Hunchback of Notre Dame 2016

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Oh, the charms of a beautiful woman! She can make a pious man forget his vows, drive an officer to abandon his career, and make a deformed, isolated young man believe in himself and fall in love. Or so goes the central story of Victor Hugo’s classic French novel, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

The 2016 season of the Music Circus at the Wells Fargo Pavilion is coming to a close with a new musical version of the classic story. Presented in Music Circus’s intimate “in the round” format, where audience members are all fairly close to the stage and actors, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is based on the music from the Disney animated film of 1996, with music by Alan Menken and lyrics by Steven Schwartz. This version of the story, however, is darker and more adult themed than the film, and more closely follows Hugo’s novel.

The story tells of Dom Claude Frollo, a man of the church, who adopts the illegitimate child of his ne’er-do-well brother. Despite his initial desire to be rid of the child who looks like a beast, he names the baby Quasimodo, meaning “party formed,” and vows to raise him piously. While Frollo becomes Archdeacon of the church, Quasimodo is confined to the bell tower, where his only friends are the stone gargoyles, and his job of ringing the church bells make him deaf. He views the world from his perch high above Paris, but longs to join the people in the city below. Frollo, however, warns him the world would be a cruel place for someone as ugly as the young man appears.

Enter the Gypsy woman Esmeralda, who captures the attention of the Captain of the Guard, Phoebus de Martin. But she also shows kindness to Quasimodo after he ventured outside the cathedral walls, and ends up being humiliated and beaten by the crowd. When she later ventures into the Notre Dame Cathedral to visit Quasimodo, she is detained by Frollo, who is first disgusted by the Gypsy enchantress. But soon he too is drawn to her, and tries to convince her that he can save her soul, especially if she moves in with him for his constant guidance. Thus sets up the drama of the three men who all desperately want Esmeralda, and end up at odds with each other, and her as well.

In the new Music Circus production, the part of Quasimodo is played by John McGinty, which marks the first time a deaf actor is taking on this role in a major production. This daring move turns out to be the heart and soul of the production, adding a dimension that would not otherwise be possible. McGinty is able to vocalize most of the dialog, much more convincingly than a hearing actor could muster, but he is unable to sing the part of a musical theater performer. But Quasimodo spends his time with the gargoyles in the bell tower, engaging in heart-felt dialog with them, in voice and sign language. One of them, played by Jim Hogan, becomes his alter ego, and vocalizes his feelings in the music of the play. Hogan has an incredibly powerful voice, shown especially in songs such as Heaven’s Light and Made of Stone.

Frollo is played by Mark Jacoby, another powerful singer, who struggles with the battle between his faith and his desire for Esmeralda. He bares his soul in the powerful song Hellfire, where he is joined by the priests and the choir of Notre Dame. The members of the choir are sung and portrayed by members of the Sacramento State University Opera Theater Program, consisting of students, faculty, and alumni, and directed by Omari Tau. They do a wonderful job throughout the production, and bring a nice local connection to the company.

The center of the story, Esmeralda, is played by Lesli Margherita, who brings passion and a lovely voice to this role of a fiery and independent young woman who knows what she wants—your basic “Disney Princess.” She moves nicely between her disgust of Frollo’s advances, her compassionate care for Quasimodo, and her eventual succumbing to the charms of Captain Phoebus, played by Eric Kunze. The two share a nice moment in the lovely song Someday, while they face their last moments together in prison.

The music of The Hunchback of Notre Dame fits right in with the feel of a typical Disney musical, such as Aladdin and The Little Mermaid, but without the comedy numbers, of course. A highlight of the second act is the song In a Place of Miracles, when Esmerada, Phoebus, Quasimodo, the Gypsies, and the Choir blend their voices in the climactic scene of conflict before the tragic ending. Another nice moment comes earlier in the second act, when Quasimodo has a vision of Saint Afrodisius (Kevin McMahon) telling his favorite story from the Bible, Flight Into Egypt. The song features McMahon, Hogan, and the company of Gargoyles, and is one of the new pieces written for this production by Menken and Schwartz. The song contrasts McMahon’s more gentle voice with Hogan’s powerful baritone.

 The opening night audience loved the show, giving the performers a standing ovation. Their most enthusiastic cheers were for John McGinty and Jim Hogan, two actors who played a single role in a unique and touching partnership, as they raised their hands together in acknowledgment of the love from the crowd.

The Hunchback of Notre Dame, directed by Glenn Casale, who is also Music Circus’s Artistic Director, runs at the Wells Fargo Pavilion through Sunday, August 28. California Musical Theater’s Broadway Sacramento series will open with The Sound of Music on October 26.  For tickets and information see www.CaliforniaMusicalTheatre.com.

Ken Kiunke  8/24/2016 Originally published in GoldCountryMarketing.com. Reprintable with attribution to Gold Country Marketing and Ken Kiunke

Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim’s classic re-telling of Romeo and Juliet opened Tuesday, August 4 and runs through Sunday the 9th at Sacramento’s favorite summertime theater venue, the Music Circus at the Wells Fargo Pavilion. The show, with a book by Arthur Laurents and originally choreographed by Jerome Robbins, is traditional musical theater combined with elements of ballet and opera, and features several songs that have become standards.

West Side Story brings Romeo and Juliet into New York in the 50’s as rival street gangs, the Jets – made up of working class white kids, and the sharks – made up of Puerto Ricans, battle for turf in their Upper West Side New York neighborhood. Tony, who’s ready to leave the street gang scene for a better world, falls for Maria, a Puerto Rican girl whose brother Bernardo wants her to stick with his friend Chino.

When the story opens, you know right away that dance is going to be just as important as the music and dialog to convey the story, which probably had a lot to do with Jerome Robbins being the catalyst to creating the show with Bernstein and Laurents. (Sondheim joined the team later.) Choreographer Diane Laurenson did a stellar job of recreating the feeling Robbins brought to both the Broadway musical and later the film version. In the first scene, the young “hoodlums” face off, expressing their regard for each other with beautiful and threatening dance moves.

Throughout the show, dance is used to express emotion and drama, both in a real setting, like when they all attend an actual dance and compete for the best dance floor moves, and in songs like One Hand, One Heart, when Tony and Maria express their love while other couples echo their dance moves around them. The ultimate fight scene is even recreated in dance rather than explained verbally to Maria.

But the music is of course what West Side Story is most known for. Playing the part of Tony is Justin Matthew Sargent, who brings his wonderful voice to songs like his opening Something’s Coming and the iconic Maria (- I just met a girl named Maria…). Sargent doesn’t have a voice of overwhelming power, but with more gentle and expressive subtlety. Just when you think he’s done, he’ll hang on to a note at the end that floats delicately in the air. Maria is played by Carolann M Sanita, who has a more powerful, almost operatic voice; and while it soars, it sometimes battles with her efforts at an authentic Puerto Rican accent. She blends well with Sargent, as when the two sing the wonderful Tonight, and then One Hand, One Heart, a song that should be played a lot more at weddings.

The other musical standout was Desiree Davar as Anita, Maria’s best friend, who leads the Shark girls in the rousing America as they express their love of their new country. The story approaches the dramatic climax of the upcoming rumble between the Sharks and Jets with a reprise of the song Tonight, with Tony, Maria, Anita, and the two gangs each singing their expectations of the night ahead, blending and countering each other to amazing affect. The audience was so taken by this number that most thought it was intermission time, but the big fight, and the tragic climax, was still to come before the break.

The weight of the tragic events of the climax of the first act are relieved a bit in the second, first with the upbeat I Feel Pretty, sung by Maria and the Shark Girls before they know of what happened in the rumble. Then comes the comic Gee, Officer Krupke as sung by the Jets as they try to relieve their own tension, having just seen their leader Riff (Shane Rhoades) killed, and Tony on the run for his revenge against Bernardo. Michael Callahan as Action does great job leading the other guys in this comic song and dance number.

But the weight of the tragedy does fall on Tony and Maria, as they sing the lovely Somewhere, dreaming of getting away from all the sadness. And after Anita scolds Maria with A Boy Like That, the two share the sad but hopeful I Have a Love.

The whole show is very well put together, and of course the Music Circus in-the-round stage brings the audience close in to the action, though occasionally it can be difficult to see some of the performers due to the staging of the crowd scenes. The supporting performers added much to the production, especially in the Dance at the Gym scene, where traditional American dances are altered with Latin Mambo and Cha-Cha moves. The colorful dresses and lively dance moves make the scene come alive. And the orchestra, a 17 piece ensemble led by conductor Craig Barna, provides an amazing sound for such a small group.

The opening night audience loved the show, and thanked the company with an enthusiastic standing ovation. West Side Story, directed by Bob Richard, runs at the Wells Fargo Pavilion Music Circus through August 9th. The musical Hair will conclude the 2015 Music Circus season. For tickets and information see www.CaliforniaMusicalTheatre.com.

Ken Kiunke  8/5/2015 Originally published in the Gold Country Times. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Times and Ken Kiunke

It’s summer in Sacramento, time for the Music Circus at the Wells Fargo Pavilion, where Broadway musicals are presented in the more intimate “in the round” format, and where audience members are all fairly close to the stage and actors. Big River, Roger Miller and William Hauptman’s re-telling of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, opened Tuesday, June 23 and runs through Sunday the 28.

Roger Miller is best known for his hit song “King Of The Road” and other country/pop songs that earned him multiple Grammy awards and the County Music Hall of Fame. In 1985 he was recruited to write his one and only musical based on the story of Huckleberry Finn, which ended up winning him a Tony Award for Best Score, while the production won the award for Best Musical, and Hauptman for Best Book.

The story is a faithful re-telling of Huckleberry Finn, with Ben Frankhauser playing Huck, a boy growing into manhood, and torn between learning at school and living a “proper” life, and enjoying the freedom has had for most of his young life. His guardians Miss Watson (Angelina Sark) and the Widow Douglas (Mary Jo Mecca) offer him that choice in the opening song Do Ya Wanna Go To Heaven?, while Tom Sawyer (James Michael Lambert) and the other guys try to lure him into more adventures in Injun Joe’s Cave in the song The Guys. They, however, prove to be less than committed, as they rush off for home and school, leaving Huck to ponder his life in Waitin’ For The Light To Shine. Though somewhat older than you expect Huck to be, Frankhauser does a good job, not only as the character, but as the narrator of the story, relating his tale to the audience. So it kind of works if you think of him as the older, grown up Huck sharing what happened when he was a kid.

Huck’s direction is made clear to him after he is taken home by his “Pap”, a no good drifter who’s only after Huck for his share of the treasure he and Tom found in their earlier adventures. Though initially accepting of his father, the old man’s drinking and hallucinations become dangerous, and Huck knows he has to leave. Interesting trivia – Roger Miller played the part of Pap for three months in the original New York production, taking over after John Goodman left for Hollywood.

Of course, as Huck is running away to find his freedom, he meets up with his soulmate – Jim, a slave from his home who had run away to find his own freedom, with the goal of eventually liberating his wife and children. This marks a shift in Huck’s personal dilemma, from choosing his path of social respectability versus living free, to that of protecting Jim or turning him in. Though Jim, played by the powerful Phillip Boykin, is a good man and Huck’s friend, Huck also knows that he is Miss Watson’s “property”, and worries that it is morally wrong to help “steal” him from her.

The show is most enjoyable during the time Huck and Jim are on their raft traveling down the Mississippi river. The songs Muddy Water and River In The Rain are beautifully sung, harmonizing Boykin’s powerful, soulful baritone with Frankhouser’s reedy tenor. They also witness the terrifying spectacle of captured runaway slaves who are being returned to their masters, and the first appearance of Jennifer Leigh Warren and her amazing, soulful voice in The Crossing. Though her role in that scene is an unnamed slave, later in the production she takes the role of Alice, a house slave at the Wilkes home in Act II.

Another amazing aspect of this production is that Warren, 30 years ago in the original New York production, played Alice’s daughter, and Roger Miller wrote the song How Blest We Are specifically for her voice. She leads the company in that song as well as the reprise to Waitin’ For The Light To Shine, and touched many hearts with her wonderful voice.

The end of the first act and into the second revolves around Huck and Jim getting involved with two traveling shysters, known as “The King” and “The Duke”, played by William Parry and Jeff Skowron. Though they initially bring a lot of fun and humor to the story, especially in the song When The Sun Goes Down In The South, they soon grow tiresome, and even hateful as they show their true colors. As Huck sees these two swindling a nice family out of their fortune, he just wants the whole thing to be over, and so did I. There are some nice moments however, as when Huck and Jim once again share a touching song, Worlds Apart, and Mary Jane Wilkes, played by Lizzie Klemperer, sings You Ought To Be Here With Me with her two sisters.

The timing of this production, though it obviously wasn’t planned that way, is very potent. As we have just been through several months of controversy in this country over the treatment of black people, beginning with Ferguson Missouri, Baltimore, and other highly publicized incidents, and culminating in the racially motivated murder of nine African Americans in their South Carolina church, this portrait of slavery in the pre-civil war south is particularly resonant. The frequent use of the “N-Word”, though an accurate portrayal of the times, is still jarring, and must have been difficult for the actors to get through. And when Jim sings Free At Last you feel the joy of his finally breaking the chains that bind him, and the hope he has for a brighter future when he can re-unite with his family. But you also know his troubles are not over.

Big River, directed by Michael Heitzman, runs at the Wells Fargo Pavilion Music Circus through June 28. Bye Bye Birdie follows this summer, opening July 7, followed by Peter Pan, West Side Story, and Hair. For tickets and information see www.CaliforniaMusicalTheatre.com.

Ken Kiunke  6/24/2015 Originally published in the Gold Country Times. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Times and Ken Kiunke

It’s summer in Sacramento, and that means the Music Circus is in full swing at the Wells Fargo Pavilion. August brings an in-the-round production of Lerner and Loewe’s Brigadoon, the first big show they created, which was followed by Paint Your Wagon, My Fair Lady, Camelot, and Gigi. The show is set in a mystical place in the Scottish Highlands, where two New Yorkers find themselves lost, and suddenly in the midst of a place that time forgot.

The story, written by Alan Lerner, is a bit odd, but works well as a musical. The two travelers lost in Scotland hear music in the distance, and soon find themselves in a village called Brigadoon, which is not on their map. The town is populated by people in old fashioned clothes, including kilts and tartans, selling handcrafted wares at their market. As it turns out, the town is the result of “the miracle”, an answered prayer to keep them in the ways of the old world. The town and its people vanish from the world at the end of each day, to return once again one hundred years later, as if only a day had passed. A fanciful concept, but one that means a newly married couple who becomes pregnant on their wedding night would have their baby roughly 27,500 earth years later, and the kid would start school about the year 211,245. No telling what the world will be like when he hits puberty…

Of course, to enjoy the show you must put all that out of your mind, and take the story for what it is, a comparison of the ideas and viewpoints of two 20th century men with the pastoral life of happy people from 200 years before. And the story presents a nice contrast between the romantic Tommy Albright, who is due to marry a lovely girl from a fine family, who he is not too sure he’s really in love with, and his practical companion Jeff Douglas, who is never quite sure of what is going on with this whole Brigadoon village stuff.

The story follows two and a half romances. Brigadoon natives Charlie and Jean are planning their wedding, Tommy from New York meets Fiona of Brigadoon and they fall for each other, and Meg meets Jeff, whom she falls for – mostly because he’s new to town and she hasn’t gotten to him yet. The romances lend themselves to some great songs, as Charlie – played by Brandon Springman – sings the rousing I’ll Go Home With Bonnie Jean and the touching Come To Me, Bend To Me.

Meanwhile, Tommy, played by Robert J. Townsend, and independent-minded Fiona, played by Jennifer Hope Wills, meet amid the confusion of the two strange men entering the world of Brigadoon. Both fine singers, they share the songs The Heather on the Hill and Almost Like Being In Love. It has been said that Alan Lerner and Frederick Loewe were inspired by Rogers and Hammerstein in their collaboration, and Almost Like Being In Love is very reminiscent of Oklahoma’s People Will Say We’re In Love, in both meaning and melody.

And the “half” romance features Meg, played by the delightful Tory Ross, chasing after Tommy’s sidekick Jeff, played by Jason Graae. Graae’s Jeff provides most of the spoken comic relief of the show, and he reminded me a lot of Harry Shearer (Spinal Tap, the Simpsons) in his acting and delivery. Ross’ Meg delivers the musical comedy as she tries to seduce Jeff in her family’s shed. She tells the history of her romances in the song The Love Of My Life, which is not nearly as romantic as the title suggests, but is instead a real hoot of a tale. Ross is great fun in that scene, and in her other song, My Mother’s Wedding Day. And Graae is a perfect comic foil for both her and Tommy.

The show also features some wonderful dance scenes, such as Jean and her friends in a ballet to the Come To Me, Bend To Me music. There is also a rousing wedding dance, and a traditional Scottish sword dance performed by the male dancers in the company, led by Luke Hawkins as Harry, the jilted lover. And being a Scottish themed show, there is of course bagpipe music, but alas, only for one song.

The show works well for the intimate in-the-round format as directed by the Music Circus’ Glenn Casale, and it is always fun seeing the performers come and go up the aisles. There is a particularly nice effect at the climax of the play, when Tommy is back in New York and his mind is in Brigadoon. The opening night crowd was very pleased with the production, rising to their feet as Townsend and Wills took the final bows.

Brigadoon runs at the Wells Fargo Pavilion Music Circus through August 10th.  For tickets and information see www.CaliforniaMusicalTheatre.com.

Ken Kiunke  8/6/2014 Originally published in the Gold Country Times. Reprintable with attribution to the Gold Country Times and Ken Kiunke