PROMO: 'Alice in Wonderland' at Heritage Square Music Hall Children's Theatre

Annie Dwyer and T.J. Mullin in Heritage Square Music Hall Children's Theatre production of "Alice in Wonderland."

The Heritage Square Music Hall Children’s Theatre

presents

“Alice In Wonderland”

Written by Eric Weinstein

Directed by Annie Dwyer

Alice is arriving in July, with an amazing adventure! Go with her as she follows the White Rabbit to a Wonderland that must be seen to be believed! Have some tea with the Mad Hatter and play Flamingo Croquet with the Queen of Hearts. Don’t be late!

“Alice In Wonderland” runs July 2 through November 5 with performances every Saturday at 1:30 p.m.. Tickets: $6.00 for children and adults, $5.00 for seniors (62 and up). Special rates for groups of ten or more children apply. Weekday performances are available, but vary, so call for information. For reservations, call 303-279-7800. Heritage Square Music Hall Children’s Theatre is located at 18301 W. Colfax D-103, Golden, CO 80401. More information at www.hsmusichall.com

The Music Hall opened twenty years ago with a mission to bring laughter and fun to the theatre experience for children. Mission accomplished! In every bit of action on stage, every bit of interaction with the audience (before, during and after the show), this award-winning theatre truly brings the audience into the story.

The Music Hall’s performers treat younger guests to interactive entertainment each Saturday at 1:30 (& 3:00 during the holiday season), with a fun-packed hour of original plays based on favorite fairy tales, classic stories and original tales. Children from the audience are called on stage to help with each performance. Each play is written to include as many children as possible. Flash photography is allowed, so bring your camera to capture those special moments on stage.

Heritage Square also offers a Children’s Birthday Club. As a member, the birthday child’s admission is free, and several Heritage Square merchants offer a gift or discount for visiting their shops.

REVIEW: 'In Perfect Harmony' at Heritage Square Music Hall

 

The multi-talented cast of "In Perfect Harmony" at Heritage Square Music Hall. Photo by Connie Helsley.

Pay no attention to the rock quarry hiding behind the other side of the alpine slide. The Music Hall at Heritage Square in Golden is built on a cozy, comfortable and reassuring foundation of nostalgia and a genuine love for the music of yesteryear. Heritage Square's latest musical revue, "In Perfect Harmony," doesn't have a mean-spirited bone in its body. It's a sweet, innocent, often funny and expertly performed ensemble show with dozens of nearly non-stop songs everyone wants to hear again and again.

Actually, the wholesome innocence and cockeyed optimism expressed by the seasoned cast is part of the joke, as they are all now in their "middle years." Even the kids from "Glee" (who are mostly in their late 20s) are far too jaded to pull this kind of show off. The Music Hall ensemble doesn't even wink as they gleefully play Perry, Cheri, Mary, Llarry, Barry, Terry and Gary, who ostensibly retired from performing absurdly upbeat and cheesy "Up With People" routines two decades ago, and have continued to tour backwater towns, entertaining at shopping malls and nursing homes.

Like the guys in "Forever Plaid," the Dysfunctional Family Singers are just too good for how goofy they look and act, and that's what makes it so much fun.

The material itself is all over the place, but it's safe to say that none of the songs are less than 30 years old. It runs the gamut, without much rhyme or reason, from ragtime, to Broadway, to a TV show medley, Depression-era ballad and 60's pop songs. What all the songs have in common is a sense of musicality, particularly in regard to harmony, thus the show's title: "In Perfect Harmony."

I get it. But the cast NAILS it. The vocal variety and nuances of longtime Music Hall regulars T.J. Mullin, Annie Dwyer, Johnette Toye, Rory Pierce, Alex Crawford, Randy Johnson and Eric Weinstein are awe inspiring. They know their business, and they know each other, so the whole thing clicks. Add in some choreography, and they STILL make it look easy. 

Some of the schmaltz wears a little thin sometimes, but before you know it another classic number is underway. Still, MY cheeks ached for all the grinning they had to do. But I hope I never feel the need to apologize for so thoroughly enjoying a show that affirms joy in life, respects the dignity of its audience, and delivers so many great songs, so very well.

"In Perfect Harmony" performs through September 4 at Heritage Square Music Hall in Golden. The Music Hall is also a dinner theatre, so you can enjoy a buffet meal before the performance. The same cast also runs a children's theatre, performing "Alice in Wonderland" on Saturdays and select weekdays, and has just added a Sunday night interactive mystery dinner theatre production of "Who Done It at the High School Reunion." Call 303-279-7800 or visit www.hsmusichall.com for tickets and information.

REVIEW: Rock of Ages

The Original Broadway cast of Rock of Ages © Joan Marcus

"Rock of Ages" is a loud and lewd arena-rock tribute to the late-80's Sunset Strip heavy metal culture, grafted into a Broadway "boy meets girl" storyline, that, despite its face melting musical onslaught, reminded me somehow of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "State Fair."

But we're not in Kansas anymore.

The requisite stock characters are there, just pimped out in late-80's rocker clothes, hair and aberrant behavior: a shy, hormonal rock star wanna be (American Idol Constantine Maroulis) meets a plucky small town girl who has dreams of becoming an actress in L.A. (Elicia MacKenzie), but she has a fling with the quintessential "heartless bad boy"(Peter Deiwick). There's also a host of quirky supporting characters to give the show some local color and comic relief: a sexy but objectified waitress, a former hippie saloon keeper, a satyr-like pervert narrator, and a host of groupies, strippers, as well as an awesome onstage band.

There's even an evil land developer who wants to turn the Strip into a strip mall, compelling the gang to "put on a show" to try and save their hangout.

"Rock of Ages," which was written by Chris D'Arienzo, earns zero points for originality. Perhaps aware of how workaday the plot and characters are, director Kristin Hanggi "sluts and sleazes" the show up with non-stop sexual innuendo (and outright simulation), tedious crotch and toilet gags, in-your-face bumps, grinds and bending over, with every bottom of the barrel schtick imaginable...and some that I'd prefer remain unimaginable. Rather than titillating, the carnal overkill is just revolting. Rather than root for these degenerate losers and their scummy saloon, I wanted to cheer for the bulldozers and urban renewal. Like "Rent," "Rock of Ages" makes the evil concept of "eminent domain" actually seem appealing.

What saves the show is its music, which consists of more than two dozen hit songs and power ballads from that era, by groups like Styx, Journey, Pat Benatar and lots more, with several iconic bands noticeably lacking, most likely because they didn't want their music associated with a Broadway production.

So if songs like "We're Not Gonna Take It," "Harden My Heart," "We Built this City," "I Wanna Rock," "I Wanna Know What Love Is," "Can't Fight This Feeling," "Too Much Time on My Hands," and others get your heart pumping and your head bobbing, "Rock of Ages" might be just the thing for you.

It wasn't for me.

Denver Center Attractions presents "Rock of Ages" at the Buell Theatre Tuesday-Saturday at 8 p.m., Saturday-Sunday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 7:30 p.m. through June 26. For information or reservations call 303-893-4100 or visit the Denver Center Ticket Office, located at the Helen Bonfils Theatre Complex Lobby. Buy and print online at www.denvercenter.org. To get a sneak peek at the show, check out  www.RockofAgesMusical.com

PROMO: Murder Mystery Dinner Theater at Heritage Square

*New*

Murder Mystery
Dinner Theater!

—  Special Sunday Evenings —
 Performances:
June 16 - All Summer

Who Done It At The High School Reunion

New to the Music Hall, is murder/mystery dinner theater, starting Sunday night June 19. 

This new production, "Who Done It At The High School Reunion," has the fabled Music Hall ensemble doing what it does best... interacting with the audience. 

It's a comedy, and will run Sunday nights thru the summer.  The class of '76 has gathered in the cafeteria of Table Mountain High School for a reunion.  Word spreads thru the crowd that Rhonda Bodacious (Most Popular Girl '76) has been found face down in the celebration cake.  Perhaps she wasn't so popular after all!!!  

We will require the audience's help to find the person responsible for this heinous crime.... the cake was so beautiful!!!   Family-friendly.  Preview prices $30 for the first two weekends.  Tickets available at the Box Office or call 303-279-7800.

REVIEW: Little Shop of Horrors

FOOD FOR THOUGHT: Chachi Martin, Mark Shonsey, Celia Jones in Equinox Theatre Company's campy horror musical comedy "Little Shop of Horrors." Photo by Deb. Flomberg.


I like to think of "Little Shop of Horrors" as the "little musical that could." Like the Roger Corman movie on which it is based, this is a small cast, low budget, genuinely funny horror musical that shows no sign of slowing down. Alan Menkin's music and Howard Ashman's book and lyrics are unsurpassed in creativity, ingenuity and economy. Every moment is a delight.


Equinox Theatre Company's current production of "Little Shop," about a nerdy loser who sells his soul to a carnivorous demon plant from outer space to win self-esteem, a fortune and the girl of his dreams only to lose himself, gets it right from the "get go," and then tosses in a couple of twists that lives up to the production's tag line "as you've never seen it before."

In nearly every scene, hapless nebbish Seymour has to carry the action, and Mark Shonsey is more than up to the task. With brilliant physical humor and facial gymnastics, an expressive voice and a perfectly realized character Shonsey gives a star-caliber performance, setting the bar high for the rest of the performers. Lauren Cora Marsh is wonderfully sympathetic as the much-abused shop girl Audrey who dreams of suburban security, Shannon McCarthy has several great moments as the flower shop owner Mushnik, and Kurt Brighton is outrageously versatile as a sadistic dentist and "Everyone Else."

Chachi Martin, Kansas Lynn Battern and Celia Jones play very hip yet tacky street urchins right out of the cast of "Grease." But the most remarkable casting and directorial innovation of the production is ...

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...Ashley Menard as the diabolical, man-eating plant Audrey II. Yes, instead of a gigantic puppet voiced by a male R&B bass singer, the role is played live by an alluringly voluptuous cabaret singer in a mermaid-like, tendril enhanced fan foliage costume, complete with corset and vine-like boa. Though in retrospect, it occurred to me that the human race might have had a chance of survival if Seymour had been more of a "leg man."

Director Colin Roybal has made an extraordinary artistic choice here. After proving that this company is fully capable of mounting a high quality and comfortingly familiar production of a beloved and well-known musical, he takes the show's biggest "given," then turns it all around. And it works! Seymour's instinctive naming of the plant after his would-be girlfriend, the seductive slippery slope to moral compromise, the man-devouring femme fatale who gives a guy everything he wants only to take it all back and more, it's genius! Rather than bullying Seymour into submission with a commanding (and typically interpreted as "black" villain), Audrey II lures him in with feminine wiles and charms, the velvety touch of coaxing, whining and nagging, a bit of the dominatrix and a Siren's insistent voice. If you're going to take over a male-dominated planet, you don't need much more than that!


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This funny, exciting and innovative production of one my my favorite musicals may not have cost my soul, but it certainly stole my heart, captivated my mind, and had me practically dancing in the aisle.

Equinox Theatre Company's production of "Little Shop of Horrors" plays through June 18 at the historic and quirky Bug Theatre, 3654 Navajo Street, Denver. Tickets are $12-$15. Call 720-984-0781 or visit www.equinoxtheatredenver.com for information or to purchase tickets.