“END OF THE RAINBOW” A SOBERING LOOK FOR THE POT OF GOLD

Think blue birds, yellow brick roads, and rainbows.  All those images conjure up the incredible singing voice of one of America’s sweethearts, Judy Garland. Ironically, however, she never found the happiness and innocence that fame and success should have brought her.  From the time she was discovered, the child of vaudeville stars who began performing as one of the Gumm sisters at the age of just over 2 years, she was plagued by insecurities that she wasn’t pretty enough or thin enough.

While she brought great joy to millions with her bigger than life voice, she never found the secret to happiness for herself.  Now she is making another comeback, soon to marry her fifth husband, and finally at the “End of the Rainbow,”  a play by Peer Quilter, now at Music Theatre of Connecticut until Sunday, April 23. Here we meet  a tortured and aggressive Judy, outrageous and out of control, addicted to alcohol and prescription pills, searching for the illusive rainbow.  Coleen Sexton as Judy is disintegrating before our eyes, painfully and poignantly, weighted down by a decade of debts and in great need of being rescued.

Her newest knight is Luke Darnell as Mickey, willing to feed her addictions if it suits his needs.  When she threatens to leave the stage and her commitments to perform, he is suddenly willing to supply the booze and pills that will guarantee she sings. As her pianist Anthony, Thomas Conroy cares sincerely for her fate and is willing to do anything, even marry her if it will keep her safe.  The two men are at great odds as to what Judy needs most and are so busy fighting with each other that she gets lost in the confrontation.  Matt Densky serves as bellhop and interviewer and innocent referee to the struggles.

As Judy, Coleen Sexton portrays a woman who needs unconditional love, who has the ability to fall down and get right back up again for the next round of battle.  With glory and pain, she belts out tunes like “The Man That Got Away,” “When You’re Smiling,” “Come Rain or Come Shine,” “Just in Time,” “The Bells Are Ringing" and “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love.” It’s December 1968 in London and she has a six week singing engagement  that is testing her endurance and may prove too much for the star.  Kevin Connors delves into this dramatic and personal portrayal with eyes wide open and a heart that is bruised.

For tickets ($35-55), call Music Theatre of CT, 509 Westport Avenue, behind Nine West Shoes, Norwalk  (route 1) at 203- 454-3883 or online at www.musictheatreofct.com.  Performances are Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. 

Come to the New England premiere of “End of the Rainbow” and discover whether happy little blue birds fly to that promised pot of gold after all.

CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MENTAL ILLNESS

Families come in all shapes and sizes and configurations.  They can be loving and supportive just as easily as they can be abusive and neglectful.  No one has any control over which type of family unit one is born into, it’s clearly the luck of the draw, silver spoon or an empty bassinet.

 

Years ago, during an acting class, Tom Kitt and Brian Yorkey were given  a challenge to compose a ten minute play, and they selected the unusual and difficult topic of electroshock therapy.  Since that moment, the pair have morphed it , through workshops and major revisions, in New York City and Washington D.C., into the amazing musical “Next to Normal,”winning the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama as well as a trio of 2009 Tony Awards.

 

Once called “Feeling Electric,” the music has been transformed, but the basic story of a mother Diana Goodman remains at its heart.  Her struggles with a diagnosis and label of bi-polar depression have profound effects on her and on her family.  You can become caught up in her trials and triumphs extended from now until Sunday, May 14 as “Next to Normal” schedules its intimate therapy sessions at Hartford’s TheaterWorks in a stirring presentation.

Christine Noll’s Diana is caught in an emotional whirlwind and has had her life churning out of control for sixteen years.  The start of her medical issues coincides with the death of her baby son Gabe, a traumatic incident that still haunts her.  She sees and speaks to him now, as a teenager, although no one else does.  John Cardoza is the son who is lost but continually proclaims “I Am Alive.” 

With a supportive husband Dan, an always present David Harris, she strives to be in the moment but can’t make it happen.  Years of therapy and pills have failed, despite the best efforts of her doctors, all played by J. D. Daw, and a recent incident forces all concerned to consider extreme measures:  shock therapy that may or may not work.

Possibly most affected by her mom is Natalie, portrayed by a conflicted Maya Keleher, who just wants a family who are “next to normal.”  No miracles for this perceptive kid, just the promise of a little hope for the future.  Luckily she has a good friend Henry, a romantic guy Nick Sacks, who tries to make her problems easier to bear.

 Natalie  yearns for a stable, even dull, family life, but an easy happy childhood is a reality she has never known.  Now with Henry as a romantic interest in her life for the first time, she wants a mom she can confide in and get advice from, not the emotionally distant, roller coaster ride that is her lot in life.

The show is a “rock opera” with music that is soft and sad one minute and soaring and dramatic the next. The music is the spine and the glue that holds it together.  The first song is about the busy, often cranky time at the start of the day and the final song is a message of hope.  Throughout the drama, Diana's illness overshadows everything.  The music propels the story of this dysfunctional family as if they are caught in the eye of a tornado.

 

Every situation has a song and they evoke laughter, tears, and a spectrum of all the emotions.  The fluid dynamics capture a disturbed woman who is hearing “forty different television channels at the same time and can’t focus on any of them.” Rob Ruggiero directs this involving musical drama with a gentle hand.

For tickets ($60-75, $15 student rush, seniors Saturday matinee $35  ), call Hartford TheaterWorks, 233 Pearl Street, Hartford at 860-527-7838 or online at www.theaterworkshartford.org. Performances are Tuesday to Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. and matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:30 p.m.  

 Hopefully the audience will gain more enlightenment about the growing epidemic of mental illness and how it affects the patient and everyone in the family.

EXTRAORDINARY STORYTELLER AT HARTFORD STAGE

                                          JAMES LECESNE

Bullying is behavior that is unacceptable and targets people, especially children, who are different.  They are different because of their size, religion, race, sexual orientation, ability or appearance.  Just because you wear glasses or suffer from acne, you can be singled out as the subject of abuse and that abuse can be verbal, physical, emotional or internet related.

Writer, actor, activist, playwright and storyteller James Lecesne has devoted much of his adult life to tackling issues such as bullying with his books, films and one man stage performances.  He cares deeply about making a difference and focusing attention on issues that need to be explored and improved.  Right now you can see his remarkable solo performance at the Hartford Stage until Sunday, April 23 in his show, based on his young adult novel written in 2008, “The Absolute Brightness of Leonard Pelkey.”

Lecesne brings his extraordinary talents as a storyteller with a mission:  to introduce and make you care what has happened to a fourteen year old gay teenager Leonard who has mysteriously disappeared.  From the moment New Jersey shore detective Chuck DeSantis learns from Leonard’s wannabe aunt Ellen and her teen daughter Phoebe that his is missing, the hunt for clues is on.  Lecesne portrays all the friends, neighbors, teachers and suspects who in their own unique way offer perspectives on Leonard’s rainbow hued personality.

For Lecesne, much of the narrative is personal, as he experienced sticks and boot kicks for his own sexual orientation and the comments that he would never amount to anything.  He has proven his detractors wrong.  The result of a short film “Trevor” led to an Oscar and the creation of The Trevor Project, the first suicide prevention and crisis program for gay youth, free and open 24/7, in this country.

Come under Lecesne’s  intoxicating spell as he portrays all the characters in Leonard’s life, and help the detective solve this mystery.  Even though Leonard is the victim of a hate crime, the community learns about his “absolute brightness” and how this young man brought it into their lives.  A great deal of humor and humanity characterize the tale, sensitively directed by Tony Speciale, with original music by Duncan Sheik and animation and photography  by Matthew Sandager.

For tickets ($25 and up), call the Hartford Stage, 50 Church Street, Hartford at 860-527-5151 or online at www.hartfordstage.org.  Performances are Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday at 7:30 p.m.,  Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m., with matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m.  His novel is for sale ($9.99) in the gift shop.

Come hear James Lecesne encourage the beauty of diversity and the ways to embrace it to make our lives richer and more colorfully joyous.

"ONCE" COMING TO WATERBURY THREE TIMES

Can a disenchanted vacuum-cleaner repair man ever find happiness if he is forced by life and circumstances to abandon his God-given talents with his guitar and lock it in its case forever?  the answer is a resounding and resonating NO.  Take a Dublin street musician, known only as Guy, and plunk him smack in an Irish tavern, have him play his impassioned heart out, and let him teeter on the edge of despair and you have the glorious and haunting tale of "ONCE."

That is the storyline of this Academy Award-winning film and the Grammy Award-winning Best Musical Theater Album and multiple Tony Awards including Best Musical.  Based on a book by Enda Walsh and music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, "ONCE" is billed as a daring, thrilling and unforgettable homage to love and to life, to desires and to dreams.

Guy is on the verge of letting his musical magic float away like a balloon let loose of its moorings.  He feels hope is lost and he needs to acknowledge that he will never succeed.  That is the exact moment when a girl, an immigrant from Czechoslovia, strolls into the bar and is transfixed by his singing and guitar playing. Will they make beautiful music together? The Palace Theater in Waterbury's anxious for you to find out, on Friday, April 7 at 8 p.m. and Saturday, April 8 at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m.

This lovely lass from an exotic land just happens to have a broken vacuum cleaner and she can play the piano.  They barter their skills and along the way

they each ignite sparks of innovation and creativity.  Miracles soon become possible.  He is still caught up with an old girl friend and, even though she has moved on to New York, his new muse offers to help him win her back.

The girl with her daughter Ivanka establishes a firm place in Guy's life, writing new songs with him and  arranging a meeting with a bank manager to secure loans so he can move to the Big Apple and revive his old love.

Lyrical ballads like "Gold," "Falling Slowly," "The Hill" and "It Can't Be About That" propel the story and build to the point where the guy regains faith in his own abilities.  Clearly the two have given each other gifts, in words and music, that will sustain them as their paths intersect, collide, and, ultimately, separate.

For tickets ($60.50-90.50), call the Palace Theater,100 Main Street, Waterbury at  203-346-2000 or online at  www.palacetheaterct.org.

Belly up a bar in Dublin, where the action is all music and all the performers,   the musicians,  are on stage the whole time. Take a journey of discovery with one girl and one guy.  The message is clear:  "To live, you have to love" and taking risk can produce the most amazing results.

SUPERSTAR COMING TO WATERBURY

JUDAS as portrayed by CHRISTOPHER FAISON

Composer Andrew Lloyd Webber was never one to take the road more traveled. Even as a teenager, when he was testing out his literary pen, he chose a topic less mainstream and more creative: he wrote a musical about a boy in the Bible who receives an unusual gift from his father. That became the world famous rock musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.”

In the years to come, Lloyd Webber continued his unorthodox choice of subject matter by composing musicals about a gang of backyard felines (CATS), a poor woman who rises to become a powerful figurehead in her country (Evita), teams of train engines who race on roller skates (Starlight Express) and a disfigured young man hiding in the bowels of a Paris opera house (The Phantom of the Opera).

Now you have the opportunity to experience another record breaking musical about another boy in the Bible: “Jesus Christ, Superstar,” playing until Sunday, April 23 at Waterbury’s Seven Angels Theatre.  Composed by Lloyd Webber with Tim Rice, this classical musical spanning the last week in the life of Jesus Christ is itself undergoing a metamorphosis. This is urban streets meet punk rock, a modern day retelling of a savior who wants to cleanse the world of corruption and sin. This last seven days in the life of Jesus Christ, who is portrayed by a memorable Aaron La Vigne, is told through the eyes of his betrayer, one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, played with all his anger and confusion evident by Christopher Faison.

Tender moments are underscored by Chelsey Lynn Alfredo’s Mary Magdalene as she confesses to Jesus “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” while the passion and suffering are momentarily alleviated by the antics of a song and dance Vaudeville routine by King Herod, a spontaneously clever Paul Aquirre. Key roles are played by Tim Cooper as Simon, Alex Rivera as Peter, Matthew Blum as John, Joseph Torello as Caiaphas, Michael Thatcher as Annas and Gary Lindemann as Pilate. This spectacular rock musical is directed by Janine Molinari and Anthony Pattellis and choreographed by Janine Molinari. The energy of the cast is amazing.

For tickets ($42-58, those aged 25 and under $25) call the Seven Angels Theatre, One Plank Road, Waterbury at 203-757-4676 or online at www.SevenAngelsTheatre.org.

Performances are Thursday at 2 p.m. a d 8 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.with no performances Easter week.  

Come to a play reading on Sunday, April 2 at 6 p.m. for “Capture” by Emily Dinova, turning her experiences as a victim into one of a survivor.  Tickets are $10.

 Enter the emotional whirlwind as Jesus Christ realizes that those closest to him are determined to witness his destruction.

THE STARS ARE COMING OUT IN BRIDGEPORT

Close your eyes for a moment and imagine that when you open them, right before your face, are the likes of Bette Midler, Tina Turner, Elvis, Whitney Houston and Michael Jackson.  Alright, that’s not exactly going to happen.  But thanks to the ingenuity of Bernard Kurz, you might be convinced you are seeing and hearing these legendary stars in their element:  on stage and performing just for you.

Bernard Kurz, an entrepreneur and impressario, has gathered the best celebrity look-alike and sound-alike artists in the business.  He’s been doing it for decades and now you are encouraged to the East Coast premiere of his acclaimed “Stars in Concert” at Bridgeport’s Downtown Cabaret Theatre on Friday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m. and again on Saturday, April 8 at 5 p.m and 8:15 p.m.

Rub your eyes and pinch your arm as you witness the clones of the originals perform their hits for your entertainment pleasure.  His stable of music greats number over three dozen and he rotates them regularly.  You may get to see the likes of a Cher or a Madonna, a Louis Armstrong or an Elton John.  Kurz has accumulated a shelf full of awards for his star-studded productions, including a Lifetime Achievement Award in Las Vegas in 2006.  As tribute shows go, this is among the best.

For tickets ($49.50), call the Downtown Cabaret Theatre,263 Golden Hill Street, Bridgeport at 203-576-1636 or online at www.mycabaret.com. Some shows are already sold out so don’t hesitate to reserve your seats.  This is cabaret so bring goodies to share at your table.

Imagine a never ending cavalcade of talent parading across the cabaret’s stage, accentuated by compelling videos of each star to complete the illusion. Be there for the spectacular!

COME TO LONG WHARF TO MEET “SMART PEOPLE”

In “South Pacific,” there is a poignant song “You’ve Gp to Be Carefully Taught,” about prejudice, to be afraid of “people whose eyes are oddly made" or "people whose skin is a different shade,”  From parent to child, these biases are handed down and are learned at a relative’s knee.  The issues of racial bias are being probed, prodded and punctured in Lydia Diamond’s complicated conversation “Smart People” at Stage II of Long Wharf Theatre in New Haven until Sunday, April 9 and you’re invited to voice your support or opposition.

Take four intelligent adults living and working in the Harvard area of Cambridge and have them intersect and interact on sensitive issues and explosions of opinions are likely to erupt.  Barack Obama is about to be inaugurated, a landmark occasion worthy of note.  What reactions will that event stir in a college professor Brian (Peter O’Connor) who is a neuroscientist engrossed in a study of how the  brain responds to racism, Ginny (Ka-Ling Cheung) an Asian-American psychiatrist who is trying to help low income females who are also Asian-American deal with stress, Jackson (Sullivan Jones) an open-minded young doctor who volunteers at a clinic to aid people with insufficient funds and Valerie (Tiffany Nicole Greene) a struggling actress who becomes a maid so she doesn’t have to abandon her dreams.

As each strives to attain a level of self-awareness, they continue to hit
walls of conflict with themselves and each other.  Just because they are paired off and 
sleeping together, it doesn’tmean they can avoid the outfalls that even “smart people” 
should be able to prevent.  

 As a member of academia, Brian puts his career on the line when he proposes that
white peoplehave an implicit bias and are biologically racist and assets he has brain
 waves to prove it  On that platform, Brian engages with his intimate circle of friends
 and with the world of academia to probe this lack of connection. the others are 
strongly opinionated and trade words in an effort to reachunderstanding.  Desdemona 
Chiang directs this fast-paced conversation where the dialogue is intense, earnest and
 incendiary.  

For tickets ($29 and up), call Long Wharf Theatre, 222 Sargent Drive, New Haven at
 203-787-4282 or online at www.longwharf.org.  Performances are Tuesday at 7 p.m., 
Wednesday at 2 p.m. and7 p.m., Thursday at 8 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m.
 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.

For an intelligent ping-pong game where diversity is clearly the ball in question,follow  the shots that boomerang back and forth in this verbal match among four players,  all ”smart people."