Reviews by Mark

My pal Mark Hayes (no stranger to the local stage) is an avid fan of the theatre, and he sent along these reviews from shows he saw over the weekend. With his kind permission, I'm sharing his comments here:

<< Saturday night, we saw "The Three Phantoms" in Charleston at the Clay Center with the WV Symphony Orchestra. Absolutely amazing! Ron Bohmer, Cris Groenendaal and Craig Schulman, who have all played the Phantom on Broadway, were incredible. My wife kept telling me that she recognized Craig Schulman and then, when Grant Cooper noted that Schulman had performed more times on Broadway as Jean Valjean in "Les Miserables" than any other performer (over 2000!), she remembered that he was the USA's "Valjean" representative at the end of the 10th Anniversary PBS special. He sang "Bring Him Home," and you could have heard a pin drop in the place (that was relatively full for a nice change). They all sang songs from the shows they've been in over the years - "Guys and Dolls," "Jekyll and Hyde," "Sweeney Todd," "Fiddler," etc., but then joined together to sing "Music of the Night." Just incredible - all three were performers that had made that rare step up from having great voices to having "instruments." Great, great evening. We ended up meeting Schulman and Bohmer and, as a result, remaining in the lobby until all of the performance crowd left.

Sunday we made what's become a once a month trip to Columbus for the Broadway Series. This time, it was "All Shook Up," a show that clearly stole its premise from "Mamma Mia" since its a story woven around the music of an icon - this time, Elvis. It's a lot funnier than "Mamma Mia," and had several 'hysterical, laugh out loud, wipe tears from your eyes' moments. It "starred" Susan Anton, who did an admirable job as the museum curator, but was overshadowed by the 'stars' - Jenny Fellner as 'Natalie' and Joe Mandragona as 'Chad'. Mandragona, especially, was terrific as the James Dean-esque character who comes into a "square little town in the middle of a square state" and proceeds to shake up the boredom of the locals. There were a few adult situation moments, but for the most part, it's good "PG" fun and the music was terrific.

By the way, Columbus' Broadway Series is a terrific way to see quality shows that we'll never get locally. We've seen "12 Angry Men" with Richard Thomas, "Dirty Rotten Scoundrels" (with Tom Hewitt) and "All Shook Up," and will be going up to see "Light in the Piazza," "25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" and (the reason we got the season tickets), "Wicked" in June. It's only 2 1/2 hours from Huntington and it's a lot of fun to spend an afternoon in Columbus to see a show and eat a nice lunch or dinner. Well worth the effort! >>