musicals

Chris Knight's avatar

I LOVED IT!!

Okay, it’s the new movie adaptation that came out just before Thanksgiving.  I still haven’t seen the original musical yet but now I want to remedy that.

Today is Christmas Day.  Two of my dearest friends live the next town over and they didn’t want me to spend the holiday alone without us doing something fun together.  They picked me up and after a bit of lunch at Waffle House (maybe the only restaurant open on the holiday) we proceeded on to the theater nearby for the 2:45 show.

I knew nothing about Wicked other than it’s based on The Wizard of Oz and the musical is composed by Stephen Schwartz (who also created my all time favorite musical Children of Eden).  I figured out early on though that it’s about the Wicked Witch of the West, the main antagonist of the books.  But that’s pretty ...

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Y’know, it’s incorrect to refer to this ethnic group as “Gypsy”. The real term is “Romani”. The reason they got tagged with the name “Gypsy” is ‘cuz as they spread into Europe from their original home in the Indian subcontinent, the locals thought wrongly that they were Egyptian.

So don’t you think that “Roma Rose Lee” has a better ring to it? Or is that just me?

Well anyhoo…

Next Friday night, February 4th, is Opening Night for Theatre Guild of Rockingham County’s production of Gypsy! Rehearsals have been going great. Everyone was roaring with laughter last night during the run-through of “You Gotta Get A Gimmick”. And I am having an absolute blast playing Cigar. He is completely sleazy and, well I just can’t help but have fun with this character: he is the manager of a burlesque house, after all. Expect lots of yelling ...

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Tonight we had the first “stumble-through” of Theatre Guild of Rockingham County‘s production of Gypsy. A stumble-through, I learned tonight, is an extreme “rough cut” of the show. Which I assume is like what the preview performances of Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark have been about so far… but without all the injuries.

So since getting involved with community theatre three years ago I have been, in chronological order: a biblical patriarch, an undertaker, a pirate, a firefighter, a Siamese court eunuch, a plainclothes detective, a firefighter again (both times for The Best Christmas Pageant Ever)…

…but only tonight did I discover that of the two roles that I’m playing in Gypsy, that the part of Cigar is, for all intents and purposes, the manager of a strip club.

(Somebody tell me HOW is it that we can do a show like this but we ...

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If you’re anywhere around Greensboro this next week, consider checking out Weaver Academy‘s production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. I attended the performance tonight and it was riveting! It was definitely a show that was a cut above most that I have seen. In fact, I’m feeling hungry for more!

(Awright, that’s enough of the puns…)

Anyway, the students at Weaver have put together a very good show and I’m glad for the opportunity to have been able to catch this. Sweeney Todd plays again on March 18th, 19th and 20th at Weaver Academy, located at 300 South Spring Street in Greensboro. Showtime is at 7 and tickets are $12. The only thing I regret to inform my readers about is that complimentary meat pie is not served during the performance… but don’t let that stop y’all from enjoying it as well! 🙂...

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Longtime readers of this blog know that my favorite musical is Children of Eden. This past summer I was extremely blessed to have taken part in a production of it by the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County. Well, if you’ve never had the pleasure of beholding this amazing show and you live near Greensboro, North Carolina you’re in luck this weekend and the next. Jay Smith, who played Cain in our production, is directing Children of Eden at The Sanctuary, located at 900 Sixteenth Street in Greensboro. The show begins Friday, February 20th at 7:30 p.m., and runs through February 28th. Many of the same faces from Theatre Guild of Rockingham County’s production will be in this new show, including Neil Shepherd returning as Father. Click here for more information, and hope you can come check it out! 🙂...

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Last night at Rockingham Community College the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County held its season-ending banquet, followed by the 2007-2008 Golden Guild Awards. That’s the annual ceremony that honors those who volunteered during the previous season. The various award winners are chosen based on votes cast by the cast and crew of the shows.

In addition to the Best Actor and Best Actress categories, Best Production etc., there is what is called the Spirit Award. There’s one given for each show during a season’s run. I was told that it goes to the person who “best exemplifies enthusiasm for a show”.

The last Spirit Award for the 2007-2008 Golden Guild Awards was the one for Children of Eden.

And I’m still reeling in shock after the envelope was opened and hearing “Chris Knight” announced as the winner!

I barely remember staggering on stage, and the first words out of ...

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Last week, around the time that we were in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I started hearing about something called Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly creator Joss Whedon wrote, directed and even composed the music for this three-act comic opera about Dr. Horrible (Neil Patrick Harris), a down-on-his-luck mad scientist trying to gain both respect as a supervillain and the girl of his dreams (played by Felicia Day). I couldn’t get to its website in time to catch the streaming video of the three chapters as they were being released, but based on the good buzz and the positive word of several friends (including Phillip Arthur) I went to iTunes two nights ago and checked it out.

People, if you haven’t already, you owe it to yourself to watch Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog: it’s one of the funniest, most clever and even thought-provoking things that ...

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This is the way the world begins: not with a whimper but with a bang!

Yesterday was the final performance of the Theatre Guild of Rockingham County‘s production of Children of Eden. After the amazing reaction that the show got on Saturday night, could Sunday afternoon possibly be any better? Judging by the approval of the packed auditorium at Rockingham Community College – the biggest audience of the entire run – the answer to that is an emphatic “yes”!

The show went great! One funny thing that happened came during the scene where Father (Neil Shepherd) is banishing Adam (Stephen Hale) and Eve (Rose Cutuli Wray) from the Garden: when Father smites the Tree of Knowledge, the special effects crew had the tree rigged so that there was a very loud flash of light and smoke,as the tree splits in two. Well, they must have put some extra ...

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