Tag Archives: Garrett Ard

Review: VTG’s A Hatful of Rain

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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Review: Wheaton Drama’s Broadway Ballot (Act Two only!)

Show: BROADWAY BALLOT Location: Wheaton Drama
Director: Craig Gustafson

After my whirlwind weekend getaway up north in Minocqua, Wisconsin… I drove straight south back home and realized that if I pushed it, I would make it to see a few of my theatre friends at their Broadway Ballot. Granted I ended up missing the first Act (which had a few shows that I really wanted to see) but seeing the second act provided songs from shows that I am not typically a fan of, but now I would be kind of curious to see.

Below are all the songs that were featured in the second act of the Broadway Ballot at Wheaton Drama. What Wheaton Drama did was put on a kind of revue of a vast variety of Broadway songs from a variety of musicals and asked the audience to decide which shows they would love to see or not care to see at all. Then these ballots are tabulated and presented to the Wheaton Drama monthly meeting and from there they may use the data to decide what musicals to present for future seasons.

Regardless if the data would be used or not, in the end it was a fun revue / production and it helped bring in donations and dollars to the theatre group for their future productions. So all in all a win-win situation for an outsider looking in (aka myself).

From what I understand from those that were part of the production there were twenty-two performers who were singing twenty-six songs and they only had eleven rehearsals to do it. Now coming from someone that has been thrown into the thick of things a week before Opening weekends (including Shakespeare)… I can honestly say that I was expecting nothing less than fun, laughter, and entertainment and this group definitely delivered.

Taking a look at the official Ballot the revue is comprised of songs taken from a vast variety of shows: traditional and non-traditional, well and lesser known. A nice mixed bag with something for everyone to enjoy.
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Review: Geneva Underground Playhouse’s Assassins

Show: ASSASSINS
Music and Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim
Book: John Weidman
Location: Geneva Underground Playhouse
Director: Craig Gustafson
Music Director: Kathleen Dooley

Not long ago I went with a friend to see Geneva Underground Playhouse’s latest foray into musical theatre: Stephan Sondheim’s Assassins.

Set up as a revue-style show placed in a carnival style game of “Shoot a President”, this musical goes through the motivations of a fraction of the men and women how have either successfully or attempted to assassinate a President of the United States.

The musical being written in the 1980s/1990s, the most recent of the assassination attempts in the musical would be that of Gerald Ford, while the first would be that of Abraham Lincoln. Below is a list of the assassins whose motivations are explored in the show:
Successful Assassins
– John Wilkes Booth: assassin of President Abraham Lincoln
– Charles Guiteau: assassin of President James Garfield
– Leon Czolgosz: assassin of President William McKinley
– Lee Harvey Oswald: assassin of President John F. Kennedy
Failed Assassination Attempts
– Giuseppe Zangara: attempted assassin of President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt
– Samuel Byck: attempted assassin of President Richard Nixon
– John Hinckley: attempted assassin of President Ronald Reagan
– Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme: attempted assassin of President Gerald Ford
– Sara Jane Moore: attempted assassin of President Gerald Ford

Anyway… enough of the history-ish lesson. Let’s get to the show…
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