The story wasn't easy to follow because they kept going on different missions in the middle of other missions. And then they would go back to the missions, and it was hard to tell what they were really investigating. The show seemed way too long, so they could have compacted it and had fewer stories in it. In Sherlock Holmes stories there is humor, but it is quirky and dark humor. In this play it was more goofy, falling-down kind of humor, which is not the kind of humor that I want in a show about Sherlock Holmes. The humor in the stories comes from the weird ways Holmes figures out crimes in an insanely smart way and it also comes from how Holmes snaps into a different personality just like that and how Watson over time just sees that as normal, which is pretty funny. But the humor wasn't very complex in this play. Sherlock Holmes' personality was also very different in this show from what it says in the books. Sherlock Holmes' personality in this play is very different from what I expected. I expected him to be smart, funny, cunning, and being able to switch personalities and moods on the spot. I expected focused energy, not jumping up and down kind of energy. This Sherlock Holmes seemed more like a Mad Hatter character than Sherlock Holmes because he was very one-noted, chipper, and smug. He did have some darkness, but not the kind I wanted from Sherlock Holmes.
Mrs. Hudson (Barbara Gordon) was one of my favorite parts of the show. She was very funny and she was exactly what I though she would be like. She was very motherly but like a boss, which is so fabulous and amazing. There was this cab ride where Holmes and Watson and Lestrade (Patrick Costello) were being driven by Mrs. Hudson to capture Moriarty. Mrs. Hudson had the deerstalker cap on and then Sherlock Holmes tried it on and I thought it was cool that that was kind of a sneak peak of what his classic outfit would look like in the future. I did like how they had other strong female characters like Lady Irene and Orchid (Ana Parsons). They both were powerful and had a big parts in the play, which they do have a lot in the Sherlock Holmes stories. But because these characters were doing a lot of the broad humor that was a big part of the play that I didn't care for, I didn't end up connecting with the characters a lot.
People who would like this show are people who like slapstick, sassy landlady cab drivers, and unusual takes on classic characters. If you don't care much about adaptation, you will probably like this show better than I liked it. I hope that they can make some improvements for the show because everybody loves Sherlock Holmes and they have some female characters with a lot of potential.
Photos: Brian To
The entire show was very much like the TV special. It was almost just like watching the special but with adults playing the kid characters. It might be too similar, which might make you not want to spend money on something you could just watch on TV. I thought they could have put two specials together which would have made it longer. It was very short, which is good for little kids, but for older kids they might want more. It was still fun because I saw it with a friend and it is a fun TV special that was fun to see live. It is cool to see how they adapted it into a play. In a cartoon you can do a lot of not-physically-possible things, but in a play you can't. So they turned Snoopy and Woodstock (co-puppeteers, Isabella Karina Coelho and Micah Kronlokken), who do most of the not-physically-possible stuff, into puppets.
The puppets (designed by Lolly Puppets) were really cool. They looked like three-dimensional versions of the characters. And they moved like the characters too. When Snoopy would just uncontrollably dance at some moments, I thought that was amazing. In fact, everyone in the show moved like the characters. They all had the same dance moves as them and they all moved like them. Snoopy's feet already move like Gangnam Style all the time in short fast steps, because he is a puppet, but the human kids also moved in short fast steps. Woodstock flapped his wings and flew everywhere which I thought was super cool.
My three favorite characters were Sally (Mary-Margaret Roberts), Linus, and Charlie Brown. They have always been my favorite characters. I have always loved Sally. She is so energetic, hilarious, and sassy. She says things she doesn't understand, but still sounds very confident in saying them. Like when she asks Santa for money instead of toys, but she doesn't understand that Santa probably won't bring her a bag full of money. I love her character. And Linus is so learned. The kids who play Linus in the Charlie Brown TV specials, don't actually seem to understand what they are saying. But this made it turn all the way around and made it actually seem like Linus knew what he was saying, which I love. When he was talking about how Jesus was born, he sounded so intelligent and I loved it. And Charlie Brown is the main character in the story, so you kind of believe everyone loves him. And I am one of those people. He has such low energy all the time but, when he has to direct a play, he looked it up somehow so he could do a good job. And that shows how committed and amazing he is. They had the same person that played Elephant in Elephant and Piggie play Charlie Brown. I thought that was a great idea because they are both very pessimistic and adorable and funny.
People who would like this show are people who like Charlie Brown, dancing dogs, and Christmas. I think that people will enjoy this show. It is perfect for little kids and it is fun for families to go to together.
Photos: Austin D. Oie Photography
There is a song called "The Ladies Who Sing with the Band" that was about ladies with nice bodies who didn't know how to sing, which I thought was a very funny but not entirely true song. There were so many very talented singers back then. I still found it very catchy. It was sung by the two men, Johnson and Rush, but I think it should have had some women singers too because they can also have opinions on women getting jobs because of what they look like. "Yacht Club Swing" was a song that was kind of as an example of these kinds of singers. I thought this one was really funny. It was sung by Hamilton who was wearing like a little cute sailor suit (costumes by Bill Morey), and she made it all kind of Ethel-Merman-y and off-key sometimes, which I absolutely thought was funny and I loved it.
"Lounging at the Waldorf" was a cool song. It was about rich people and how they go to hotels to lounge around and meet people. I liked how everybody when they walked out were in these expensive fur coats that looked very very fancy. They were all pretending to be rich people, even though they were at a speakeasy, which I thought was super funny. And they were making fun of rich people by being very posh and strutting around with their noses in the air and they all sang a little differently than when they were just themselves. It was more opera-y and less swing-y. And I loved how they had to mention that they liked jazz but in small doses. The song isn't just about the posh people; it is about the people who play for the posh people. I don't think the people singing the song like the people at the Waldorf very much because they like their jazz not quiet or in small doses but loud and in heaps! When Da Silva sings "Don't sing loud when you sing at the Waldorf" she sings loud and everybody shushes her and I thought that was very funny.
"The Viper's Drag," sung by Johnson, also happened when the posh people were around. The Viper seems to be a person who is living the high life, and he might have a lot of money but it would be from something not legal. He was very seductive and he tried to seduce someone in the front row who I know, which was hilarious. She is married, and she tried to stay away from it but she still wasn't a poor sport because she tried to make the best of the situation without being all sexy. And what they both did by twiddling their fingers at each other was fabulous and hilarious. Then he pretended she had just touched him and said, "You can look, but you can't touch," and I was thinking how good the actor did with the situation since he must never know each night what is going to happen.
My favorite song was one called "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now" that was sung by Wass. The song was all about being a party animal but trying to change her ways so she could be with the person that she loved. I think that it is good that she is not a party animal anymore, because if you party too hard you can hurt yourself and you can also hurt other people. Also when you think you have found someone that you love, you don't want to mess up that chance. Her singing was so beautiful and lovely and I really loved it. I want to learn how to sing that song. I absolutely adored it.
People who would like this show are people who like swing music, vipers, and lounging at the Waldorf. I think that people should definitely go see this show. I thought it was so fun to be at. I loved the style of the music and the performances were just amazing. It isn't a holiday show per se, but it would be fun to take the whole family to during the holidays.
Photos: Kelsey Jorissen
Here are my two interviews with the stars of Pixar's The Good Dinosaur from Windy City Live. I had so much fun talking to everybody and going to LA!
Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Pocatello. It was written by Samuel D. Hunter, and it was directed by Jonathan Berry. It was about a man named Eddie (Michael McKeough) who was the manager of an Italian chain restaurant in Pocatello, Idaho. Their business is not doing very well and they were in danger of closing. But Eddie didn't want that to happen and decided not to tell the employees--Isabelle (Allie Long), Max (Morgan Maher), and Troy (Bob Kruse)--that they may be closing. Also, he is gay and his mom Doris (Lynda Shadrake) doesn't seem very happy about that. And his brother Nick (Sam Guinan-Nyhart) is married to a woman Kelly (Nina O'Keefe) and has a good steady job, and his mom loves that, but Nick isn't very nice to his family because he doesn't think it is possible for them to be a good family again. There is another family that also has fallen on bad times: Troy and his wife Tammy (Mechelle Moe) and their kid Becky (Becca Savoy) and the Grandpa Cole (Sandy Elias). This play is about family, forgiveness, and blame. I thought this was a very good show with amazing acting. It was sad and depressing, but still good. It made me think about why people aren't happy sometimes even when the people they love are near them.
When you walk in to the theater and see the set (by Joe Schermoly) you feel like you've stepped into the Italian restaurant that you drive past all the time but never go in because the whole thing looks bland and boring. I liked how there was supposedly another room that you never saw, just like when you are actually in a restaurant and you are just sitting in that room and you don't know what is going on in the other one. They also had a lot of overlapping dialogue, where you would have to pay attention to one conversation and then you would have to pay attention to the other. And that made you feel like you were actually there in the restaurant. There was also a speaker (sound designer Bradford Chapin) that sometimes wouldn't work and it would keep skipping lines of the songs. It wasn't an actual problem with the speaker; it was a choice for the show that I thought was really great. It made it seem like a really crappy restaurant. And also made you see how people's feelings for each went on and off over and over again, like in Eddie's family and Troy's family.
There were a lot of things that you at first thought were stereotypes in this show, but then you see they are not. Like Becky, who you think its going to be the classic rebellious teenager. But then she wasn't really rebellious. The things she had done to get suspended from school where not really rebellious. She just showed pictures of a subject of history in history class that were too gory. But history is gory sometimes. Even your life is gory sometimes. So you can't just hide the truth from everybody. She also throws up everything she eats so that seems like a eating disorder but she's really just worried because she doesn't know where her food comes from. It's more about her guilt about animals and plants and people working hard for not much money. Nick seems like a classic successful business man, but you find out the terrible things that have happened to him with his family. That makes you realize why he is working so hard to be successful. Nick wants to have a normal happy relationship with his wife and work a well-paying job, because his original family didn't have those things. And he wants to have everything his first family didn't have. I thought it was really cool that the playwright made it seem at first like some characters were just classic but then he showed you that they were not.
This is sometimes a very sad and depressing show, but there are also funny parts to it. It can't just be all depressing. Theater is about telling a story not just about making people feel sad or feel happy. It is about telling a story with ups and downs just like real life is. And that was what this show did. It was funny when Max and Isabelle were caught doing basically all the things you shouldn't do at work, in a kitchen at the same time! Don't they have cars or something? And they also tried to explain how it was ok, but the way they try to explain is so funny and dumb, because there is no way these things they are doing are ok in the kitchen at work! Funny things can also lead into sad things. Eddie made a Cheez Whiz casserole and that is funny because it sounds so disgusting. There is broccoli in it too, in case I forgot to mention it. I do like broccoli, but not with Cheez Whiz. Can you imagine the calories! But then that is something their father used to make in the diner, and something really bad happened to their dad, so now they are all sad about the casserole. I think it is a really cool technique to do something very funny and then punch you in the face with sadness.
People who would like this show are people who like Italian restaurants, not-really-rebellious rebellious teenagers, and Cheez Whiz casserole. I think that people should definitely go see this show. It is such a beautifully sad and depressing play, with little snippets of fun hidden inside. Just so you know, you'll leave this play wanting Italian food because the food they eat at the end looks pretty good.
Photos: Michael Brosilow
I had a great time two weeks ago on Windy City LIVE! Here's a video clip of my interview. The whole episode full of talented kids airs again on Thanksgiving on ABC7 at 11am!
There were a lot of new additions to the cast. Abu Ansari played the father, David, and the Quite Scary Rat. I thought he was really good as the dad. He really made a connection with the actors that were playing his family. The Quite Scary Rat is kind of an outsider who is not that good at being a scary rat. And that makes him more sympathetic but he is also very very funny. Marika Mashburn played the mother, Martha, and also played the Really Scary Rat, who was the one who was trying to teach the Quite Scary rat how to behave and how to be scary. As Martha, she was a wonderful mom; she was just going through some very hard times. I liked when the entire family reunited after Clara (Jaclyn Hennell) came out of the wall, and the way the mom tried to bring everybody back together was very heartwarming and sweet. James Houton was Drosselmeyer who is also trying to bring the entire family back together, but he doesn't live with them and he is trying to show Clara that magic is real. Drosselmeyer is trying to find ways to make it seem more like Christmas and rid the house of pizza bagels and get Martha to bake sugar plum cookies. I think we are supposed to believe that he is actually magic. But that is kind of how you can feel about any special relative that you don't see a lot but brings a lot to your family; they can seem magical to you. This Drosselmeyer didn't seem scary like they sometimes are but he was still complicated. He is still full of secrets and very mysterious.
A bunch of the toys were either new or I hadn't reviewed before. Desmond Gray played Fritz, also known as the Nutcracker. He had this gorgeous connection with Clara and his song was so beautiful. He expressed it very nicely and I really enjoyed it. Chris Mathews moved a lot like an actual monkey and I really liked that. That showed you a lot about the character of the Monkey; he moved around like a very sophisticated French monkey, which is what we all want for Christmas! Phoebe (Rachel Shapiro) is the doll, who kind of dresses like a Groovy Girl. I thought she was so energetic and funny. I love her energy and my favorite moment of Phoebe is always when they are doing the "Let's Make Cookies" song and she holds the electric mixer in the air like a crazed murderer. Rachel did it justice; she made me laugh. It was also great having Andrew Lund back as Hugo. I noticed this year that when Clara was about to say something that she wasn't aware sounded inappropriate, the toys all knew what the slightly sketchy things that she said meant. They must have been left in the parents' room sometimes!
People who would like this show are people who like heartwarming family stories, sugar plum cookies, and toys that understand innuendo. I love this show so much. I have seen it since I was five or six and I am absolutely in love with it. And I notice new things every year. You should all make it a tradition; it is just a fun family activity for the holidays.
Photos: Michael Brosilow
