1940s Radio Hour, Wimberley Players, February 12 - March 7

Can there by anyone who doesn't appreciate the warm sepia glow of old time radio broadcasts? Of course, many favorite films from the 1930s and 1940s provide a similar feeling of nostalgia, but their images make a different experience. An old-time radio broadcast was magic because it came right into your home and into your head. Millions of Americans shared the experience of being, literally, "the radio audience" -- from audire, Latin, "to listen."

Those recordings and films remain enshrined in American memory, in part because of the portrayal of a simpler America -- one where folks were decent, did their duty, and agreed that America was headed for a brighter day, no matter how difficult the present circumstances. One proof of that mythic permanence in the American consciousness: this happy little warm kaleidoscope of a musical play evokes Christmastime in 1942 at a rundown radio studio in New York City. The play premiered in late 1979 -- 28 years ago.

Director Jennifer McKenna and the Wimberley Players do a fine job of creating the story, which starts slowly as the radio players arrive, chat, bicker and joke. This is a big cast -- 13 players and seven musicians -- and most of them are onstage throughout. That requires a lot of blocking and a lot of concentration, helped out by the superbly designed and finished set. The theatre audience becomes the studio audience, responding appropriately to the applause signs. They get involved in all those secondary stories and relationships unfolding behind the folks currently talking into the big old clunky microphones down front.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: The 1940s Radio Hour, Wimberley Players, February 12 - March 7

Update: Click for ALT review, March 1




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The 1940s Radio Hour
by Walton Jones
Feb. 12 - March 7, 2010

It is December 1942, and our troops overseas are listening to the radio for news and entertainment from back home. The 1940’s Radio Hour, written by Walton Jones, is opening at the Wimberley Playhouse February 12, is a nostalgic musical about a radio broadcast – but this time you, the playgoers, are the actual audience.

Reminiscent of the setting of the recent film, A Prairie Home Companion, the play shows how a radio broadcast is put together. Only this time the music is not country, but favorite old ballads from the 40’s – “Kalamazoo,” “Blue Moon, “Ain’t She Sweet?” “Blues in the Night,” “You Go to My Head,” “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy,” and many others. The music will be presented onstage by a small orchestra consisting of bass (Guy Ben Moshe), trumpet (Sean Palmer), trombone (Tom Van Tassel), drums (John King), piano (Robert FitzGerald), saxophone (Robert Eaton) and tenor sax (Donna Heath).

The 1940’s Radio Hour is directed by Jennifer McKenna, new to the Wimberley Playhouse but known in Austin theatre (Crimes of the Heart at City Theatre and The Diaries of Adam and Eve at the Baker Theatre).

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, Gaslight Baker Theatre, Lockhart, December 4 - 19

Ebenezer Scrooge is everywhere around Austin this Christmastide.

At his fictional debut in London in 1843 the fictional old curmudgeon endured a long, long Christmas Eve but came through transformed and redeemed, much to the reading public early in Victoria's reign. Dickens intended the novella as an uplifting scold and a humanitarian lesson --and a money-maker. He didn't make much from it, particularly once unscrupulous publishers started churning out unauthorized editions. Within a year there were eight theatrical versions of the Christmas Carol in London, only one of them authorized, with another two in New York.

Dickens did establish an enduring set of characters and he was influential in shaping Anglo-Saxon celebration of the holiday. Some assert that the greeting "Merry Christmas" stems from the mouth of Scrooge's nephew Fred and others maintain that our celebratory, family-oriented rituals of the holiday are urbanized versions of 18th-century manorial customs admired by Dickens and emulated in this story.

Scrooge lives again for us this year in Austin and nearby, with -- count 'em -- seven straightforward versions (two conventional theatre pieces, two one-actor presentations, a version for children and a version by children, and a musical) and five spoofs (including Inspecting Carol, now underway both in Wimberley and in San Antonio). Pretty good for a 166-year-old.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge, Gasllight Baker Theatre, Lockhart, December 4-

UPDATE: Click for ALT review, December 10

UPDATE: GACA "A-Team" review by (uncredited), December 7

UPDATE: Click for additional images provided by Gaslight Baker Theatre

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The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge

In December, The Gaslight Baker Theatre in downtown Lockhart Texas will treat the community to a festive comedic twist on a holiday classic: The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge. This family-friendly holiday play by American playwright Mark Brown will run from December 4 to 19 for a total of 8 performances.

Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., with 2 p.m. Saturday matinees on December 12 and 19

A year after his miraculous transformation, Ebenezer Scrooge is back to his old ways, suing Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of Christmas for breaking and entering, kidnapping, slander, pain and suffering, attempted murder, and the intentional infliction of emotional distress. As the trial of the century progresses, hilarity ensues.

The Trial of Ebenezer Scrooge features the great acting talents of Jennifer Davis, Arthur DiBianca, Jason Foreman, Carl Galante, Angela Irving, Lydia Kettle, Dana Peschke, Perry Redden, Derek Smootz, Katherine Wiggins, Jay Young and Gary Yowell. Directed by Stephen Reynolds, assisted by Beverly Galante, this holiday romp is sure to be fun for the whole family!

Be sure to check out our schedule and reserve your tickets today at www.gaslightbakertheatre.org or call (512) 376-5653. Tickets are $12 for adults, $10 for students and seniors. Discounts are available for groups of ten or more.

Leading Ladies, Wimberley Players, April 17 - May 10

Leading Ladies by Ken Ludwig has all the big-footed clowning of a British pantomime, that venerable, wheezy holiday art form in which the British public hoots and chortles at manly men dressing up as women. Dame Edna is the royalty of that genre, but every middle- and lower-class family wants to attend the local "panto" in December, and British TV comedy sketches will inevitably get around to putting a male comedian into something frilly, and preferably topping him with a hat.

The show is set in 1958. I was surprised when a little research turned up the fact that Ludwig's piece premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston only five years ago. It has fallen into the warm embrace of community theatres since then. I missed the recent staging in Leander by the Way Off Broadway Community Players, but made up for it this past weekend with the Wimberley Players, at their handsome, intimate playhouse on Old Kyle Road.

Leading Ladies is a goofy masquerade. Two down-on-their-luck British actors of mediocre talent, on a whistle-stop tour of small town Moose Lodges and Elks Clubs, discover in a newspaper left on a train that a $3 million inheritance will soon be available to a young lady and two long-lost cousins, absent for many years in England. Aha! What better scheme for our wayward Brit showmen than to imitate those inheritors? Problem: a closer reading reveals that the lost are women, not men!

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com. . . .