Tag Archives: Melissa Heeres

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: Spotlight Theater’s Jake’s Women

So last month (January) I went to New Lenox, IL to see a friend of mine in Jake’s Women by Neil Simon as produced by Spotlight Theater. Now this was directed by first time director: Nicole Fleming. Now if you remember, a few months prior I saw Spotlight Theater’s production of The Deadly Game which I really enjoyed… this show, however, brought out a very different perspective.

Essentially Jake’s Women revolves around Jake, a writer, who is at a crossroads in his life, his second marriage is failing, he’s slowly losing his sanity, and he’s trying to hold on to the only piece of light to get through the darkness. However, the women that he talks to aren’t in his reality, they are versions of the women in his reality that have a permanent residence in his head.

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