Author Archives: Marianya Klis

Review: BrightSide Theatre’s Moonlight and Magnolias

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Last weekend I had the pleasure of accompanying a friend of mine to see her husband portray Victor Fleming in BrightSide Theatre’s production of Moonlight and Magnolias.

Originally I wasn’t going to write a review for this particular production because I was under the belief that this coming weekend was closing weekend. However, in finding out that mid-Sept was set as the closing weekend… well why not?

So let’s go with the quick:
Acting: LOVE
Directing: LOVE
Set Design: LOVE
Overall: LOVE

Do you really need anymore? Oh very well.
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Fleeting: The Difference Between E, E and N

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Once upon a time (meaning back in college) a few friends of mine and I were talking about the different mentality of the various “social” classes in America… not in the sense of financial (nor the current times) but how people were brought up over the generations that became prevalent.

Oddly enough it appeared to be fairly simple as to the priorities of each classes in past generations:
– Lower Class: Entertainment
– Middle Class: Education
– Upper Class: Networking

Nowadays the above “priorities” are blurred between classes, but in a lot of ways they still do define what makes someone successful in life over the year and who is bound to struggle.

What do I mean?

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Fleeting: Going off the Radar

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Not because I don’t want to continue blogging… but because there is a shift happening. In particular So You Think You Can Dance and America’s Got Talent are both going on and guess who gets to write those?

Yep… me.

But also I have been going back to my writing projects and have been working on a few projects here and there. So the shift of my blogging would probably end up focusing on whatever writing project I am working on…

So what would I reveal?
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Fleeting: Why “Dancing Through the Universe”?

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Why yes… it has been a while and I am well aware of that. So what have I been doing that has been keeping me from writing and blogging?

I’ve been busy. I was on stage or off stage for various shows. Going to see shows in the area… working on my day job, or attempting to blog for Dancing with the Stars.

Eventually balls needed to get dropped because there has been something else that has been keeping my attention:

Writing.

Or more precisely development. Considering I have a fair number of writing-related projects on back burner and was not able to be a part of any of the summer shows coming up, this has become a rare opportunity to focus on that aspect of my life that I haven’t really touched for years (well more like over a decade and a half but who’s counting really?).

So what does any of this have to deal with the title of this post?
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Reflection: Why Do I Write (Reviews)

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This was a question that has been percolating in my mind for quite some time and caused a lot of soul searching for a vast multitude of reasons. I go and see shows and support people I know, friends, etc… just like most anyone else, but not everyone writes their thoughts down… so why do it?

I think the better question is “why am I questioning myself?” Afterall I already have a bit of a following on the Pure Dancing with the Stars blog with my predictions and not everyone is going to agree and really opinions shouldn’t have to agree. Take it with a grain of salt and move on that is the constant mantra over there. (You think I’m kidding? There are a lot of passionate fans over there and they get offended by everything big and small… it is getting rather ridiculous if you ask me.)

But predicting who is going to get what score is very different from reviewing a production that your friends and acquaintances are in. There are more (familiar) egos at stake and are much more prone to bruising… everything is so subjective. Over in the Pure TV Network it is a series of media sites with several writers with differing opinions, while this is a blog of my own thoughts.

So how did I get started in reviewing in the first place…?

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Review: BrightSide Theatre’s God of Carnage

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So technically this was written a month or so ago, and even though it is probably a moot point to post this, I decided instead to just wrap it up and post it anyway since I enjoyed this production regardless:

Show: GOD OF CARNAGE
By: Yasmina Reza
Translated By: Christopher Hampton 		Location: BrightSide Theatre
Director: Derek Bertelsen

Several days ago I found myself seated and waiting for BrightSide Theatre‘s God of Carnage to begin. Front row… dead center, which for a lot of stage setups would have been perfect, except for this particular set up it wasn’t, not exactly anyway.

But before I go on… the quick and simple:
Acting: Like
Set Design: Like
Staging: Love
Directing: Love
OVERALL: Like

After this particular production there were so many thoughts running through my brain that I truly couldn’t find a way to organize it all. So for the sake of simplicity before going into detail, here are a little bit of what I was thinking when the show ended:
– The men felt more consistent than the women
– Veronica showed a lot more subtlety and layers
– The gag was obvious than I would have liked
– There was a lot of material added that fleshed out the characters, comedy, and story
– It never once felt like this was on stage and I was watching from the audience. It felt like I was there in the living room with the characters and just watching this unfold in front of me.

That last one is probably the most significant of all the pieces. The feeling that you are a part of the conversation without having to utter a word. That feeling of being a part of the conversation, of the chaos between the two families is what sets this production apart from others…
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Reflection: Sense & Sensibility the Musical

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Now that I have had a few days to really let Denver’s production of Sense & Sensibility musical by Jeffrey Haddow and Neal Hampton sink in I could give details of what I liked and didn’t like, etc…

CHARACTER / ACTOR BREAKDOWN
The first thing I noticed was that aside from six characters:
– Elinor Dashwood
– Marianne Dashwood
– Mrs Jennings
– Edward Ferrars
– Colonel Brandon
– John Willoughby
Everyone else in the cast was playing dual (if not triple) roles… most as an ensemble-ish group similar to the Liebeslieders (or the Quintet) of A Little Night Music. Though unlike in A Little Night Music, the ensemble fluctuates from as little as four players to as many as eight/nine (I do not remember which).

However, there are two others within the cast who are not necessarily part of the general ensemble but do play multiple roles on stage.

This ingenious casting piqued my interest because it gives performing arts groups the flexibility of having a medium sized cast of 16 actors (maybe less depending on how things break down) to as large as need be for high school groups… and yes I am thinking very far ahead.

Anyway!!!!!
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Review: Sense & Sensibility World Premiere in Denver

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Wow, it was almost a year ago that I was listening to the music clips on the Sense and Sensibility the Musical website and was drawn into the show… Draw into it enough to want to see the production upon its arrival in Denver.

It has been a year and well… I did end up making that trip to Colorado specifically so I could see this production live. Don’t judge me.

First… the quickies:
– Acting: LOVE
– Vocals: LOVE
– Music / Orchestration: LOVE
– Set Design: LOVE
– Directing: LOVE
– OVERALL: LOVE!!!

I was seriously considering buying another ticket for the matinee production on Sunday but thought better of it.

But where to begin? Well to start the one thing I like is that there isn’t some massive ensemble in addition to the cast, there is a group of five to seven actors/actresses who help move the story along (a la A Little Night Music). Why five to seven? Because not only do they help move the story along, but some of them also play smaller parts in the production when needed:
– Lucy Steele
– Thomas (Dashwoods servant)
– Peter (London servant)
– Miss Grey (Willoughby’s bride)
– John and Fanny Dashwood
And others, but the above are the most “obvious” I would say.

Personally I didn’t notice when each of the above players were in the “ensemble” so to speak until much later in the production… which was a good thing… otherwise I would have to watch the show again just so I could see if I had missed anything.

Since this is my impression / review of the production itself I won’t go into detail about changes from the original novel… that is going to be a post in and of itself. However what I will say is this:

When it comes to the storylines of the Dashwood sisters the stage adaptation is fairly close to the novel (with a few changes here and there). When it comes to where a lot of where particular points of the storyline happens, there are far more changes that a total purist may not be too keen on, but for me being a purist… I find that the changes made were probably the best ones that could have been done.

But again that’s another post for another day.

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Conventions: Fabletown and Beyond

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What is the worst word to apply to this convention…

Regret… And lots of it…

– I regret not arriving until 1am on Saturday morning…
– I regret having to leave by 5pm on Sunday evening…
– I regret letting something so awesome slip my mind so carelessly…
– I regret not being able to stay up beyond my 4am self-imposed bedtime on Sunday morning…

Lots of regrets because the weekend of the Fabletown and Beyond Convention was…

SO INCREDIBLY AMAZING!!!

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Fleeting: I love Surprises, as Long as I’m not the Receiver

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Odd isn’t it? I love giving surprises to other people but I really can’t stand surprises myself.

So what brought this on? Well recently a small group of friends and I put our heads together to plan out a surprise party for another friend who needed a bit of a boost.

Without going into details said friend had gone through a difficult time in their life and is slowly going into an upswing. We wanted to give said friend an additional boost in this upswing in hopes that he didn’t lose the momentum prior to this difficult time.

They were surprised, happy, and humbled (their words all changed around) with what was given to them and it gave all involved a warm, fuzzy feeling inside to know that we have done a good deed…

But naturally I started thinking: “If someone were to throw me a surprise party of some sort how would I react?”

Every time I asked myself this question I always come up with the same answer:

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Reflection: The Fear of Being an Advocate

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How often do we post about some of the crazier thinking that have been going on in society nowadays? How often do we comment about something going on in the world and how crazy and silly and stupid it is and move on with our own lives…

Better yet in the smaller scheme of things has anyone found themselves in the position of persuading a group of people as to why what they are considering is wrong and detrimental to the grand scheme of things and what would be the best course of action in the long term?

Yep… been there… done that… once… about seven years ago…

I was working in a completely different company from what I am doing now and the position that myself and six other groups members were a part of was on the chopping block and we were going to be folded into another group with our responsibilities shared to the larger whole. Meaning what we spent years specializing in was going to be shared across a group three times the size. Higher risk of error, higher risk of causing a major dent to the detrimental of the larger populace.

So my group was scheduled for a meeting with the administration to explain and plead our case. I originally had planned that day off for personal reasons (potential-beau at the time was visiting from out of country for he lived in the Netherlands) but after coaching the other members of my team various arguments, points, and reasoning as to why what the administration was planning was detrimental… it came to pass that the group would be stronger with myself there as opposed to away.

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Endeavors: Dancing with the Chef’s Table (Samba)

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For the Chef’s Table that occurred last night the theme chosen was Ballroom Dance styles… courtesy of moi. 🙂

So what were the dance styles that people were allowed to pick out of the hat? Well they include:
– Waltz, Viennese Waltz, Tango, Argentine Tango, Foxtrot, Quickstep
– Rumba, Cha Cha, Paso Doble, Samba, Jive, Swing (East Coast or West Coast), Mambo, Bolero
– Polka, Two Step

Why not Salsa? Too easy… that would have been waaaaaaay too easy. Besides the Salsa is sometimes known as the lazy man’s Mambo because the Salsa hits on the down beat (1 and 3) whileas the Mambo hits on the off beat (2 and 4). Yes, I am that kind of a geek… so sue me…

But not really sue me.

So I managed to pick the one dance that I claim to be weakest at: Samba.

And I also managed to pick the course that I would have a gloriously difficult time with: Soup!

Salad would have been soooo much easier.

Whenever someone in the dancing world shouts “Samba” the immediate connection is the Brazilian Carnivale… aka one big massive party. Which led me to having a party in your mouth… which lead me to fireworks… aka Pop Rocks!

Right, a recipe that uses Pop Rocks… I am so getting shot.

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Review: VTG’s A Hatful of Rain

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Show: A HATFUL OF RAIN
By: Michael V. Gazzo 		Location: Wheaton Drama
Director: Jeni Dees

Now, let’s be honest, I really wasn’t planning on going to see this show at all… I didn’t have the time (all things considered) and I didn’t want to watch a post-war drama about soldiers living with PTSD and trying to survive. Why? It’s not because I’m heartless… it is because I have seen and read many of those stories from friends who were deployed and their extended circles.

But since a friend of mine wanted to go… I carved out a timeslot in my crazy schedule and went with her.

So… this was an interesting show, tugs at the heartstrings at moments… though in a different way and there are moment that are so comedic that you can’t help but laugh.

However at the core of it all is the young man from war who has been hiding a drug addiction from all those who love him except one.

First the quickie thoughts:
Acting: Like
Staging: Like
OVERALL: Like

So what now? What is there to say?

This story of a young man who was terribly injured in the Korean War provides a look at drug addiction through the eyes of society in 1955, and how it can tear a family apart or bring them together. This emotional drama can be related to soldiers of today with PTSD.

Yeeeeaaaah.
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Reflection: Blogging at the Pure TV Network

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I think I am burned out… at least when it comes to blogging on Pure Dancing With the Stars.

Well I kind of knew that when I wasn’t interested in working through the spreadsheets during the off season in favor of doing more personal stuff. But I think what did it was when I didn’t even have the Pre-Season Elimination post started and the start of the season was a day away, that was when I knew.

It’s not that I am overwhelmed… I am never overwhelmed, I love to keep busy and having a million plus one projects on my plate so every moment of my life is kept busy and if something else were to fall through I could sift through all the umpteen number of projects and work on something else.

I think what is doing it is that I am focusing more and more on being creative as opposed to analytical.

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Reflection: Disneyland Trip (Pre-Posts)

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Two months ago, myself and a bunch of friends got together on the West Coast to celebrate the birthday of a mutual friend. There was two contingents showing up in the Magic Kingdom which included one from Chicago and another in the Los Angeles area.

To say I had fun is an understatement… I truly enjoyed myself… however, I also became ill during this trip and as thus was in bed half the time as well. Ah well.

So how am I to break this down? Well between Disneyland and Disney’s California Adventure there is a lot to go through… so I guess I will try it this way…
– Part One: This will deal primarily with what happened pre-Disney Birthday Day. Arrival, hotel, planning, hanging out… etc.
– Part Two: Will be devoted to what was done during the big birthday day, what we did together… what happened when we all splintered off… etc.
– Part Three: Disneyland. Anything not covered in Part Two from Disneyland would be covered in this particular post
– Part Four: Disney’s California Adventure. There were a couple of moments that myself and a friend ventured off into DCA since she was only going to be around for a day. So this post would be devoted to whatever I was able to do outside of Part Two (which is a lot).
– Part Five: What I Missed. Regrets, things I wanted to do that I didn’t get to do, or things I wanted to get but didn’t for various reasons. This might include the supposed trip to L.A. that never happened.

Yeah… it is going to be rather lengthy series and I probably won’t get to everything right away… but the hope is that I will be able to sort through all the photos and have all the videos uploaded so that I could actually get this going.

And since a few people that missed out on the trip are looking for details… well here is my perspective, but for starters if you missed the original post here is a little something that came out of the trip: Men’s Musical Pants… *evil cackle*