Roanoke Theater Reviews

July 23 to August 9, Showtimers Community Theatre, Roanoke, 7:30 pm, 1 hour 45 minute run time, no intermission.  I have to start with a quote from the show itself. This show "does what a musical is supposed to do! It takes you to another world and it..it gives you a little tune to carry in your head for...for...when you're feeling blue, you know?" That is exactly what the good folks at Showtimers have accomplished with  The Drowsy Chaperone .  I was not familiar with this show, but it's been around since 1998 and it won a bunch of Tonys on Broadway in 2006. It was written by Canadians, and it's just as wholesome and upstanding as you'd expect. That is, it's a parody of a 1920s musical, written much later. That's all I knew, going in: some kind of 1920s musical revival. But friends, I want you to know: there is a frame, and the frame story makes all the difference, in my opinion.  At tonight's performance, at the beginning of the show, the light...

 July 17-19, 24-26, Fred Harper Theatre, Bedford, 7:30 pm, nearly 3 hour run time including two 15 minute intermissions. This is a robust rendition of a much-beloved farce. You will enjoy yourself with this one! Michael Frayn's  Noises Off  is a classic British farce. It is, as the director's note states, "one of the funniest plays ever written." The basic premise is this: act one shows the final rehearsal of a silly sex-farce play (think lots of slamming doors and people in their underwear); act two shows the same material, but as viewed from backstage in a performance weeks later; and act three shows the "front facing" play again, but because we've seen the backstage, we know how to interpret the increasingly deteriorating performances delivered by the actors. It's all screamingly funny, especially the second act, which involves much pantomime and physical humor, because the actors have to communicate quietly in the backstage setting. So yes. It...

July 9-26, D. Geraldine Lawson Performing Arts Center, Fincastle, 7:30 pm, 2 hour 45 minute run time including one 15 minute intermission. Let it not be said that our local community theater companies are short on ambition! After Bear Theatre's impressive unabridged Romeo and Juliet last month, I was pleasantly surprised to see this equally impressive and equally ambitious production of  Into the Woods .  Wrangling a cast of nearly 30, director Kerry Williams has done an impressive job with a musical that is, to put it lightly, difficult. Sondheim's music is notoriously hard to sing, and this particular musical features smart but relentless lyrics, a mishmash of several story lines, and several other difficult-to-handle components (how do you put a giant on stage? How do you transform a witch? How do you portray a tower? How do you keep people from thinking the intermission is the end?). Into the Woods  is a tightly controlled musical. I've seen several productions and t...