Ada Grey has loved theater since she saw her first show at age two. She started reviewing at age 4 and started acting at age 6. Her philosophy of criticism is to respect the people who created the art, be genuine, and give helpful criticism. She is happy to be back to reviewing for the 2021-22 season.
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Lifeboat. It was by Nicola McCartney and it was directed by Julie Ritchey. It was about these two girls Beth Cummings (Mara Dale) and Bess Walder (Molly Bunder) who met on this ship that was taking them to Canada because the war was getting too scary and there were too many bombing in England, so parents were sending away their children so they could go to a better place to stay with relatives. But then there is a giant shipwreck because the Nazis had bombed them, and they were put on a lifeboat. The play is about the journey that they go on and the memories they have once they are on the lifeboat. It was about friendship, World War II, and bravery. I thought that this was an amazing show. It was a true story which made it even more amazing and it taught me a lot about this very sad historical event and it also told me about these two real women who are heroes, basically, for going through this event and surviving it.
I thought the set (designed by Andrew Marchetti) was really cool. It was awesome because they only used some chairs and a table to make most of the scenes. But then there was also a platform and a bunch of suitcases and a piano. The chairs and the tables and the platform simulated different things, the ship and their homes, and also the lifeboat. I also really loved the sound (by Melissa Schlesinger) and the lights (by Daniel Chapman) they used because they really contributed to the story. Like when they were on the lifeboat they used the lights to show that the water was there and the ship was sinking and the sound let you hear the crackling flames of the ship going down. I thought that the actors' way of showing the different people slipping off the lifeboat, where they put both of their hands out and would have them each slip away off the table, was very cool and kind of sad. The lights helped a lot with that too.
The flashbacks were of the girls' lives back at home and you got to see what everything was like before the shipwreck happened. You got to see their families and how they missed them so much, and I thought that was very sweet. It contributed a lot to the sadness and bittersweetness of the show. Since there were only two people in the show, they played all the different parts. I thought that was really cool. I think it would be hard to switch characters and personalities so quickly. It made it be more of a spectacle. It also felt like the girls were family to each other because that might be all they had left. The friends were playing the parts of the family members.
The story I think is a kind of bittersweet one because you get to meet all these people who die, but then you also get to see all the people who survive. Beth and Bess seemed like great friends. They didn't have a lot in common, but even people who don't have a lot in common still sometimes become amazing friends. Beth was from Liverpool and was very polite and quiet but was pretty poor. And Bess was middle class from London and wanted to get away and become a movie star. And she always spoke her mind. The first time you see their friendship spark is when they find out that they both love The Wizard of Oz. My favorite part was definitely the ending because it showed you that their friendship was everlasting and I thought that was really sweet.
People who would like this show are people who like The Wizard of Oz, suspense, and friendship. This is the second time that this show has happened at Filament, and I hope they do it again because I am sad that I only got to see it right before it closed. I would definitely see it again!
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Twisted Melodies. It was written by Kelvin Roston, Jr. and it was directed by Samuel G. Roberson, Jr. It was about this man Donny Hathaway (Roston) who loved music, but he was schizophrenic so he thought that everyone was out to get his music. I thought this was a bittersweet show. It was very very good and you got to understand a lot about this amazing hero of music, but then it was bitter because of how you find out what happened to him once he started believing that people were out to get him. The story is told by Donny, who is basically telling you the story through memory. I think that was a good idea because you get to see inside his mind. There are also projections (produced by Dre Robinson) that I thought were really cool because they help you even more with the picture of what he was thinking of. There were also dances (choreography by Joel Hall) that were on the projection screen that you saw sometimes when he was singing. I thought that those were very awesome. And I thought Roston's singing was absolutely beautiful. I could listen to it all day.
I especially loved the dance segments (danced by Carl Jeffries, Michelle Reid, and Jacquelyn Sanders). You would see shadows of people dancing modern dance and I thought it was just beautiful. Donny is having a memory of he and his wife dancing together and you are seeing how they felt for each other. It seems like it was very hard for him once she left because he didn't get to see his kids as much. But she felt like it was too much to be around this man who had attacks of scaredness and sadness. She wanted him to take his pills but he refused to because he thought the doctors were out to get him and the medicine made him not be able to make music. If he had that medicine he couldn't have the "medicine" that he wanted that made him feel better, which was his music.
I thought it was sweet how much he loved his grandma. His grandma had raised him and taught him how to play the piano and made him practice. And that made him be able to play the piano and achieve what he achieved. It also helped him distract himself from all the people he thought were out to get him. His grandma seemed like a very strict woman, so I can see why he didn't want to cross her. And by not crossing her, he got one of the most important parts of his life, which was his music. I also loved how he pretended to be himself as a little child. He would do this kind of baby voice and he would make his eyes really big, and that was him as a kid, and I found that really funny.
I really liked the song "Jealous Guy." It sounded really upbeat even though it was about a jealous person. And I still have that song stuck in my head. I also really liked the song "The Ghetto." It was also pretty upbeat and I felt like it told a story even though it didn't have very many lyrics. There was also an audience participation aspect to that part. I don't really know if that is true every time, but it was very very fun to sing with him. I really loved the song "Someday We'll All Be Free." The song was about wanting to be free and the hope to have a better world. It might be hard right now, but hold on and it will be better. It brought a happiness and hope to the show when there wasn't a lot of that in his life.
People who would like this show are people who like soul music, amazing singers, and strict grandmas. I think people should definitely go see this show. I thought it was very satisfying and amazing and I really recommend it. I was in the Athenaeum the night before seeing Crimes of the Heart, and I went upstairs and I heard this amazing voice and I saw where it was coming from and I was very happy I was going to see the show the next day. And it exceeded my expectations!
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Crimes of the Heart. It was by Beth Henley and it was directed by Brad Akin. It was about these three sisters Babe (Elizabeth Antonucci), Lenny (Sarah-Jayne Ashenhurst), and Meg (Amanda Powell), and their mother and their father had left them when they were very young. They are all grownups now and have come together because Babe has shot her husband. That isn't a very happy occasion, but they are trying to remember the good times too. And they are trying to help Babe get through what she's going through. But she is not the only person with problems. Meg has just lost a job singing in a night club and Lenny is working too hard with her grandpa and she is not having a very good love life. This play is about family bonds, loss, and trying to survive. I liked this play a lot. I thought it was very interesting and funny. You might think this stuff doesn't sound funny, but then because the things that happen are so weird and terrible it is just funny anyways.
Lenny I thought was the least depressing sister because she never attempts murder and she never attempts suicide and her ex-boyfriend isn't married with two kids. Then you think that she might be able to get her life together because the sisters help her out with the hard choices like calling her ex-boyfriend who she is still in love with. Also she chases her cousin Chick (Lindsey Pearlman) with a broom because she hates her so much and has never been able to show that. Chick is a very hatable character because she is very annoying and doesn't really care about people's problems. I found Chick hilarious because she was so terrible! The thing is, you see Lenny develop so much throughout the play. She begins being kind of shy and a scaredy cat and she ends up being forward and kind and not scared. At the very beginning, she didn't have a birthday cake on her birthday, so what she did was grab a cookie and stick a candle in it. It kept breaking apart which was so funny. But by the end she actually gets a cake from her sisters which shows that even though they forgot about her birthday, they still love her.
Babe was the youngest and she was the one who shot her husband. But that was because there was a teenage boy he was trying to hurt but then the teenage boy ran away and she wanted to kill herself but then she decided to shoot her husband. Everyone in the show thinks she is kind of crazy, and I kind of agree with them. One of the reasons they think she is crazy is that after she shoots her husband she makes lemonade. Death lemonade! But I think it was mostly because of her husband and how terrible her life is going right now that she acts crazy. So she is not actually crazy; she is just really depressed. I've never seen a comedy with such a depressing main character. I liked the show still, but it was still very depressing. It makes you think about your life choices and death and guilt, and all that kind of stuff. She tries to kill herself more than once, and the ways are pretty ridiculous. But it is still very sad because it shows how much she doesn't understand what she is doing. I liked the character, though. This is more of a dark-comedy character, because even though she is funny sometimes, she is still super sad.
Meg is the middle sister and she was a singer at a night club. I also thought she was one of the funnier characters, but she still had a quite depressing life. One of the saddest things is when she finds out the love of her life Doc (Drew Johnson) is still married. At the beginning she isn't very nice to her sisters because she has been away so long. But then the thing is that by the end you see that she is loving these girls more than when the play started. I liked how she took all the calls from the lawyer Barnette (Will Crouse), but she didn't really know who he was. I thought that was hilarious. And then I thought it was really funny when Babe came down when Barnette would still be in earshot, because it was a screen door, and Meg said "He's gone now" because he must of totally heard her.
People who would like this show are people who like sisters, death lemonade, and breakable birthday cookies. I think people should go see this show. If you like dark comedy, this is definitely for you! I had fun at this show and I liked it.
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Inana. It was written by Michele Lowe and it was directed by Kimberly Senior. It was about this man named Yasin Shalid (Demetrios Troy) who just got married to a woman named Shali Shalid (Atra Asdou) and they are learning to love each other because they haven't really gotten to know each other; they are just married. They are in this hotel room in London and they have come from Mosul in Iraq for their honeymoon but also to escape from the war. Yasin is the head of the museum in Mosul and he has this one-armed statue of Inana which is very important to him because it was the last of her kind. And it turned out that there is more than one one-armed goddess in the show. Inana was the goddess of love, war, and healing. The thing is that the show is about the same things the goddess is about. It is about love because of the marriages in the play and also the family relationships. It is about war because war drives them away and threatens Inana. And it's about healing because over the course of the play Yasin and Shali are trying to heal from not being able to go back to their hometown and things that they lost there. I thought this was an amazing show. It was very educational, but in a good way. I loved the plot. I loved the characters because, even though the play is short, you get to know the characters so well.
This show is very suspenseful. You didn't really know what was going to happen to the characters at any given moment. It is very exciting because it is like an adventure story because it is kind of like Indiana Jones, except instead of trying to find artifacts, this is about trying to preserve artifacts. It is also pretty exciting to find the different back stories to the characters that you didn't expect. There is also a bookstore owner named Abdel-Hakim Taliq (Frank Sawa) who keeps being hurt by the government because they think he is doing something bad, but really all he is doing is having books that are not completely religious for them or have pictures of naked babies in them. He is kind of like Yasin's best friend. And his story shows how the government would hurt people for not good reasons and it also shows how dangerous it would be for Yasin to stay in Iraq.
I felt like some of the scenes were very touching, too, Shali's father, Emad Al-Bayit (Anish Jethmalani) has asked Yasin to take her away and never let her come back to Iraq. She doesn't want that; she wants to be able to go back. You feel sorry for Shali because she has basically had everything she had known taken away from her. And she doesn't know where she is very well and now she is going to live in this place she doesn't know very well. But later in the play you find out she is not the kind of person you think she is; she is stronger than you think. I think one of the reasons her father sends her away is that he loves her so much and doesn't want her to get hurt. I thought that was very touching and sweet. I also found it touching the relationship Yasin and Shali built throughout the play. They tell stories to each other that you get to see in flashbacks. And some of the flashbacks are touching too, like when you see that whenever Shali was a good girl, she would get an orange. And it was also really sad when you found out about Yasin's first wife Hama (Arya Daire). What happens to her is absolutely awful.
This doesn't sound like a very funny play, but then when you actually see it, it actually has some pretty funny moments. These are some of my favorite funny moments. I thought the waiter (Michael B. Woods) was very very funny. He kind of reminded me of Monty Python waiters because of his attitude; his attitude was like, "I shall connect with this man even though I am just a waiter who comes to his hotel room." I really love Monty Python, so that was really great. One of the other funny things is when Shali's sister Mena (Daire) gives her lingerie and then Shali goes to try it on in the bathroom and then she comes back out and says "It looked good" but she is still still in her same clothes. And Yasin thought she would come out in it, so then he is all ready to say "you look gorgeous in that," but she comes out in her normal clothes. Mohammed Zara (Behzad Dabu) was very funny. He was the assistant to Yasin at the museum. It was funny how eager he was to take over the museum and how giddy he was. It was just very funny and adorable.
People who would like this show are people who like artifacts, suspense, and lingerie that your wife won't let you see. I really really liked this show. I thought it was super awesome. I think people should definitely definitely go see this show. It talks about some scary subjects, but you don't see them happening, so I think if you think your child would be okay with that they could see it too.
I had so much fun interviewing Josh Segarra and Ana Villafañe. They'll be playing Emilio and Gloria Estefan in On Your Feet which will be playing at the Oriental Theatre June 2-July 5 before it heads to Broadway.
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Thinking Caps. It was by Keith Gatchel and it was directed by Maria Burnham. It was about these devices called Thinking Caps that you put on your head and then it had web pages and virtual worlds you could walk around. You didn't look at a screen; it transmitted this images into your mind. The story is about a husband and wife, Charles (Drew Wancket) and Maggie (Laura Stratford) who started out just as work buddies but they end up making their life together. Charles thinks Thinking Caps could be dangerous, but Maggie thinks that they are the best things that have ever happened. It is about using technology too much until it hurts you. I don't think the writer thinks technology is all bad, though, because he still shows the good sides to it. It is also about relationships. I thought this was a very fun show. I thought it was very clever and cool. It made me think about the usage of smart phones and about romance.
There are two sides in the show. One believes we should make people use Thinking Caps less because then it will hurt people less. That person is named Kim Ayers (Jaclyn Jensen) and Charles agrees with her. I think that is a good idea; she doesn't want to take them away, just to make them hurt people less. But she isn't really a good guy because she is trying to warn people about the dangers but she is doing it in a scary way and it hurts you because they are trying to relive the instances where people have been killed while using these headsets. There is also another side where there is this man named David Scrab (Casey Kells) who thinks they should be able to use them whenever they want because then he will make more money. The thing that is good about his point of view is that he enables people to talk to each other like they are really there even if they're not, which I think is a great thing. But then he should just put more research into it before just putting it out there before anyone has done research to see if it is harmful. Maggie works for him as a designer and builder and that is good for her because she gets to do what she loves. She is very creative. But then she finds out all the terrible things that David Scrab is doing. I think that technology is a good thing and I am glad we have it, but I don't think we should use it too much or bad things could happen to the world and to you.
I liked the scene where Charles and Maggie first got together on the headnet. I think they seemed like two amazing, sweet, talented people who fall in love. And if it weren't for the headnet they probably wouldn't have gotten to know and love each other. They worked together, but it was different when they could be alone on the headnet and just talk to each other about everything. They are able to show each other the most important parts of their lives, which is probably something they wanted to show each other but then never could at work because they have to be working. But then the headnet also destroyed their lives. I think that it was good to have the love scene at the beginning because it shows how this entire thing began and you want them to get together and once they do you just feel happy. Then when things start to go wrong you feel even sadder.
I really liked the scene with the baby Emma (Ellen DeSitter). Maggie and Charles had a baby that you are introduced to pretty early, but then you get to see what she might look like when she is older but she still has a baby's mind in this scene. So she looks older but she still has a baby's mind and they have this precious daddy-daughter moment which is where he tells her all about Superman and how he's not swimming in the sky, he is flying. It showed that the dad was a really big nerd (and I mean that well because I am nerd) and he wanted his daughter to be that way as well. I liked this scene because it was really funny how she would smile at whatever he said, which is something a bunch of babies do. At first, I thought it was just a bad portrayal of children, because I was like, kids would know all about words and talking and flying. But then the thing is she still has a baby's mind and her avatar looks like what she'll look like when she looks older, but she's not older. So that explains why she is acting like kind of an idiot--because she's just like four months old! Then I thought that that was pretty cool. I would like to see what I will look like when I'm older!
People who would like this show are people who like virtual reality, scifi, and Superman. I think people should definitely go see this show. I think it is an amazing low-budget production and I really want you to go see it. I had a lot of fun.
Once upon a time I went to two shows and they were called Ondin and The Secret Life of Suitcases. Ondin was created by L'Illusion, Théâtre de marionnettes in Canada and The Secret Life of Suitcases was co-created by Ailie Cohen Puppet Maker and Lewis Heatherington in Scotland. They were part of the Stages, Sights & Sounds International Performance Festival for Young Audiences, which is a bunch of plays and workshops that are happening in May. I thought that these were both very great performances. I was captivated in both of them and found them both very interesting. I was sad that I couldn't see the American Revolution from Theater Unspeakable again, but you can read my review from last year here.
Ondin was about this boy whose legs turned into a fish tail when he fell into the water. Then he met this girl named Melusine who had loved by the water for many years. I thought it was cool that they changed Ondine to Ondin, so that you knew even boys could be mer-people. They (Sabrina Baran, Gabrielle Garant, and Maryse Poulin) tell the story with puppets and music. I really liked at the beginning how there was a dress that turned into the sea. It started moving and moved up and just stayed there and she stepped out of it. I loved the sting ray puppet. I thought it was so awesome and beautiful. And Ondin had a fish who became his friend over the course of the show. It kind of reminded me of the Ariel story, only I think this was better. You knew they were becoming friends because he eventually got to pet the fish and it followed him around. There was a lot of very cool music in this and they also made some instruments part of the show. There was a rain-making disc that made the sound of the ocean but was also used as a raft and then the moon. It is about children's friendship and finding your right place in the world.
I really loved the show The Secret Life of Suitcases. It was funny, clever, and adorable. The main character's name was Larry (Ailie Cohen); he was basically a really hard-working businessman. But he'd never done anything exciting. So there were little puffballs inside of suitcases called quarks (Samuel Jameson & Cohen), who decided to bring him on this big adventure. I thought the quarks were absolutely adorable. They kind of reminded me of muppets. And the suitcase arrives at his work and he decides to open it and it takes him on this big adventure. He goes onto an island and then goes to space. The puppeteers had these shirts on that made them look like the background for the puppets--the backgrounds were like the ocean, an island, and outer space. I thought that was really cool. There was also a tiny puppet of a shark fin that I thought that was really funny, because you saw the guy (Jameson) just pulling it along across his shirt. One of my favorite moments was at the very end when Larry got so excited that he was going to eat spaghetti on the beach because he might not be doing something that was super adventurous but he still got to go and have fun with his friends. I just loved how he talked when he said "I'm going to eat spaghetti! On the beach!" and it came from the back of his throat. And at the end it kind of went higher--and it was hilarious. All their set pieces were made out of suitcases, and I thought that was really cool. Like there was a door that was also a suitcase. There was also a little suitcase person with little suitcase feet that I thought was adorable. The show taught a lesson on how even the little things are adventures, and I thought that was a really good lesson to teach. It also taught us about how you should enjoy adventures too, even if they are scary. And also to go through with the adventures even if you have work stuff; you should still make time for fun.
People who would like these shows are people who like mer-people, walking suitcases, and eating spaghetti on the beach. I know these shows tour, so if you live anywhere near where they are going, go see them! They are both awesome!
