Bits of Theatre

First, here's news for anybody who might be reading this and who lives in South Florida. Steve and Jimmy have been approached about doing The Big Voice at the Broward Stage Door Theatre. The show has won awards for excellence everywhere it has played across the country and garnered unanimous rave reviews off Broadway, yet few people have heard of it and even fewer have heard of Steve and Jimmy, so I'm doing my bit to get the word out: you won't be disappointed in this show!

Secondly, not to start another round of discussion, but I do want to address a comment made in my Review Blog in response to my recent negative review. The writer wrote, "Wow Bev, did you forget this is a community theater with actors working FOR FREE and the love of theater? Your review just makes you sound like a bitter hack."

I kind of liked the idea of being a "bitter hack" and in fact embraced it and changed the name of my review blog from "In My Opinion" to "Bitter Hack." I even changed the logo at the top so that the words "Bitter Hack" are MUCH larger than "In My Opinion" ever was.

However, I thought about this anonymous poster ('cause they're always anonymous if they have something negative to say, you know--unlike myself, who puts my name and publishes it in the newspaper for all to see) while I was at another opening night last night.

This was opening night for the university production of Oklahoma! at the big Mondavi Center on campus. It was so good it absolutely blew me away. As I watched the actors singing and dancing on stage, giving a performance that would not have been out of place on a Broadway stage, it hit me that these were full time students, many of them also working part time jobs, working FOR FREE, for the love of theatre, yet if they were tired on opening night, there wasn't a single person on the stage who let that show. The energy level was high, the voices were amazing, and, as I said, I doubt they would have received a negative review if the production had been done in a Broadway theatre.

People who pay to go to theatre shouldn't have to accept less than top notch performances from volunteers, working FOR FREE and the love of the theatre on any performance night. And if less than perfect performances are given, they deserve to be pointed out.

So there.

On a much smaller "theatre" screen, if you are on Facebook, it would be worth your while to add me as a friend if only to see the link I posted to a video of Dan Ciruli's baby boy, Sawyer. Now baby videos are always cute, but this one was just great and since you aren't likely to know Dan, and since the video isn't on YouTube where I can link to it, the only way you can probably see it is to be my Facebook Friend. (Unless his wife does what I suggested they do and sends it to the Ellen Degeneres show, since I can't imagine her not running it if she were to see it.)

And finally, on the print side of theatre, here's something I can link to. Davis Life Magazine, which is an on-line magazine about Davis, just did a nice article on Ellen and Shelly, using several photos that I have taken over the years. The thing I like most about Davis Life Magazine is their fabulous photography and I felt pretty special being asked to let them use some of my photos.