of this company brings heart to the production, and none more so than the extraordinary Mackey-McGee. Her powerful and beautifully nuanced vocals – which turns Jenna's 11th-hour self-reflective 'She Used to Be Mine' into a tear-jerking show-stopper – is mesmerizing, as is her ability to capture all the pain and potential in Jenna's sad and uneventful life. Most other featured performers are similarly effective at tapping the unwritten essence of their characters, though there's a few who work too hard to do so, and are still unable to find the True North of the person they are playing. The physically imposing Channing creates an Earl who is way too menacing for a gentle musical like this, while Latzer goes to the opposite extreme with her fragile-to-the-point-of-frenzied portrayal of Dawn. Advertisement This imbalance in acting choices is the only thing that slips through director Kevin P. Hill's attention to detail, for everything else happening within scenic designer Cassie McKnight's picturesque rendering of the diner – including scene changes nicely camouflaged by Paul Jonathan Davis's lighting design, short bursts of Ashley Chasteen's fluid and always interesting choreography, and the seemingly effortless emergence of customers, baking products, and pies out of nowhere – is seamless. An essential part of all these enterprises is a very gifted and engaged ensemble (Ian Black, Jake Bryan, Indya Cherise, Audrey Curdo, Ian Dembek, Preston Karp, Ashton Norris, Evan Owen, Katy Plaziak, Emma Wilcox, and Daisy Wilson-Dzogbe). Chances are, they too are singing the production's catchiest tune on their way out of the theater and will find themselves doing the same thing long after the show's three-week run. WAITRESS Book by Jessie Nelson. Music and lyrics by Sara Bareilles. Directed by Kevin P. Hill. At Theatre By The Sea, 364 Cards Pond Rd., Wakefield. Through July 19. Tickets are $74-$100 (including fees). 401-782-8587. Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him .
Boston Globe
12-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Better late than never, ‘Blues for an Alabama Sky' gets a poignant production at R.I.'s Trinity Rep
Get Globe Rhode Island Food Club A weekly newsletter about food and dining in Rhode Island, by Globe Rhode Island reporter Alexa Gagosz. Enter Email Sign Up ' Advertisement Best friends Angel Allen (Cloteal L. Horne), a struggling nightclub singer with a temper, and Guy Jacobs (Taavon Gamble), a promising costume designer and self-described 'notorious homosexual,' dream of a glamorous future but they can barely eke out a living in the local jazz clubs. Their across-the-hall neighbor Delia Patterson (Meagan Dilworth), a timid but driven woman, and a local doctor Sam Thomas (Dereks Thomas), who's is a bit of a rapscallion, are trying to bring a much-needed family planning clinic to the neighborhood, but are getting significant pushback. When an intense young man fresh from Alabama, named Leland Cunningham (Quinn West), catches Angel's eye and is brought into the fold of this tight-knit group, well, we know from the get-go that this will not end well for anyone. He is the very personification of all the dangers that are lurking around the corner. Advertisement One of the many things that is so intriguing about this Trinity Rep production is that there are no perceivable corners in Michael McGarty's scenic design. There are no walls to define the two meticulously decorated and well-appointed brownstone apartments, just a black backdrop and clever lighting design by Erica Lauren Maholmes. Deco lamps and hanging art, including a portrait of famous performer Josephine Baker in her prime, are suspended in air. There are no doors to separate the apartments, just black frames topped with stained glass. And the large streetlamps that surround the building can be seen clearly through all the open space. This setting has two distinctive effects on this production. For one, the characters are always exposed and, as such, seem particularly vulnerable. This is something that the veteran cast picks up on in their portrayals. Horne lets us see the small cracks in Angel's cold survivor's demeanor. Gamble deftly reveals the fatal flaws in Guy's blind determination. Delia's gumption gives way to layers of insecurity in Dilworth's hands. And Thomas bares the tenderness behind Sam's practiced, party-guy persona. Even West's Leland has his soft spots. Advertisement McGarty's scenic design also adds a blatant theatricality to this production. When coupled with Amber Voner's striking period costumes and wig design, and the slow jazz and passing streetcars heard during scene transitions, courtesy of Larry D. Fowler Jr.'s sound design, it complements the undercurrent of melodrama in Cleage's brilliant script. Under Davis's direction, everything is slightly heightened, immediately engaging, and always interesting. It took a while to arrive, but this production of 'Blues for an Alabama Sky' was worth waiting for. BLUES FOR AN ALABAMA SKY Play by Pearl Cleage. Directed by Jackie Davis. At Trinity Rep's Dowling Theater, 201 Washington St., Providence. Through June 29. Tickets are $24-$90. 401-351-4242, Bob Abelman is an award-winning theater critic who formerly wrote for the Austin Chronicle. Connect with him .
