Review of Feast at Albany Park Theater Project

Once upon a week ago I went to a play, and it was called Feast because it is about food. The play was funny at some parts and sometimes not. It was fun but weird because I have never seen a play like it before. The kids wrote the stories; they acted on a stage that had a great set. It was awesome.

The card scene was very very funny because there was this girl that was doing an assignment for a card that her mom needed. She got the word citizen kind of right and kind of wrong. There was a shopping cart girl--she rolled around in the cart and told everyone how much she loved the food there. She loved the ice cream. There was a guy that cared about how people thought about him. He said that students thought he was wealthier than he really was because he had very good clothing. He didn’t like to use the Link card in front of other people because then everyone would know that he was poor.

The doll scene was very scary for me because it was like they were alive dolls with white faces. It was stuck in my head like it was in a haunted house. It was so spooky. They told all these bad stories that were bad for girls because it was about bad things happening to girls. This girl was giving some Biryani to her new husband. She was thinking about being careful. She thought he would like it, but then he said nothing. It made me feel kind of sad for the girl.

The Cow scene was very funny because there were all these noises. They made noises. They used a cowbell, a microphone, their voices. They had a plastic bag that they crunkled up. And they had had a broom--sh sh sh sh. They ate the apples. It was about taking care of a cow so they could send it to the market. Somebody could buy it; then they could eat. It made the boy feel terrible, but then he got another cow.

The Tamale scene was about these two people that were poor so they selled tamales. Then a stranger came along and she showed them a special way to make tamales. That girl blew this sparkly stuff out of her hand, like she was blowing fire off her hand. There were cheese and chiles that were the only things I remember about the ingredients. They just were dancing and singing all the ingredients. That is what I would have in my tamales.

There was this guy that loved the candy, and at the beginning he was eating chocolate and his master said “No you must not eat the chocolate,” with an accent, please. And the end he was eating candy, and the master said “I can hear you eating the candy!” With an accent, please, again.

The lights, they sometimes shined on the actors in all these different colors like in the doll scene. The set looked like just food when we came in. It looked like a food store. There were like these steps--each shelf was higher so it was like steps. There was a basket that was with the rice but I thought that this girl couldn’t find the basket, so she just pretended that she had a basket and did the same thing on the ground

The show was funny because it had some kid-funny and some grown-up-funny things that I kind of understood. People that like food would like this show. They talked about all kinds of food: tamales, cereal, coffee, biryani. They were not all from the same countries. They even talked about ice cream. Yum. There was food from different countries because then people would want to try these foods. Except cereal and ice cream because almost everybody in the United States has had cereal and ice cream. It makes you want to go to those places sometimes--like India or the Philippines. This show should be for ages six and up because if I saw it when I was six then I think it should be for ages six and up.

Review of State of the Union at Strawdog Theater Company

Once a week ago I went to a play called State of Union and it was good. It was a great show. I liked it a lot. The play was about somebody that was running for president. But he didn’t want to be president. It was about a union, and it was in the state.

Michael Dailey, he plays Grant. He was very funny at parts; sometimes he wasn’t. At the beginning he didn’t want to be president and he was telling everybody. That was a serious time. The guy that was married to the girl that was drinking with Grant’s wife gave him some stuff that he could do when he was president on a card and Grant said “Could you please throw these away.” It was funny.

Kristina Johnson played Kay, Grant’s girlfriend. That character was one of my favorite characters because I just thought she was smart and cool and fancy. I thought she had some good ideas about him being president. She published newspapers for work. Her costume was very very pretty, like the black and white dress she wore until it got stained; then it didn’t look as pretty--but it was still very pretty.

Kendra Thulin, she played Mary. She was Grant’s wife. She played a good part--she did a good job pretending to be angry. She did a good job because I think she was cast very good; she was a good choice as the character. She had to pretend to be drunk. She had to pretend that someone was her husband, and I thought she did a good job of that because it really wasn’t her husband. It was very cool how fast she talked.
Andy Lawfer played Spike who was Grant’s assistant, and it was funny how he tried to eat Grant’s hamburger. Then Grant’s wife said “don’t you dare” and he said “okay, I can starve.” It was HILARIOUS (all in capitals, please). So he had a pencil behind each ear, and he was looking for a pencil, and he found one, but not from his head. It was funny.

BF Helman he played the agent to the president. He was trying to find someone to be president because Franklin Roosevelt was dead. He kept talking on the telephone in the middle of a conversation about Grant. He just kept going on and off and on and off--it was funny. He was kind of a good guy and kind of a bad guy in the play.

Kate Harris, she played Mrs. Alexander. She was so very funny because of the accent that she had. There was a funny scene that she was in. Her husband made her so many drinks that all those drinks made her get more drinks. Once he brought her 4 so he didn’t have to go back so much. Jim Heatherly played Judge Jefferson Davis Alexander who was the husband of that girl I was just talking about. He gave Grant the letter, and that’s the one that he threw away. Both of them did an awesome performance.

Annie Munch, she did a good job playing all the servants. She didn’t have a very big part, but I still think she did a good job. She played all the maids except for the boy ones. I could tell that they were different because one of them wore a hat and one of them didn’t. She was also the food maid that brought them food. And that’s when the wife said “Don’t you dare, Spike.” Pat Whalen played another of the servants. He brought in the radio. It was really funny how he said, “lots of people want radios today.”

Rob Skrocki, he played the Senator. He was at the party with the girlfriend and the woman the wife talked to. Brant Russell played Hardy. Hardy was so funny because he said, “Nobody told me not to dress.” He was the only one who was dressed up fancy. The friend Sam (John Zinn) came in at the party and it was scary when the wife found out that the girlfriend was in Detroit at the same time she was. Samantha Gleisten played Mrs. Draper. When she went looking for her wrap the wife said, “Would you like some help?” And she said, “No, I’m just going.” I think maybe she missed her husband or her children.

The set was cool because of the arches. The arches were so cool. The set had a couch and some teacups, and I actually got to pretend to drink from one of the teacups when they were practicing for the show. I think all the places they went were almost the same, but that was okay because it was just a set. They went places that you would go awhile ago--I mean like in the time that Eleanor Roosevelt was alive. The person that made the set (Marianna Csaszar) did a good job because they took away the desk because you would not have a desk everywhere you go.

The costumes were cool because they looked like that kind of time period when Amelia Earhart was alive. Joanna Melville was the costume designer and she made good costumes because when she made them she must have thought about the time period that this was in. My favorite girl’s costume was the black one that the girlfriend was wearing. I thought the costume designer did a good job at making it look like it was stained when the wife spilled a drink on her. And I loved the one that the wife wore when she first came in. I liked Spike’s and Grant’s costumes--my favorite one was the white one.

Geoff Button was the director and I think he did a good job casting everybody. I think Michael helped him. Michael is my friend who I helped do his work while my dad was rehearsing. The director did a good job directing because he made the story very clear for grownups and some of it for kids.

I felt good to see the show. I was glad that some people that I knew were in it, and some people that I didn’t know were in it, because I thought that then I could meet some new people and see some people I had known before. People that like romance and presidents would like this play. Tell kids that if they want to come see the play, “Well, you might not understand all of this.” That’s okay because not even some grownups understood all of it. And tell them there will be some kissing too.

Review of Comedy of Errors at Court Theatre

Once upon a time I went to a show called Comedy of Errors. It was very very very very funny. The play is awesome. Shakespeare wrote the play. It didn’t sound exactly like the Shakespeare play, but it did have stuff that was in the Shakespeare play. Those other funny parts that were not from the Shakespeare play were from the director’s head. Sean Graney’s head, which was the director. Shakespeare’s head also had some ideas, and they shared those ideas together even though Shakespeare is dead now.

The set was filled with paintings that were all doors so they could peek through them at the end. I thought it looked kind of dirty; it had like trash everywhere. It was funny because it had Coke cans and McDonald’s boxes and leftover Subway sandwiches. Those weren’t there in that time, in the time that Shakespeare wrote this play. That was an exaggeration. The set was very very cool.

The costumes were really cool because they didn’t look exactly like the time, but they kind of did. The

back of the dresses of Adriana and Luciana were kind of like Shakespeare’s time, like you could see some of their backs. They looked kind of like fancy dresses--from Shakespeare’s time and from our time. Some of the actors put their clothes on very quickly so they could run out on stage as a different character. The quick changes were cool. The people that were at the end that came and had a bow and were all dressed in black--they were the changers. I think they did an awesome job. They did it so quickly! I just thought of an idea that I could make a machine. My idea was that they could have a machine that put their clothes on for them. So then they could change their clothes even quicker. They could just like run out on stage with different clothes on, and it would keep putting on their clothes as they run.

I’ve seen Alex Goodrich in plays before. I’ve seen him in Emperor’s New Clothes, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Barrel of Monkeys. All the plays I’ve seen him in were awesome. This was an awesome play that he was in. I know that it won’t be the last play I will see him in. Comedy of Errors was the soonest play that I saw him in. The Dromio that is visiting is the brother to the Dromio that lives here. He did a clothes changing where he was the person that was kind of like a priate--he was wearing a pirate kind of shirt--and then he ran on stage in the tuxedo. He was the Dromio that visited first and in two seconds he was a different Dromio. He was awesome. He was so funny. Where he went to Rope Depot--that was a funny part. He is very good at acting. One of my favorite scenes was the one where his master talked into the microphone. The guy that he was recording (his master) just talked right into a recording thing, and then Dromio shut it off. Then at some point he showed it to the ladies, and they were so very angry about it, and it was so very funny. When the other guy said don’t lose the money, Dromio gave it to a poor person or a peddler. He tried to give it to the audience, and he called the audience peddlers because he was pointing to us. He wore this white abbey dress with a paper abbey hat when he was Emelia. Emelia was the father’s wife. It was so very very funny. I didn’t think he was really a girl but he did very good at it.

Elizabeth Ledo, she played three parts. She played a newspaper boy and the sister AND Dromio’s wife. She maked them all seem different which is a good thing to say about a person. She had all these funny lines as all the characters. The one where she drank the Coke can when her sister asked for one--that was funny. Antipholus, he falls in love with the sister Luciana. It was awesomely awesome because it was kind of funny how she like backed away ev

ery time he came close to her. She backed, backed, backed up, and then she finally ran into the house. Dromio’s wife was so funny. She had like Groucho glasses only without the mustache. She talked kind of funny. I’ve never heard anyone who sounded lik

e her before. It was very weird.

Erik Hellman, he played both Antipholuses, and he also played the father of all the kids. The Antipholuses were different because of their voices, but their hair and body were still the same. One went around with teenagers, the other didn’t. They had different outfits but still looked a lot alike. He sounded like Chico from the Marx Brothers with the bad Italian accent when he was the one that lived there. The one that went around with teenagers went to jail. It was so funny. He did all those funny stuff like talked into the recorder. How he made Dromio do all the work was kind of funny and kind of mean. He was just talking to the wrong Dromio like the whole time. He slapped him instead of his real servant! He is serious and funny both at the same time. He is funny because he was being serious. It was seriously funny.

Kurt Ehrmann, he played Angelo and Dr. Pinch and the Courtezan. The Courtezan was so funny because he tortured them with his shiny underwear. He tortured them with his tights and his wig. Dr. Pinch was the doctor and he was also tooken to jail. He was like a wizard doctor and he had a deep voice and he didn’t make any sense at all. Angelo was so very funny. He tried to get the gold necklace and he stabbed his best friend by accident.

Stacy Stoltz, she played Adriana. She was so funny because she asked for a Coke and her sister drunk it because she was not being clear. She was just like, “You are not going to drink that are you?” She was mad because her husband wouldn’t come home to eat. She treated her husband badly because he wouldn’t come home to dinner and she asked him ten thousand times to do it. She was very good at acting, but I haven’t seen her in anything, but she was very good. The character with the animal was so funny and she was a bad guy--an angry merchantess. She needed the chain but she never got it.

Steve Wilson, he played a guy that got stabbed and a duke. He had to wear a fake mustache to play a duke. It was so funny how he got stabbed. At the end of the show it was ten hours ago since he got stabbed, and he was still alive, and he still had the sword in his belly. He says “that’s okay,” but then he started sobbing. It looked like he stayed alive, but he had the sword in his belly for his whole life. He did a good job doing acting.

People who like silly things but dramatic things would like this play. They treated everybody badly, but it was funny. I think this play should be ages six and up because I was six when I saw it. You should really go to this play because you would like it even if you don’t like Shakespeare because it is not all the way Shakespeare. After you see this, I think you might like Shakespeare more.