Paul Batterson - Page 10

Ahhh, the joys of middle school: three years of bad skin, Mrs. Goldsmith's English class, bullies, popularity contests, and enough deep, emotional scars to fill therapists' offices for years to come. The Gallery Players production of 13: THE MUSICAL, the witty and at times painfully accurate depiction of that delightful time right before high school, is dead on the money.

Spiders and Broadway musicals don't always work well with each other. Witness the mixed fortunes of SPIDER-MAN: TURN OFF THE NIGHT. However, Short North Stage's epic production of KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN: THE MUSICAL is one of the "can't miss" musicals in the Columbus' fall season.

It can be a monstrous challenge to produce a musical based on an iconic television show. Most of the audience comes in with its own set of preconceived expectations of what certain characters should sound, dress and look like.

The Short North Stage production crews built another extraordinary set for its production of August Wilson's FENCES - a ramshackle brick house proudly kept by Troy (Mujahid Abdul-Rashid) and Rose Maxson (Rita Gregory) in somewhere, Middle America. But it was a simple prop, a cloth baseball suspended by a nylon rope off an artificial tree that provided the perfect analogy for the performance.

It's hard to imagine this but the musical WICKED is now a teenager. The Stephen Schwartz musical, based on the story of the Wizard of Oz as told from the Wicked Witch of the West's prospective, debuted on Broadway in 2003 and captured theatre goers' rapture and attention.

In two years, the Grace InFused Theatre Festival went from the drawing table to a full day event at the Columbus Performing Arts Center on Aug. 6. The festival, which promotes gospel-based productions, drew close to 100 people to a six-hour presentation that featured the world-premiere of STAINED GLASS, a table reading of PRODIGAL BROTHERS, two monologues by Howi Tiller and the music of Joe Hendrickson.

Behind every competition, no matter how noble or earnest its aims might be, are a group of ruthless, cut-throat competitors trying to win. THE 25TH ANNUAL PUTNAM COUNTY SPELLING BEE is no different. Watching the six 'competitors' go after the county's coveted spelling trophy provides the perfect closer to the summer schedule for the Weathervane Playhouse.

The 2016 Grace InFused Theatre Festival will be held in downtown Columbus, Ohio, at the Columbus Performing Arts Center (549 Franklin Avenue) on Saturday, Aug. 6, starting at 4:30pm. The festival will feature new plays and performances from esteemed playwrights from across the country.

In his Playbill notes for THE FANTASTICKS, Short North Stage director Jonathan Flom makes an unusual assumption of his audience. Flom writes: 'I think that the vast majority of avid theatergoers upwards of age 30 have some relationship with THE FANTASTICKS.'

Not all theatre is designed to be an escape, a refuge from our ordinary lives. Every once-in-a-while a piece comes along that not only entertains us but makes us think. When those two elements come together, you've really got something special.

'I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both.'

If it were a high school student, HEATHERS would've been voted 'Least Likely To Become A MUSICAL.' Released in 1988, the dark comedy about an outsider's plot of murderous revenge against the popular kids' clique almost seems like a backlash to the sunnier view of high school life like THE BREAKFAST CLUB (1985), PRETTY IN PINK (1986) and FERRIS BUELLER'S DAY OFF (1986).

In the third song, 'See I'm Smiling,' of the musical THE LAST FIVE YEARS, Catherine Hiatt (played by Melissa Hall) sings to her husband, 'I think you're really gonna like this show. I'm pretty sure it doesn't suck.'

After seeing a villager shot in the face during a missionary trip to Uganda, Elder Price comes to a stunning revelation in the hilarious musical BOOK OF MORMON: 'Africa is nothing like THE LION KING.'

As a principal percussionist for the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, Philip Shipley is used to watching concerts from behind the oboes and the woodwinds. At the CSO's concert with Ben Folds on April 9, Shipley got distinctly different point of view.

It has been 18 years between John Stefano's performances as John Adams in 1776 and his return on April 7 as Tevye in Otterbein University's production of FIDDLER ON THE ROOF. The chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance, who is retiring after 24 years at Otterbein, never lost a beat.

THE FULL MONTY: THE MUSICAL has some pretty unlikely ingredients for musical comedy: divorce, unemployment, degradation, custody battles, suicide, alienation and Buffalo, New York in the economically depressed 2000. Yet somehow, Short North Stage director Edward Carignan makes all those ingredients work while bringing Terrence McNally's script and David Yazbeck's lyrics to life.

Rebecca LaChance surprised the 800 attendees of the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts preview on March 30 at the Southern Theatre. LaChance, who performed 'Beautiful' and '(You Make Me Feel Like) A Natural Woman,' is expected to play the title role in BEAUTIFUL: THE CAROLE KING MUSICAL when the national tour has a six-day stopover in June, 2017 in Columbus.

When he was starting out as the front man for the rock trio The Ben Folds Five, Ben Folds admits he never pictured the day when he would perform his concert staple 'Rock This B*tch' with a symphony behind him.

Actor Doug Joseph has gone from playing Cecil B. DeMille in the Short North Stage's production of SUNSET BOULEVARD to playing the very Norma Desmond-esque Angela Arden in the theatre's production of DIE, MOMMIE DIE!