Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2005 I have a soft spot in my heart for Brigadoon for two reasons. First, I am married to Robert Burns and therefore required to enjoy all things Scottish, and secondly it was the first musical I ever saw on Broadway. I had just turned six…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August 2005 Like every review I write, this is ONLY my opinion, but from where I sit Barry Manilow’s Copacabana is a terrible musical. It has a ludicrous book, cardboard characters for the hero and heroine, and a score with only one hummable tune – the title…
by Gail M. Burns, AUGUST, 2005. Actor Martin Moran was sexually abused by a male camp counselor he met when he was twelve. This relationship continued for three years. Seven years ago, Moran felt a deep desire to write about his experiences and how that shaped him into the man…
by Gail M. Burns, AUGUST, 2005. “John, John, bad King John,Shamed the throne that he sat on…” Thus begins a poem by Herbert and Eleanor Farjeon that was my childhood introduction to this monarch. The illustration that accompanied it showed John, knees akimbo, posed as if ready to flee the…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2005 Now celebrating its 17th season, Park Playhouse presents one big musical every summer outdoors on a large stage erected at the Lake House in Washington Park in Albany. This year it is a cheerful production of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Pulitzer prize-winning 1949 show South…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2005 Songs for a New World is basically a semi-staged concert of songs by Jason Robert Brown, an up-and-coming young composer and lyricist. In the decade since its brief 28 performance premiere at the WPA theatre in New York, the show has had over 300…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2005 The Theater Barn is billing this evening of mysteries as containing only two plays, which, technically it does, but a total of four separate pieces are presented in the course of a brief ninety minutes (I’ve sat through many first acts that run…
Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, July 2005 I really don’t understand why this is such a dismal production of Swingtime Canteen. This is the kind of small, funny revue that the Theater Barn usually does very well. Director Peggy Ayn Maas has a long history with this show – she is…
