Andee Shuster - Page 2

Well-staged and nicely choreographed by Coralie Heiler and Stefania Bertrand, Savoy's Ruddigore was a sweet show, but quite traditional and safe. This production strayed away from the updated modern-day lyric changes that Savoy was always infamous for.

A rock musical about students dealing with teenage angst and sexual curiosity, Spring Awakening found a suitable home at Moyse Hall, as this year's offering by McGill University's Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS).

For part deux of their Legacy Series, Centaur Theatre offered up a staged reading of Schwartz's The Musical, as their two-cheek kiss to Montreal audiences.

A Bintel Brief: This musical, comprised of vignettes, takes us on a profound journey from Old World shtetls to New World neighbourhoods of tenements houses and sweatshops. The greenhorn experience is treated with respect; sometimes with raw candor, and other times vaudevillian humour as we see how elongated Jewish European last names get shortened to blend into America's melting pot.

It was a neat surprise to discover that The 7 Wonders Theatre has done an annual pop-up musical revue for the past three years. Their latest offering, Spellbound, hit the stage on Saturday September 22nd for just two performances at Mainline Theatre.

Gramma Mia! is touted to be a unique spin on ABBA's jukebox musical Mamma Mia, and just happens to coincide with the cinematic release of Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. Well played, Cote Saint-Luc; well played.

Known throughout the city for their annual December Christmas concert and June Broadway revue, The Lyric Singers offer local vocalists (currently aged 20-something to 70-something) a great opportunity to work with professional directors on a variety of musical styles.

With the sword of Damocles over her head and the fate of the Jewish people at stake, Golda pushes forward with tongue-in-cheek chutzpah and the guilt of the working mother, with her end game being to keep peace in the Middle East.

Portraying known figures onstage is an immense challenge. Thankfully, both Pitre and Street offered us charismatic and sentimental interpretations instead of imitations of these larger than life ladies. The Angel and the Sparrow gives us a bird's eye view into the lives of the two European superstars, beginning with how they first met in a public washroom.

Admittedly, I was not overly excited about Geordie Artistic Director, Mike Payette's choice of Jules Vern's Around the World in 80 Days. I recall being a bit bored as a child by the original David Niven film and I wondered, despite the book being revered as a classic, would the play appeal to today's families? My reservations were immediately put to rest moments after the house lights went down. Setting the scene for our action-packed adventure, the audience is privy to a cleverly staged bank heist.

Based on Dan Almagor's Israeli smash hit musical 'Ish Hasid Haya', Once There Was a Melody is a collection of vignettes, songs, and stories exploring the theme of the spiritual journey. The musical, described as sweet, funny, and touching, involves Jewish folk tales and melodies that have been passed down through the ages. As such, these timeless stories from the Old Country are now being brought to a new generation of Montreal audiences.

When contemplating the idea of science fiction theatre, a vision of teenagers performing campy Star Trek cosplay comes to mind. Despite its cinematic popularity, science fiction is not a genre that we see a lot of on stage, but The Segal Centre managed to present us a chic (sans geek) portrayal of a future that could be, in its latest mainstage play, Marjorie Prime.

At a time when Disney seems to have a monopoly on fairytale musicals, both onstage and on screen, can Rogers and Barer's 1959 musical Once Upon a Mattress hold up to the likes of Frozen, Tangled, and Beauty and the Beast?

Touted as a dark comedy, True Love Lies is a bold and refreshingly candid piece that traverses every emotion in the spectrum as the surprising story of the Sawatsky family unfolds.