Sweet Charity

Town Hall Arts: 9/14 – 10/14

      In a season when you may be expecting scary Halloween shows or ones which are Thanksgiving turkeys, Town Hall Arts has created for you a Valentine!

Brianna Firestone

      Nick Sugar’s direction and choreography are two of the reasons that this happened. But the greatest of these is Charity. That is to say that the main reason to see this show is the casting of a heart-opening Charity named Brianna Firestone. You will feel very lucky to have seen this lady perform this role. 

     Ms. Firestone’s vulnerability as Sweet Charity is heart opening and heart breaking perfection. Her singing and dancing of “If My Friends Could See Me Now,” and “I’m a Brass Band” light up all of Littleton. When she is onstage with Scott McLean’s Oscar the stage at Town Hall is a great big beating Valentine with Nick Sugar as the pace maker. (Sorry!)

     David Ambroson, Kia Chapman and Mark Lively turn in performances that are most memorable.

     This production, unlike any other of this show so far has made this reviewer wish to sit down with Fellini’s “The Nights of Cabiria” and see how Giulietta Massina embodied this character so well that Neil Simon felt compelled to write this musical’s book.

     Ronni Gallup’s acting, singing and dancing in the part of Nikki, one of Charity’s hardened and cynical colleagues at The Fandango Club, is superb.

     As Herman, Eric Fry delivers one of my very favorite songs of this show with true musical theatre excellence and panache.  It is “I Love to Cry at Weddings” near final curtain.

     Tina Anderson’s superb scenic design gives us a claustrophobic stalled elevator and a great ferris wheel (it made me feel a little dizzy, Tina. Sure glad you didn’t make it swing a little bit. I might have launched linguini.) Jonathan Scott-McKean’s lighting design, John Rivera’s sound design and Linda Morken’s costumes create a unity of time and place that is amazing! Sugar’s choreography of “Rich Man’s Frug” is outstanding. Musical Director Donna Debreceni's onstage band rocks the Fandango Room like you will not believe it! La Debreceni is of course on keyboards. Scott Alan Smith(Bass/guitars) Larry Ziehl(percussion) and Bob Rebholz(Reeds) add immeasurably to what, at other venues might have been just er tracks! AWESOME!

Nearly everything in this production work!

 However…

     Why director Sugar chose to slow down the hip-hoppin’est number in the show to thirty degrees below Alpha is beyond me. “The Rhythm of Life” is intended to thrust us back into Act Two with outrageous abandon. Here we laconically drift in a fog of pot and downers in what needs to have all the speed-driven power of a circus-full of turned on pseudo-religionist druggies all packed into the same room.

Aside from that the show is Magnificent.

Run to see it!

Friday, September 14, 2012 and runs through October 14, 2012. Show times are Thursdays, Fridays & Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. (& 2:00 p.m. on 9/29) & Sundays at 2 p.m. (& 6:30 p.m. on 10/7).

Ticket Information:

Reserved seat tickets are currently on sale, priced $20.00-$40.00 at the Town Hall Arts Center box office, 303- 794-2787 ext. 5 (M – F, 1 – 5 pm) or on-line at www.TownHallArtsCenter.com . Discounts are available to students and seniors. In a continuing effort to make plays at Town Hall Arts Center accessible to all, ten value seats at $10 each will be made available on a first-come-first-served basis one-hour prior to each published curtain time.Marlowe's Musings