Williamston Theater: Two Actors, Lots of Laughs

Williamston Theatre knows how to end their season right.  With a flat-out funny, goofy play whose script keeps throwing curve balls to the audience to keep them laughing and off kilter.

The play is Popcorn Falls by James Hindman which enjoyed a short run off-Broadway in 2018. 

The small town of Popcorn Falls has a big problem.  The beautiful falls which pulled in a huge tourist trade, dried up years ago.  Now the town is fighting bankruptcy.  

Stratford Season: Short Drive - World Class Theater

The biggest challenge when attending the Stratford Festival in Ontario Canada, the world class theater festival a comfortable 3-hour drive from Lansing, is what plays to NOT see.

The choices are difficult.  Stratford offers 12 plays - big and brash musicals, new works, classic theater, Shakespeare (of course), children’s plays, comedies and plenty of standards.  And sometimes the best plays are the ones you’ve never heard of before.

A few days at Stratford is like being at Disneyland for theater lovers: A charming town complete with a river and graceful swans, gourmet restaurants, lovely B&Bs and of course spectacular plays performed in comfortable theaters with stunning production value. I’m always frustrated by hearing about the great shows I missed.

Glix Picks - Early Summer Arts Choices

No, MSU undergrads, the Lansing area does not go to sleep when you leave for the summer.

Actually, the warm months in the mid-Michigan area are quite vibrant in the arts world.  And as an extra bonus many of the outdoor events are for free.

For this edition of Glix Picks I‘ll highlight two current offerings.

Peppermint Creek  has established itself as the theater company that likes to take chances with new and challenging material. For their final show of the season artistic director Chad Badgero chose to open our eyes with a historical play called “Indecent” by Paula Vogel. It opened on Broadway in 2015 and this is its Midwest premier.

Wlmstn "New Releases", Almost a Winner

Playwright Joseph Zettelmaier has a special relationship with Williamston Theater.  Zettelmaier’s plays are the kind that Williamston’s patrons enjoy – warm, family -oriented, with gentle and sometimes wacky humor.  Over the years, Williamston has premiered 10 Zettelmaier plays.

The latest, “New Releases,” follows the before mentioned Zettelmaier model.

It opens on a startingly realistic video rental store. Set designer Bartley H. Bauer has all the details right, down to the small letterbox slot to turn in used DVDs.

Hamilton IS a Phenomenon

“Hamilton” stands by itself.

There is nothing like it, not even “In The Heights”, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s earlier, Tony winning, musical.

It’s a bold and audacious show about our founding fathers, mostly Alexander Hamilton, told in the language of today’s hip-hop, rap, and hyper-rhythmic pop music culture.

Everything about “Hamilton” is groundbreaking: the historically accurate narrative of the early days of America, the diverse casting of the actors, the use of rap and hip-hop (although, not for ALL the songs!), the innovative dancing and the resulting massive popularity of the show (4 standing productions and 2 touring companies spanning the US).

Glix Picks - First of a Weekly Post

This is the kick-off of a weekly column called Glix Picks.  I will survey the upcoming cultural events in the mid-Michigan area and choose the ones I feel have special significance. 

Here goes:

·      Don’t know if anyone’s heard, but “Hamilton” is coming to Wharton Center on Tuesday for a three-week visit.  People are pretty breathless

Commencements: Exciting stuff!!

Performing music is an activity full of romance, emotion and excitement.  But sometimes, playing music can serve a more utilitarian purpose.  For example, anyone who has played in amateur bands and orchestras have undoubtedly provided music for commencement ceremonies.

Some musicians view this function as an obligation thick with drudgery: slogging through endless repetitions of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance” and listening to the endless reciting of hundreds of names of graduates.

But to me – and I’ve played hundreds of commencements – I view the entire affair to be dramatic, unpredictable and often very moving.

New Wharton Season: Broadway and Little Else

Over the years, Wharton Center has transformed itself into a Broadway house.  It’s an all-purpose hall, but we all know that it’s too big for chamber music and small-intimate shows.  So, Broadway has become its thing.  Now, it is the busiest Broadway venue in the State of Michigan.

So, when a new season is announced, everyone talks about the shows, and this year has good stuff and old stuff.  Executive Director Mike Brand admits that putting together an exciting season after “the year of Hamilton” was a challenge.  But he did the best he could with the “products” that are available.

Hear This: Classical Artists Can Be Performers, too.

This week, Wharton Center will announce its eagerly anticipated 2019-2020 season and, as has been the case for several years, there will be few classical music concerts.  Although local music lovers complain bitterly, most classical offerings get sparse audiences. 

A concert that took place in the Great Hall earlier in the month may supply clues as to why this is.

Yefim Bronfman is one of the greatest pianists in the world.  So, when he comes to Wharton Center to play a concert, we expect first and foremost, wonderful music making.

Harmonies Times Two

What an inspired match up!

Two of the most celebrated vocal groups ever,” The Manhattan Transfer” and “Take Six”, combine their formidable vocal skills together for a concert called “The Summit”.  Between the two of them, they’ve been awarded 20 Grammy awards.

Janis Siegel, one of the founders of ManTran (as they’re often referred), “We didn’t want to do separate shows.  So, this is real a collaborate effort.  Most often, we have 10 voices on the stage at one time”.

A capella singing is all the rage these days, but Siegel wanted to make it clear than Manhattan Transfer is not an a capella group.  “We’ve always had a trio (piano, bass and drums) backing us up. We’re harmony singers. We’re singing charts but we do allow for improvisation.”

“Take Six”, is an a capella group with no instrumental accompaniments. And thanks to “Pitch Perfect” movies, “The Voice” and “Pentatonix”, a capella singing has found a new audience. Siegel says, “Pitch Perfect has ignited harmony singing.”

But for Siegel, there isn’t much different between the two styles.  She has always had a great amount of respect for “Take Six”.  “They have a gospel sound, but they’re pretty jazzy.  It’s like Gene Puerling (vocal arranger from the Hi-Los and other groups) goes to church.  They’re inspiring, and I’m inspired every minute we’re on stage together.”

For Siegel, who has been singing professionally since she was 12 with a girlfriend, the key to joy and happiness is singing harmony.  She listened to Motown groups such the Four Tops, Supremes, Temptations as well as the folk singers of the day.  Before long, the girls had a manager and were making records.  

“The skill of a harmony singer is consistency.  It’s not like the personal expression of a solo singer.  The harmony singer has to know his or her part and how it fits into the chord, the harmonic structure and how to blend.  The thrill of singing harmony is like no other.”

She founded ManTran with Tim Hauser back in 1972 and the group has been going strong ever since.  Their signature close and tight harmonies along with a driving jazz style created a unique sound that has never been duplicated. 

This concert will feature some of their famous tunes like “Killer Joe,” “Birdland”, “Straighten Up and Fly Right”, and “A Nightingale Sang in Barkley Square.”  They will also be adding a song by Bernstein in honor of the composer’s 100 anniversary of his birth.

ManTran and Take Six have been doing this show for about two years.  “I love doing it, but the process is a logistical nightmare.  Everyone lives a different place, and the charts are hard enough that we need vocal rehearsals as well as staging.  But in the end. It all works.”

               The Summit: The Manhattan Transfer Meets Take 6

               Wednesday, April 10, 2019 at 7:30

   Wharton Center, Great Hall

   Tickets from $40.  Purchase from Wharton Center .com, 

   517.432,2000 or 1 800  WHARTON.

LSO MasterWork 6 - The Modern and the Powerful   April 1, 2019

As I was entering Wharton Center for a Lansing Symphony Orchestra concert on Saturday night, a friend said, “I’m looking forward to the Tchaikovsky, but it looks like I’ll have to sit through a modern piece first.”

It’s true that most people go to a symphony concert and want to hear the music that is most familiar to them, and if not familiar certainly tuneful and harmonic.

But Maestro Timothy Muffitt enjoys contemporary music and somehow manages to find works that any audience can enjoy. As it turns out, “Visions and Miracles” by Christopher Theofanidis was a wonderful work in three movements for string orchestra.  Adapted from a string quartet, the work sounded a bit like Barber’s “Adagio for Strings” at times.

Muffitt has changed the seating of the orchestra recently, placing the cellos near the center of the orchestra with the second violins opposite the first violins.  I prefer this arrangement, as we hear the four voices - violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello – more distinctly.  Certainly, it worked very well for the fugal style in which this piece was written.

A few more instruments were added for the following work on the program: the Schumann Cello concerto (woodwinds and an abbreviated brass section) featuring the young gifted soloist, Nicholas Canellakis.

The Schuman is not as popular as many other showstopper cello concertos, but it is a very poignant, heartfelt piece.  Canellakis has a strong, intense sound and played the concerto with deep expression.

As usual, Muffitt is a sensitive accompanist, and he and Canellakis clearly enjoyed making music together.  Although the work has three movements, they were played with no interruption. 

The big work for the evening, and the reason most people were in the Great Hall that night, was the powerful Symphony No. 6 “Pathetique” by Tchaikovsky.

The dark, somber work, for me, is Tchaikovsky’s finest.  It was first performed nine days before Tchaikovsky’s death.

My Russian friends tell me that Tchaikovsky’s music is not romantic, it’s melancholy.  I’m not sure if that’s true, but I do think it fits the mood of the sixth.

For this work, we hear the complete Lansing Symphony, as the trombones, tuba, and the full horn section joined the orchestra.  And they were all needed to stretch out the full breadth of the massive chords.

When those chords were especially lush, as they were at the end of the first movement, I am sure Muffitt would have appreciated a larger string section to match the woodwinds and brass.

Some key section leaders were filled by substitute players on Saturday, and a certain soloistic quality was missing at times.

Tchaikovsky seemed to see the future with this work, meshing instruments together in creative ways.  But the clearest evidence of that modernism is the tantalizing second movement.

It is here that the Russian composer has the audacity to write a waltz in 5/4 time, rather the traditional 3/4. Interestingly, the melody is so lilting and beautiful that few realize that it is a strange meter for a waltz.  The music just flows along, and the audience members bob their heads in the swing of it all.

As he often does now, Muffitt conducted the Tchaikovsky without the benefit of a score (it was on his stand, but closed shut) which seemed to give him a closer communication with the orchestra.

This symphony is a serious work and demands much of the musicians.  Muffitt and the LSO were up to the challenge.