Category: The Shaker

By Michael “Buzz” Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant

Songwriter and storyteller Benjamin Scheuer takes a powerful, personal journey of self-exploration in “The Lion” at the City Theatre.

Scheuer tells a story of his life. It’s not an easy tale to tell, and he’s not always the hero. With a guitar on his lap, and a song in his heart, Scheuer tells his story mostly in verse. His narrative goes from incredibly sweet to horrifyingly tragic, peppering the moments between songs with anecdotes of his life. It’s an evocative, truthful tale and it’s not always comfortable. But it’s exceptionally well done.

He begins with an endearing account of his early childhood. His father creates a cookie-tin banjo with a rubber band for a string and an old necktie for a strap. He paints a vivid picture of his early family life with his English mother, two brothers and a mathematician father. The relationship with his father is complex. He tells an unflinchingly truthful chronicle of their difficulties. You can hear the guilt, pain and remorse in his voice when his father passes away at a completely inconvenient moment; right after a family-fracturing argument.

He reports on his love life, his bout with a bone-eating cancer and additional family incidents. He covers an amazing about of territory in the brief seventy-minute show.

At the Saturday late afternoon show, he mastered two impromptu moments. Someone sneezed during a pause as he switched guitars, and he said, “Bless you.” The audience erupted in laughter and he said, “I know you guys are here,” which caused even more uproarious laughter. In a more awkward moment, a cell phone rang, and he politely paused the show until the ringing stopped. It was a gracious and endearing moment void of any ridicule or malice from the performer.

Most of the songs are folksy with an edge, but he rocks out on an electric guitar to a ballad about his dad in “Saint Rick.” Scheuer hits hard with some very emotional moments. It’s hard to keep your eyes dry during the show.

The entire evening is very minimalistic. It’s just Scheuer and his guitars (six in all).  Scenic Designer Neil Patel makes the space visually impactful with a shabby chic set, and there is moody lighting from Lighting Designer Ben Stanton.

Director Sean Daniels keeps the show a taut seventy minutes, but you’ll leave feeling intimately connected to Scheuer. We learn a lot about him in his short time on stage.

Bad and possibly overused pun alert:

“The Lion” is a roaring success!

“The Lion” plays through June 5 at The City Theatre, 1300 Bingham Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15203. For more information, click here.

– MB

By Mike “Buzz” Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant

Stephen Sondheim has never been big on plot. His plotless musical “Company” is about a group of middle and upper class friends singing about their lives. “Assassins,” with a book by John Weidman, takes that idea one step further and has America’s most notorious killers sing about their lives and deaths. The show could easily be called, “Killer Company.”

“Assassins” starts out with eight infamous and some lesser-known assassins, Leon Czolgosz (Darrel Whitney), John Hinckley, Jr. (Corwin Stoddard), Charles Guiteau (Chad Elder), Giuseppe Zangara (Mark McConnell), Samuel Byck (Rob James), Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme (Kassie Doherty), Sara Jane Moore (Stephanie Ottey), and John Wilkes Booth (Stanley Graham). Let’s call them the Assassin Eight (say it out loud).  The Assassin Eight are joined by the Proprietor (Nathan Hough) and the Balladeer (Connor Bahr) and various townspeople (the ensemble). These madmen and women are later joined by Lee Harvey Oswald to become the Assassin Nine.

Speaking of asinine…each killer explains why they want to murder their respective president. Guiteau murdered James A. Garfield because the president didn’t hire him. Hinckley shot at Ronald Reagan in an attempt to win the love of Jodie Foster (ain’t gonna happen, buddy). Squeaky Fromme attempted to kill Gerald Ford to impress Charles Manson. There true life reasons are ludicrious.

Sondheim and Weidman throw the assassins into a blender and mix repeatedly. Characters from the Civil War chat to characters from the 60s, 70s and 80s. These lunatics co-mingle at a county fair. You’ll never find such a more wretched hive of scum and villainy as you will in “Assassins.”

The Proprietor and the Balladeer attempt to hold everything together. It doesn’t really gel until Oswald (Bahr) shows up, and we get the barest semblance of a plot. A murder plot. “Assassins” finally delivers an emotional punch with the song, “Something just broke,” set to a montage of actual newspaper headlines from the various assassinations and an extended clip of the Zapruder film. It’s a powerful, moving moment that brings the show to a close and wraps it up in a neat, little bow.

There are some killer performances in “Assassins.” Graham has a masterful command of the stage as John Wilkes Booth. Doherty is far from squeaky when she sings. She knocks them dead with her vocals. Elder chews the scenery with every step on stage. The actors even looked like their murderous counterparts. It’s an amazing feat for a group of community players marvelously cast by Director Nick Mitchell.

By the way, the show led to some serious disscussions and a desire to learn more about these ne’er-do-wells. It’s an interesting and entertaining way to get a history lesson. With shows like “Bloody, Bloody Andrew Jackson,” and “Hamilton” its all the rage. Don’t take the children, if you’re sensitive to foul language.

Speaking of foul language…there are humorous soliloquies by Rob James as Byck. He’s dressed in a dirty Santa suit and espouses some serious crazy. His monologues are some of the best moments of the show. They are also the easiest to understand because the orchestra wasn’t playing when he was talking.

Therein lies the rub. The orchestra overpowered the performers. Music Director Michael Meketa led a group consisting of two keyboardists (Meketa manned first keyboard), a guitar, bass, drums, reeds, trumpets and a trombone. They all played beautifully, but they played over the singing. Even though the performers were equipped with microphone headsets, they were rendered nearly inaudible by the big, boisterous sound of the band. Whenever a mic cut out, which, admittedly, did not happen very often, the show went all Marcel Marceau. It may be a hazard of the venue but it was very frustrating.

Mitchell would have a hit on his hands if he could tone down the sound on the band and pump up the volume on the actors. As we all know, every assassin needs a good hit.

(“Assassins” plays through May 22 at the Andrew Carnegie Free Library and Music Hall, 300 Beechwood Avenue, Carnegie, PA 15106, for more information, click here).

By Mike “Buzz” Buzzelli, ‘Burgh Vivant

There’s a classic trope of a girl being harassed by the villain only to be saved by the plucky can-do do-gooder. Here in Eric Rockwell and Joanne Bogart’s “The Musical of Musicals – the Musical” we are served the same plot five different ways, each through a stylings of five different famous Broadway songwriters, composers or teams such as Rodgers & Hammerstein (“Oklahoma!,” “Sound of Music” and “The King and I”), Sondheim (“Into the Woods,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Company”), Jerry Herman (“Mame,” “Hello Dolly” and “La Cage aux Folles”), Andrew Lloyd Webber (“Cats,” “Phantom of the Opera” and “Evita”)and Kander & Ebb (“Chicago” and “Cabaret”).

The plot doesn’t really matter. It’s more a musical revue than straight story. It doesn’t even seem to matter to Rockwell or Bogart as long as they get to tell their corny jokes. Don’t worry if you miss one or two, they will be glad to point at the jokes and pound them home. With a sledgehammer.  They’ll even tell you when it’s time to applaud.

Greg Coffin pulled off a similar schtick with a brilliant, little cabaret show called “Five Course Love.” Only fewer cast members. It was also far superior to “The Musical of Musicals – the Musical.”

If anyone could make this schlocky show work it would be Robyne Parrish. The director is also part of the ensemble. She may be the best reason to go to Carnegie. She shines every time she’s on stage. Parrish is charismatic and engaging, and the only one to effectively land some leaden jokes. She’s the Sully Sullenberger of musical comedy. She has the je ne sai quoi of Lucille Ball, Eve Arden and Rosalind Russell, elegant and hilarious. She’s a joy to watch.

Let’s also doff our over-sized prop cap to Elizabeth Boyke and Brittany Graham, who do some excellent work here. It’s a shame there wasn’t more for them to do.

Some songs work much better than others. There’s a hilarious send up of “He had it coming” from “Chicago,” and a laugh out loud “Phantom of the Opera” number. However, the opening number took “Oh what a beautiful morning,” and turned it into “Corn!”  Gordon MacRae is still spinning around in his grave after the opening night performance.

While most of the lyrics are painfully punny, the music itself is beautiful. The songs are magnificently rendered by Musical Director Nancy Gordon Galluzzo on the piano. She masters each musical style with panache.

Discerning audiences have come to expect a lot of the Off the Wall Productions at the Carnegie Stage. “The Musical of Musicals – the Musical” is the kind of pablum you’d get from a lesser theater company. Off the Wall is known for edgier, envelope-pushing material, but “The Musical of Musicals – the Musical” panders to the lowest common denominator. It wasn’t off the wall…it was in your face, and, worse, it was right smack in the middle of the road. It was never offensive, challenging or, for that matter, interesting.

To be fair, I was one of a handful of people in the audience staring back at the actors like an Easter Island Idol on a sold-out opening night; the rest of the crowd was roaring with laughter. “The Musical of Musicals – the Musical” will likely become a huge box office success, and the Off the Wall gang can laugh all the way to the bank. It is my fondest wish that the company won’t redirect their mission to accommodate a low brow audience who needs to have a joke handed to them. Give me “Stop/Kiss,” “Tunnel Vision,” “Or,” or “Well” any day. I’d also take the locally produced sketch comedy troupe, the Harvey Wallbangers, over “M of M – the M” any day.

Luckily, Off the Wall Productions recently announced 2016-2017 season, and it looks like it will put them back on track with thought-provoking material with playwrights such as the Sarah Kane (“4.48 Psychosis”), Lydia Stryk (“An Accident”) and Duncan MacMillan (“Lungs”).

 (Off the Wall Productions of “The Musical of Musicals – the Musical” runs till May 21^st at the Carnegie Stage, 25 W. Main Street, Carnegie, PA 15106)  

STAGE 62 presents: Assassins

Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim ; Book by John Weidman

Assassins lays bare the lives of nine individuals who assassinated or tried to assassinate the President of the United States, in a one-act historical “revusical” that explores the dark side of the American experience. From John Wilkes Booth to Lee Harvey Oswald, writers Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman bend the rules of time and space, taking us on a nightmarish roller coaster ride in which assassins and would-be assassins from different historical periods meet, interact and inspire each other to harrowing acts in the name of the American Dream.

Dates:

Thu. to Sat. May 12-14 and 19-21 at 8 pm
Sun. Matinees May 15 and 22 at 2 pm

Tickets:

Adults: $20
Students/Seniors: $15 Order by calling 412 429-6262 or online at www.stage62.com

Location:

Andrew Carnegie Free Library & Music Hall
Music Hall
300 Beechwood Avenue
Carnegie, PA 15106