Friday, May 17, 2013
Parsippany Playhouse is alive through June 2 with the sounds of Rodgers and Hammerstein.
Parsippany's Women’s Theater Company presents the final show of its 20th season, the Rodgers and Hammerstein revue “A Grand Night for Singing.” Performances run on the weekends now through June 2. The production, what the company calls a celebration of "timeless masterpieces from the music of Richard Rodgers and lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II," is produced by Barbara Krajkowski with musical direction from Warren Helms and staging by Lauren Moran Mills. The two act musical revue was conceived by Broadway legend Walter Bobbie, who compiled 34 Broadway gems from the R&H canon. It includes fresh takes on songs from popular and historic musicals such as "Oklahoma!", "The Sound of Music," "The King and I," "South Pacific," and even the recent …
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Tip-tapping teens bring the legendary Cole Porter musical to the stage.
If you love classic Broadway musicals, you'll surely find the Parsippany Hills Players' newest production de-limit, de-luxe, de-lovely. Parsippany Hills High School is staging Cole Porter's "Anything Goes," a story in two acts about an evangelist-turned-nightclub singer, a lovelorn stockbroker wooing a debutante (with a British lord for a fiancé), and a gangster disguised as a minister who sing, dance and find love on a luxury cruise liner sailing from New York to England. The original production of Anything Goes, which starred the bombastic Ethel Merman as singer Reno Sweeney, opened on Broadway in 1934 and ran for 420 performances with Ethel Merman. The Hills Players are performing the staging from the 1987 revival. Par Hills math …
Thursday, March 21, 2013
The world-premiere production of this original play by Jewel Seehaus-Fisher runs weekends through March 31.
Monday, March 18, 2013
The musical version of the Reese Witherspoon film is on the boards at PHS Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 7 p.m.
The can-do spirit of Elle, the main character in the film and Broadway show "Legally Blonde" seems to be contagious. The cast and crew of Parsippany High School's upcoming production of the stage musical are hard at work and filled with enthusiasm to make the show a hit, says a member of the stage crew. "The cast and crew has been working really hard for several months to put this show together," said Nicolas Limanov, who is helping the play behind the scenes. The star of the show is senior Caroline Giercyk, who portrays Elle. The PHS theater vet, just weeks away from graduation, said she's sad to be leaving, but excited for her future. Chris Reeder, who plays snooty and sexist Warner Huntington III, has many years under his belt as a …
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Live theater returns to middle school, and students are the stars.
Students at Brooklawn Middle School last weekend staged "The Great and Powerless," an original play by Principal Mark Fasciana of Mt. Tabor School.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Women's Theater Co. opens anniversary season with 'The Fantasticks.'
This week marks the opening of the 20th anniversary season of the Women’s Theater Co., and producing artistic director Barbara Krajkowski has come up with a fantastic way to celebrate. The milestone season begins Friday with the premiere of the record-setting musical, “The Fantasticks,” which launches a music-heavy 2012-13 schedule for the professional company in residence at the Parsippany Community Center. After wandering from space to space for more than a decade, Krajkowski’s company finally found a permanent home in her home town of Parsippany, in the cozy 99-seat theater vacated a few years earlier by a community-theater group. Nine years later, the WTC is entrenched as an essential part of the Morris County and Parsippany cultural …
Sunday, July 22, 2012
Bickford Theatre livens up the summer with first-rate cast in musical.
What’s all this nonsense about the Bickford Theatre staging an unprecedented summer musical? The professional resident theater company at the Morris Museum in Morris Township is normally dark in the summer aside from children’s activities and the occasional one-nighter. Divine providence, though, intercedes this year as Artistic Director Eric Hafen has whipped up a production of the reliably entertaining musical comedy “Nunsense.” Sure, this off-Broadway phenomenon has been done—done to death some would say. The program claims 5,000 productions worldwide in 21 languages since 1985. Then there are the six sequels and three spinoffs in what has become a lucrative show-business brand for playwright Dan Goggin (who launched the funny nuns …
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Past is present with Archie Bunker, Carol Burnett and the Rat Pack
Area theaters must be getting nostalgic, because they're bringing back some big names from the past. The Pax Amicus Castle Theatre in Budd Lake is presenting "TV Comedy Classics Live on Stage," which recreates scenes from "All in the Family" and "The Carol Burnett Show," beginning June 1. Fans of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr. won't want to miss " The Rat Pack: Together Again!" at the Bickford Theatre. Tony Sans, Johhny Petillo and Geno Monroe promise an evening that will bring audiences back to a classic chapter in show business history. The Mayo Performing Arts Center will offer some nostalgia of a more recent vintage when Boyz II Men performs there on June 1. Meanwhile, Stephen Sondheim's "Assassins" continues at Barn …
Monday, May 14, 2012
Women's Theater Company director has been involved in local theater for decades.
Barbara Krajkowski has had a long and storied career in the theater arts, starting long before she founded Parsippany's Women’s Theater Company. “I’ve been doing theater most of my life, she said. "I started in Brooklyn when I was a child; I was always around theater. When I came back to New Jersey, I started looking for theaters. I’ve been here for 45 years and I’ve always been in a theater.” Krajkowski’s stops have included Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she earned degrees in theater arts, William Paterson University, where she has taught for 30 years, and the Barn Theatre in Montville. What inspired her to establish the Women’s Theater Company, though, in 1993? “I was sitting with a couple of ladies and said, ‘Let’s start a …
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Area theater lovers can see two shows by the legendary composer in the coming weeks
The works of Stephen Sondheim are among the most challenging in theater, but the great composer obviously isn't intimidating area theater groups. Dover Little Theater is currently staging "Company," Sondheim's groundbreaking 1970 classic about a single man in three relationships. The show is known as one of the first that deals with realistic adult themes, and features such songs as "Being Alive." Meanwhile, The Barn Theatre will present "Assassins," with a run opening May 18. The 1990 musical is about the men and women who either assassinated, or tried to assassinate, presidents of the United States. And even if you don't like Sondheim, there's bound to be something for everyone on a stage near you, from "Cabaret," to "Southern Comforts" …
Louise Ciccone
2:52 pm on Friday, April 5, 2013
Saw the show last night - it's amazing! more ›