Review: SOUTH PACIFIC at The Muny
The Muny has mounted a quite perfect 'South Pacific'!
The Muny has mounted a quite perfect 'South Pacific'!
It’s been a really, really good year in St. Louis for French songs. In April the Blue Strawberry hosted a marvelous evening of Jacques Brel, the superstar chansonnier of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Now, at the Sheldon, we have an evening of that even more dazzling icon, Édith Piaf, who blazed across the world’s musical firmament a generation earlier.
While many jukebox musicals rely heavily on the audience's pre-existing love for the music, 'Jersey Boys' stands out as an exception. This Tony-winning musical, currently gracing the stage at Desert Theatreworks, transcends its soundtrack.
Dorothy Silver, the 'grande dame' of Cleveland theatre, noted for her talent, charm, grace and compassion, once said of herself, 'I've been letting myself grow old for years. I'm very confident in my age. Also, it helps me be competitive in getting many stage and film roles, since so many older actresses try to take years off their age.'
The wildly popular musical, A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder will be at The Memphis Orpheum February 9 - 14th. This daring, dark comedy hails from Roy Horniman's 1907 novel, Israel Rank: The Autobiography of a Criminal, told through the eyes of a man who bumps off the aristocrats standing in the way of his title. In 1949, the book was loosely adapted into the movie, 'Kind Hearts and Coronets' which starred Dennis Price, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson, and Alec Guinness. In 2014, Robert Freedman and Steven Lutvak set the story to music. It has been nabbing awards and slaying audiences ever since.
Patricia Ward Kelly's compelling presentation combines rare and familiar film clips, previously unreleased audio recordings, personal memorabilia, and insights culled from her hours of interviews and conversations with her husband whom she met in 1985 in Washington, D.C., where she was the writer for a television special about The Smithsonian for which he was the host and narrator. She was 26; he was 73. Soon after, he invited her to California to write his memoir. They fell in love, married, and were together until his death in 1996.