REVIEW: “Reunion” at the New York State Theatre Institute

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, May 2007 If you take Reunion at face value as staged musical chronicle of the years Abraham Lincoln was president, it works very well. The production currently on the boards at NYSTI looks and sounds great. I found it moving and entertaining, and so did my eleven-year-old…

REVIEW: “Saturday Night Liv: Show #1” at the Spencertown Academy

by Gail M. Burns, May 2007 Saturday Night Liv is a charming homespun vaudeville, assembled by the Columbia Arts Team, aka Liv Cummins, Sandy McKnight, and Christina Dellea. After a nomadic existence for the past few years, they have settled for their sixth season at the Spencertown Academy. Taking as their model the now…

REVIEW: “Visiting Mr. Green” at Town Players of Pittsfield

Visiting Mr. Green has come home to the Berkshires.Jeff Baron’s two-man play received its world premiere at the Berkshire Theatre Festival in the summer of 1996 with Eli Wallach in the title role. Since then it has literally been around the world, having been translated in 23 languages. Now Town Players has brought…

REVIEW: “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum” at C-R Productions

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, April 2007 You would never, ever know that this production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum was a last-minute effort, but it was. When problems arose with the rights to Chicago, which was supposed to close Cohoes’ 2006-2007 season, …Forum was hastily announced, cast, and…

REVIEW: “Grace and Glorie” at the Copake Theatre Company

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, April 2007 If you like your end-of-life stories filtered through a homey Hallmark haze, then you will love Tom Ziegler’s Grace and Glorie now being given a charmingly honest production at the Copake Theatre Company. It is not surprising to learn that Hallmark developed Grace and Glorie as a…

REVIEW: “Jekyll and Hyde” at C-R Productions

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, March 2007 C-R Productions has mounted another rip-snorting musical at the Cohoes Music Hall, this time Frank Wildhorn’s Jekyll and Hyde, a huge hunk of faux-Victorian balderdash if there ever was one, but in this fast-paced and engaging presentation directed by Jim Charles the foolishness is overshadowed…

REVIEW: “Tintypes” at the Ghent Playhouse

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, March 2007 Tintypes is a pleasant little revue of music from the turn of the 20th century. If you have only a passing knowledge of those fascinating decades of American history between the Civil War and World War I, this show will strike you as a…