REVIEW: “Dames at Sea” at the Cohoes Music Hall

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, October 2008 Looking at Dames at Sea today, you think, “Why, this is just a poor man’s version of 42nd Street” The fact that director/choreographer Tralen Doler mounted a boffo production of the latter at the Cohoes Music Hall just last March really begs the comparison. But it…

REVIEW: “42nd Street” at the Cohoes Music Hall

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, March 2008 “Hear the beat of dancing feet…” – Al Dubin The joint is literally jumping in Cohoes as Tralen Doler filled has once again filled the Music Hall with a big, exuberant dance extravaganza, this time a tap-happy staging of 42nd Street. I could literally…

REVIEW: “The Music Man” at the Mac-Haydn Theatre

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August, 2007 Some old musicals are just that – old. But The Music Man is one of that handful of shows that is always fresh and fun. Written in the 1950’s but set in an amorphous and idealized 1912 (some of the topical references in the show…

REVIEW: “Singin’ in the Rain” at the Mac-Haydn Theatre

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, August, 2007 Only recently has there been a trend to convert movie musicals into theatrical vehicles, usually with the view of reproducing, live on stage, the moments we all treasure on celluloid. Frankly, this rarely works well. This summer the Mac-Haydn has presented three movie-to-stage…

REVIEW: “The Pajama Game” at the Mac-Haydn Theatre

Reviewed by Gail M. Burns, June, 2007 The Pajama Game is one of those ho-hum musicals from the 1950’s, but it had its 50th anniversary in 2004, followed by the inevitable Broadway revival in 2006. Under the star-power of sex-symbol crooner Harry Connick, Jr. it toddled off with the Tony for…