Review of BoHo Theatre's Marie Christine.

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Marie Christine. The words and music were by Michael John LaChiusa. It was directed by Lili-Anne Brown. The musical direction was by Aaron Benham and it was choreographed by Breon Arzell. It was about a woman named Marie Christine (Kyrie Courter) who lived in New Orleans in the 1890s. Her mother (Nicole Michelle Haskins) had magical powers to do things for people, and they would come to her for help. Marie Christine also has those powers that her mother passed down to her. But her brothers Paris (Averis Anderson) and Jean (Curtis Bannister) don't want her to use her powers; they want her to get married to someone who was respectable in their class. Their money came from their white father, who never married their mother, who was black. Marie Christine fell in love with a man named Dante (Ken Singleton) who was white and was a ship's captain and it seemed like he'd had been with a lot of women over his travels. The musical is about how their relationship falls apart and how she gets revenge. It is about blind devotion, the limits of revenge, and guilt. I think this is a really good show. It is beautifully done and intriguing to watch.

Marie Christine and her mother really had a close bond, and it is sad to see Marie Christine on her own, but she does really well for herself--I mean, until she meets Dante. I wish we had gotten to see more of the mother-daughter relationship and the mother passing her knowledge down to her. But when Dante arrives he messes up Marie Christine's life because she doesn't think of herself anymore. It is really sad to see her taken over by something that doesn't stay. She spends the whole rest of her life devoted to this one person and gets no devotion in return. When her mother sings to her about how her grandfather is the sun, she is basically saying you came from something better than this and you deserve something better than this. This story is based off of Medea, and her grandfather was Helios, the sun god. I liked how they made the meaning more figurative in this story. Marie Christine and her mother had both gone through similar things with their partners, so when they both sing "Your Grandfather is the Sun" to their children in different circumstances but with the same intention, it is just heartbreaking. Especially when you find out how Marie Christine's relationship with her children ends. Also Nicole and Kyrie's voices are so great; during the songs where they were singing to their children, their voices were very sweet and they were singing a beautiful lullaby. But then they could also belt when they are angry or trying to really get their point across.

I thought "A Month Ago He Comes Here" was a really good song and it got across an outside point of view on the relationship between Marie Christine and Dante. The maids (Katherine Bourné and Neala Barron) are singing so it gave you an insider outside point of view. It was a valid point of view but not from within the actual relationship. When you are seeing the inside of the relationship it seems like they just love each other, but from the outside it seems crazy. The show also has other perspectives, like when Marie Christine and Dante go to a party and everyone is gossiping about their affair, but it is great to see the roots of the gossip in the song with the maids. It helps you understand the relationship not just from the blind world these two people are in.

I think this show also has some great visual aspects. The movement really pulled me more into the story. When all the prisoners sang and danced using a series of repeated movements that all represented what they would do for the person they loved, it was just mesmerizing. The set was also really amazing. I loved how it was using the story's Greek roots because it had columns and arches, but with more of a modern twist that you could see in the shutters and the bed. I really loved that.

There are not a lot of funny songs in the show. Most of the songs are very emotional and are usually saying all the things that are going to go wrong because of a specific action. The song "A Lovely Wedding" is sung by Magdalena (Barron), who is a singer and proprietor of a saloon who wanted to have children and she thought Marie Christine could give her something to help her do that. I really like how the song was funny but still dark. It was basically saying that it was a great wedding, but there were things that were off. It seemed like it was a huge mistake, and they ran out of cake, which seems like the biggest crime of all! There wasn't anything that really seemed like there was anything that made it a great wedding, which brought the comedy out. It was effective because even though it was humorous, the song was also slightly eerie. I think Neala Barron's voice really emphasized each part of the song and made you picture each part of the wedding. And her voice is just great.

People who would like this show are people who like maids' perspectives, exploring the downfall of magical women, and not-so-lovely weddings. I think that people should definitely go see this show. It has beautiful songs, great performances, and stunning choreography. I really liked it!

Photos: Katie Stanley

Review of Remy Bumppo Theatre Company's The Skin of Our Teeth

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called The Skin of Our Teeth. It was by Thornton Wilder and it was directed by Krissy Vanderwarker. And it was about the Antrobus family--the father, George (Kareem Bandealy), the mother, Maggie (Linda Gillum), and their two children Gladys (Kayla Raelle Holder when I saw it, usually Leea Ayers) and Henry (Matt Farabee)--and their lives throughout history...or the 1940s; it is kind of hard to tell with this play. You know all those things you remember about the Forties: the Andrews Sisters, Rosie the Riveter...and Dinosaurs? The thing is, in this play, they talk about the Depression, but there is a dinosaur (Kristen Magee) and a Mammoth (Annie Prichard) who live like pets inside the Antrobus house. There is Noah's Ark, but also an election. The Antrobuses are a classic American family, but also probably Adam and Eve and Cain and...Gladys. You remember that famous Bible story about Gladys. Their housemaid Sabina (Kelly O'Sullivan) is the narrator and she is like part of the family, even though she was abducted (like the Sabine women in Roman mythology) and she keeps trying to make Mr. Antrobus fall in love with her. It is about family, corruption, and resilience. I think this is a really weird but fun show. It is so crazy that it was written so long ago and before feminism was as prominent as is is now. It was not at all what I was expecting, but I loved it.

I just finished performing in Our Town, also by Thornton Wilder, and it is a very different kind of show. Both shows have a similar message, but they go about showing the message in different ways. Our Town is about a small town and how two people fall in love, and about three stages of their relationship. Wilder is trying to talk about life and death, but he is using a small thing to do it. In The Skin of Our Teeth, everything that happens is a statement about humanity and how we relate to each other, but he is using the entire world, the apocalypse, and a World War to say it. There is a family, but it is part of a broader scape of things and a lot of things that they do don't just affect them, they can affect the entire world. The portrayals of men and women and their relationships are very different from each other in these shows. In Our Town everything is a lot more wholesome and the drama in the relationships comes from natural things like death and misunderstandings and mild "faults in character." In Our Town he seems to be on the women's side because he has a speech about how hard it is for the mothers and how they cook all the time and they never get enough thanks for it and they never have a nervous breakdown--which is one of my favorite lines in the show. In Our Town all the men are well-meaning, but in The Skin of Our Teeth they are most of the time violent and lustful. The men are good at what they do: George is good at inventing and Henry is good at killing people with his slingshot. But that doesn't make them good people. The women are portrayed as people who are really hardworking, but no one takes them seriously or appreciates them. There is a bottle that Maggie throws into the water right after Mr. Antrobus has said that he is leaving her for Sabina. And she says that in the bottle is everything a woman knows and that women aren't what you see in advertisements or in the movies. And I think those are very powerful lines because it is true and it is great they were written so long ago, but also sad that they haven't fixed those problems yet. In The Skin of Our Teeth, instead of having everyday terrible occurrences be the thing that is wrong, it is larger things like infidelity or war or the Ice Age or the apocalypse. The characters show you how much humanity has worked to get to where we are right now, but also how humans take advantage of people, betray, kill, and rape people. It shows you how the people who make humanity successful are not always the best people. Like Our Town, it is saying a true message about life that makes you really think about bigger problems that aren't just centered around you. Both plays show you how life is unfair, but you have to keep going and you might find good things again if you continue.

I really liked the scripted moments where the actors would break character. The actors were playing actors playing roles, which really engaged me even more in the story because you got to see the relationships between the actor-characters. One time Henry was beating up his dad, George, and Sabina runs in and says to stop the show because he is actually hurting him. It was surprising because they have interrupted the show before but not in the same way when someone in the show was being hurt. It shows you how wrapped up in performance some actors can get and actually believe they are in the role. So the person that Matt Farabee was playing who was playing Henry thought that he was in danger because his character was. Sabina would break character a lot to stop the show for anything from anyone getting hurt to her friend being there tonight and she didn't want the scene to offend her. She also likes to trash talk the play. It is so funny to see her be such a terrible person to be on stage with because she is making the whole play about herself and not taking her scene partner's actions and feelings into account. The actor-character who plays Sabina didn't really serve the play very well because all she could think about is herself, which is a lot like her character. That made me see why the actor-character got the part. And Kelly O'Sullivan did a really good job differentiating the actor-character from Sabina but still showing the similarities. Another funny interruption is when most of the actors get food poisoning and have other people go on for them, but it isn't understudies it is a stagehand (Magee), a dresser (Diego Colón), an assistant (Alice Wu), and the house manager (Art Fox). I thought it was funny how each replacement performer was played by an ensemble member (who supposedly had food poisoning). You weren't expecting any of them to be very good, but it was a nice surprise and pretty funny when they revealed that they were. These kind of moments where the play is interrupted are effective because even though you don't think it is actually happening--you know they are still on script--it makes you think about what is real and what is fake. This show really plays with your mind that way. When you go to the theater everything that is happening you are pretty sure is just acting, but you still decide to tell yourself to be invested in certain characters because they are replicating people.

People who would like this show are people who like wacky but philosophical shows, breaking character, and indoor dinosaurs. I think that people should definitely definitely go see this show. I think it is such an intriguing, beautiful, and funny show. It is all about the circle of life and how new worlds keep getting created out of disasters. And I think it is really fun to watch.

Photos: Nomee Photography

Review of School of Rock (Broadway in Chicago)

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called School of Rock. It was based on the Paramount movie written by Mike White. The book was by Julian Fellowes. The lyrics were by Glenn Slater. The new music was by Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was choreographed by JoAnn M. Hunter and directed by Laurence Connor. It was about a man named Dewey (Rob Colletti) and he had been kicked out of his band and he didn't have a job and he needed to pay rent because his roommate and best friend Ned's (Matt Bittner) girlfriend Patty (Emily Borromeo) didn't like him and wanted him out of the house. So when gets a phone call for Ned from Rosalie (Lexie Dorsett-Sharp), the principal of Horace Green School, saying that Ned has gotten a substitute teaching job and has to go in the next day, Dewey decided to take the position for himself by pretending to be Ned. He decides that at this really preppy school they don't have enough fun and they don't even know what rock music is. So he teaches them how to play rock music and live a rock lifestyle (with no drugs). He decides to form a band with the kids and perform in the Battle of the Bands against his old group. This is a really heartwarming and fun story. There are a lot of really talented performers in this show and I think it is an adorable family musical.

I really liked the song "You're in the Band." It really showed off all the kids' talents. Something that was really effective to show their amazingness is that they'd play things wrong at first and then the second time they played it perfectly. Like when the guitarist Zach (Phoenix Schuman) first picked up the guitar and started plucking out notes, he was really stiff. Bt then the second time that he did it, he loosened up and was a total rock star. He was super into it, which was super fun to watch. Also, the bass player, Katie (Theodora Silverman), starts out really stone-faced. And then she discovers her signature look, which was like a sassy pouty face while she plays. Lawrence (Theo Mitchell-Penner) doesn't think that he's cool but then he learns his love for playing the keyboard makes him feel a lot less insecure. He starts by playing a classical piece and it transforms halfway through the piece into rock and roll. Freddy (Gilberto Moretti-Hamilton) hadn't gotten to play the way he wanted to in the school orchestra. He played cymbals and just had to keep a very simple beat. The first time he played the drums in Dewey's band, he started out and Dewey said, "Yeah. That's good. For my grandma...who's dead!" But then Freddy finds his rhythm and starts doing this amazing drum solo. I'm still in awe of it.

Tomika (Gianna Harris) is the shy one at the school. She's new and she wants to be in the band, but she can't vocalize it. But eventually she says she wants to be in the band, and Dewey asks if she wants to join the backup singers (Chloe Ann Garcia and Olivia Bucknor). She says she's not a backup singer, she's a singer. Which is like the best line in this whole show because it is so unexpected, especially from her. It shows us that she isn't just a shy girl who doesn't want to talk to anyone; she actually has some charisma and spunk. Then she also has an amazing voice, as you get to see when she sings "Amazing Grace." Rosalie had a very similar transformation. She also starts out not liking the idea of the band, but then she warms up to it when she actually gets to know Dewey. I think that is a really cool relationship between Tomika and Rosalie. They don't talk to each other much in the play, but they have similar stories. It is cool to see two people of different ages going through a similar process.

"Time to Play" sung by the band manager, Summer (Ava Briglia), was a fun song and it gave you a little sneak peek into what the final performance at the Battle of the Bands would be like. Summer was showing her bossy side and yelling at everyone. At first in the play she is yelling at everyone for doing rock and roll instead of schoolwork. But in this song, she is yelling at everyone because they are not doing band practice the way that she wants. She's also been changed by Dewey, no matter how little she wants to admit it. She is using her uptightness for the good of rock and roll and not just to annoy people.

People who would like this show are people who like hidden talents, influential teachers, and rock and roll bossiness. I think people should go see this show. It is super fun, has catchy songs, and has really talented performers.


Photos: Matthew Murphy

Review of First Floor Theater's Two Mile Hollow

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Two Mile Hollow. It was by Leah Nanako Winkler and it was directed by Hutch Pimentel. It was about a family reunited at their vacation home where the parents had planned to retire. But the father had died and the house is being sold and they came there to collect the father's stuff. When the movie star son, Christopher (Kai Ealy), comes home with his personal assistant Charlotte (Aurora Adachi-Winter), his mother Blythe (Jazmín Corona) and his sister Mary (Deanna Myers) aren't so sure about her presence. But his brother Joshua (Jose Natera) seems pretty happy about it. It is about rich white families and how they abuse their power and how their stories have become so normal to us even though we should be seeing a lot more diversity on the stage and on the screen. It is a parody of dramatic plays like The Seagull, which they mention several times, about how much it sucks to be depressed in a family of successful rich people. I think this show is very funny but it also says a lot of sadly true things.

There were a lot of really funny moments in this show. Sometimes I was crying, I was laughing so hard. There is some really great physical humor in this. When Christopher and Joshua were fighting over who was going to get the motorcycle (it's a metaphor), they do it all in slow motion. They are having a slow motion fight (fight choreography by Amanda Fink) and the facial expressions that they had were so hilarious. They were running past us in the aisle and seeing the expression up close was even funnier. There was flailing on the ground, more flailing on the ground, then getting up and running away. I thought it was hilarious. There was also this impromptu interpretive dance (choreography by Kasey Alfonso) with Mary and Charlotte where they were talking about how it feels to be a woman. It was funny because just out of nowhere--there have not been any interpretive dances to this point--they just start making shapes with their bodies. Mary started the dance by pushing her scarf around while looking very disappointed and depressed. It was so random and they talked while they were dancing in a pretentious way, like they were high schoolers putting on a show they thought would change the world but was actually people just talking about problems that everybody already knew were problems. I thought it was hilarious. It was saying some true things, but, again, we already knew being a woman can be crappy.

There was also a lot of verbal comedy. All the things that happen in this plot are basically a combination of things that happen in really white plays: a depressed family, a boy searching for his identity, summer homes, a girl who can't find love, forbidden love, incestuous love, bitchy moms, and dead spouses. And to top it all off, a love triangle. And birds. White people love birds. The characters talk in very unforgettable ways. Mary loves talking about how whenever she is sad, she pretends to be a bird. I've never ever seen a play that has anything like that before. (Just kidding.) She's also like a Tennessee Williams character times eight. She continues to say "no" but each no is said with a different purpose and in a different way until, about halfway through, the way she is saying them completely changes to more of a consoling "no." It sounds like she is talking to a baby and then it is going all over the place. And it is just hilarious. Joshua has this speech impediment for only certain words because of his medication. It makes everything he says sound not serious and like he is slowly getting drunk over the course of the word. It makes his character even more hilarious and diffuses the situation, no matter how serious it is, which is really funny.

This family in the show, no matter how hilarious, are also jerks. And they are racist too. Every single time the mother tells a story, she starts out with, "so there is this [insert ethnicity here] who did this thing that really annoyed me." The play draws attention to how racist this is by having people, especially Charlotte (the character you are rooting for), get angry about it. Also the white characters who are saying all this stuff are not actually played by white people, which makes it so that you see the play is not telling you to feel that way. Charlotte has these "strange interludes" where she turns out to the audience and tells them how she is feeling about something. (It reminded me of Groucho Marx making fun of Eugene O'Neill.) I think they have them because even though the audience will know that the things the white characters are saying are bad, to have an actual character in the play talk about it is more powerful and shows you how important it is to listen to a perspective that isn't white.

People who would like this show are people who like hilarious parodies, metaphoric motorcycles, and birds. I think that people should definitely go see this show. It closes this weekend, so everyone should go see it before it closes. It is such a fun play, but it also has a lot of really good points to make. I loved it!


Photos: Juli Del Prete

Review of Prop Thtr and Pop Magic Productions' In Sarah's Shadow: The Eleonoras Duse Story

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called In Sarah's Shadow: The Eleonora Duse Story. It was written and directed by Olivia Lilley. It was devised by Lilley, Dyllan Rodrigues-Miller, Nick Benz, Mary Iris Loncto, Kelly Anderson, and Davia Bhandari. The choreography was by Kelly Anderson Williamson. It was about a girl named Eleonora (Rodrigues-Miller) who was in her family's traveling theater company and she dreamed of a day when she wouldn't have to sleep on the streets anymore. So she started her own acting career in Rome after her parents (Bhandari and Benz) died. She gets discovered by an agent (Benz) but he is slightly sketchy. So when she starts getting rave reviews she decided to go out on her own to America. She starts to hang out with all the rich people and meets Gabriele D'Annunzio (Benz) who is a writer and Isadora Duncan (Loncto) who is the modern dancer. She becomes friends and lovers with them both, but one of the relationships doesn't work out that well. I think this is a really intriguing and beautifully done show. I learned a lot about Isadora Duncan and Eleonora Duse, and I want to learn a lot more.

I think this show had some really great dances in it. I'm a really big fan of dance. I loved how they mixed modern dance with more of a classical style. When they wanted to express emotions it was more modern and lyrical. They used the classical for more happy scenes that stayed happy and didn't transform halfway through the song. I really liked the dance where Eleonora was introduced to Isadora Duncan. It was a great introduction to her and showed how different her dance style was in this era. I thought it was so beautiful how her scarf flew around her. I also loved the dance where Sarah Bernhardt was on stage performing. The dance reminded me of how acting was back then; it was very melodramatic. I think the dance embodied that in a good way because it emphasized each gesture she made and each heartfelt motion. It is a good idea to think of this as more of a dance show when you go see it, because there is a lot of dancing in it.

I really liked the scene with D'Annunzio and Duse where they decided they were going to make a play together. It was a very sweet scene because you really got to see their real connection together and how they wanted to help each other with their careers in any way they possibly could. He seemed to recognize that she needed a play for herself so she wasn't always just doing Shakespeare. She could express her true feelings in a play written for her that had a character that she wanted to play, instead of just going through all the same emotions she'd done on stage a thousand times before. It really made me root for the relationship, and it made me very sad when it started to go off the rails.

It seemed like this show had more dance than theater, and though I liked both, I wish they had leveled out into more of a equally-distributed suspension. I wanted more theater because I wanted to see these characters saying their emotions and ideas more. I think expressing your emotion through dance is a powerful thing, but I wanted to see more of the speaking element, although the dance they do is very beautiful. Language is powerful in a different way than dance. Dance shows how you are feeling, but language allows more complex and detailed expression. I think it is a good idea to have dance in this show, and I think it is a good way to tell a simple story, like Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, but I think it is more difficult to tell a complex real life story just with dance. So it is good that they also had elements of theater. I just wish there had been a little more to fill in some of the gaps in the story.

People who would like this show are people who like dance, intriguing characters, and flowing scarves. I think that people should go see this show. It tells the story of Eleonora Duse in a really compelling and beautiful way. I had never heard of her or her work before and I'm very glad I saw this show because she is such a fascinating person.


Photos: Beth Rooney

Review of Adventure Stage Chicago's Akeelah and the Bee

Once upon a time I went to a show and it was called Akeelah and the Bee. It was adapted by Cheryl L. West based on the screenplay by Doug Atchison. It was directed by Daryl Brooks. It was about a girl named Akeelah (La Shone T. Kelly) whose father died and her and her father used to do crosswords and learn words together. She had a school spelling bee and she won it and there was a man there, Dr. Larabee (Michael Anthony Rawlins), who had almost won the National Spelling Bee when he was a kid. He agreed to mentor her, but she doesn't always want to put in all the work. Her mother, Gail (Gabrielle Lott-Rogers), also isn't very supportive at first. Once she gets to the regional spelling bee she meets her rival, who is a boy named Dylan (Glenn Obrero). All he wants to do is win because his dad (Arvin Jalandoon) will be mad at him otherwise. It's about memory, family relationships, and community. I think this is a beautiful and inspirational story about moving on and determination.

I think the party scene had a lot of really good elements in it. It shows how different these two worlds (Barrington Hills and the Southside of Chicago) coming together are. When Akeelah and Georgia (Brandi Lee) go to Barrington Hills for Javier's (Brandon Rivera) birthday, Georgia hates the food and that basically the only thing to do is play Scrabble. She wants to have a real party and dance and listen to music. I do have to agree with Georgia that it doesn't seem like a party I would have had, but Javier and Trish (Gaby FeBland) are having a great time. The tableaus were very funny where Akeelah and Dylan were battling to the death at Scrabble. They played the Jeopardy theme music and while the Scrabble game was going on, in the background you see the conflict going on between Georgia, Trish, and Javier. You also get to see the conflict between Dylan and his dad at the end of the scene. It shows how Dylan can't really make any decisions for himself; his father takes him away from the party because he was losing at Scrabble against Akeelah.

I think there are a lot of really great relationships in this show. My favorite one was with Akeelah and Dr. Larabee. I think I liked it so much because it was really sweet to see how they could be like family to each other by teaching each other. He teaches her about her rhythm that she has and how every word connects to an origin. She helps him discover that it is worth the risk to have emotional connection again. I really liked how Akeelah and her brother Reggie (Eric Gerard) had a very close relationship. They looked out for each other and they had their sibling code. But he makes really bad decisions because he is afraid he won't be able to contribute to what his sister and his mother need. It really shows what family is really like. It shows that with family you give second chances, which makes me very emotional because I know that sometimes second (or even fifth) chances aren't enough, but it is very true. I also really liked the friendship that Javier and Akeelah had, but I didn't really catch on to the romance until they basically announced it. Their friendship was really adorable and they helped each other out through a lot of things. Like when he got out in one of the spelling bee competitions, he wasn't super sad that he hadn't stayed in over her and he was cheering her on.

I really liked how community was such a big theme in the show. I loved how everyone came around to help Akeelah prep for the National spelling Bee when she needed it the most, even her enemies, like Ratchet Ronda (Kyra Jones). Sometimes I did feel like the neighborhood seemed a little bit stereotypical. Like how there was the town drunk (Kelvin Davis) and the nosy Christian lady next door (Yahdina U-Deen). It wasn't new or something I hadn't seen. But I still like how much they use the community element in this play to show you how close everyone was in this neighborhood.

People who would like this show are people who like great mentoring relationships, community, and Scrabble tableaus. I think that people should go see this show. I think it has a really empowering message and I liked it.

Photos: Doug Haight of Fortune Fish Films

Ada Grey Interviews for You: Ava Briglia and Gilberto Moretti-Hamilton

I had so much fun conducting a virtual interview with Ava Briglia and Gilberto Moretti-Hamilton who play Summer and Freddy in School of Rock, playing at the Cadillac Palace Theatre, November 1-19, 2017.

Ava Briglia

Ada Grey: What is your favorite song or moment in School of Rock?

Gilberto Moretti-Hamilton: My favorite song in School of Rock is “Stick It To The Man (Reprise)” because I do a drum solo and I don’t have to jump around, like in the early version of the song.

Ava Briglia: My favorite song is one that Miss Mullins sings, “Where Did the Rock Go?” Lexie Sharp has an incredible voice and there is one part that gives me chills every time I hear it. My personal favorite moment is when me, John [Michael Pitera] (Billy), and Carson [Hodges](Mason) are on the side during the battle of the bands. We have so much fun together cheering on our friends while they rock out!

AG: What is your dream role?

GM-H: My dream role is Freddy, the drummer and that’s my role in the show. So, I’m very happy.

AB: I've been very lucky to play two of my dream roles in professional shows! When I grow up I would love to be Elphaba from Wicked or Zoe from Dear Evan Hansen.

AG: Do you have a role model? If so, who? And for what reasons?

GM-H: I don’t have just one role model because I admire many great artists like Michael Jackson, James Brown, Led Zeppelin...they are all great performers and entertainers.

AB: I have a lot of role models! My sister Beada has been my biggest role model and inspiration. She's hard working and always kind and supportive to all of her friends and cast mates. She has helped me train and always encourages me! I have a lot of adults that I've worked with that I admire. Christopher Sieber and Jennifer Bowles from my last show worked hard, were so professional, always kind and fair to all of the kids. The entire current adult SOR tour cast have been amazing role models. Rob Colletti and Elysia Jordan are like my big brother and big sister.

Gilberto Moretti-Hamilton

AG: Gilberto, I know you play several instruments. Which do you like most?

GM-H: The instrument I like the most is the drums. I also like to play the bass a lot.

AG: Ava, how is the role of Summer different from other roles you’ve played?

AB: Summer is a dream role for me because she is more than just a rule follower who obsesses over gold stars. She is very smart and knows that women should be equal to men and when Dewey says she could be president of the United States it's the best compliment she could get! She is similar to Matilda in wanting to make things right and standing up to everyone, even adults. The main difference to me is that Matilda is more matter of a fact and Summer is sassy and a little bossy. I am in love with both characters and feel like they are both a part of me.

AG: What do you love about being on tour? What’s hard about being on tour?

GM-H: What I love about being on tour is that you get to see different places and you try new restaurants, Go Karting, meet new fans, and new audiences. What has been hard on tour is that you have to concentrate on your homework.

AB: I am having the best time on tour. This cast is like one big family, I think we are very lucky. I love seeing and learning new things in each city, it's like one big adventure! The hardest part about the tour has been catching up on school. I do an online school and get new assignments daily, like a regular school day. During put-ins and dress rehearsals I fell a little behind. That's new to me because I could always make up work on my day off but a lot of times that day is a travel day. I'm almost there, with the help of our tutors I should be back on track very soon!