"The Bucket List of Booze Club" by Freshwater Theatre Company at the Crane Theater

In their first production in over two years, Freshwater Theatre Company is bringing us a new play by Michigan-based playwright Maureen Paraventi called The Bucket List of Booze Club. An odd title for a sweet and salty, funny and poignant play about female friendship and the mother/daughter bond, which couldn't be more appropriate for this Mother's Day weekend. This very real and relatable story is beautifully brought to life by the cast and creative team at Freshwater. But only 6 performances remain in this short run, so bring your closest friends, a parent or child, or yourself to the Crane before it closes on May 15 (click here for info and tickets). 

Fringe Festival 2016: "SmashHammer: The Heavy Metal Musical Featuring the Heavy Metal Stylings of the Heavy Metal Band, SmashHammer"

Day: 7

Show: 30

Title: SmashHammer: The Heavy Metal Musical Featuring the Heavy Metal Stylings of the Heavy Metal Band, SmashHammer

Category: Something Different

By: SMASH HAMMER

Directed by: Joe Johnson

Location: Southern Theater

Summary: A crazy and campy heavy metal musical about a classic hero story.

Highlights: This is a pretty outrageous musical, with rockin' original music and a fairly conventional hero story told in an maniacally overdrawn, fourth-wall breaking sort of way. In some faraway kingdom, a poor knight Nicodemus (played by a woman, Madison Olimb, with serious pipes) is in love with the princess (Ali Daniels) who is kidnapped by the evil Secundus (book writer Sam Landman, with wild eyes and a great rock scream). Nicodemus goes on an impossible quest to rescue the princess, defeat the monster, and restore order to the world. Just your typical hero cycle. But it's told in a fun, campy way which the cast gleefully jumps into with both feet. The songs (introduced by a shirtless greased gladiator holding a sign) are fantastic and well-sung, with appropriately loud recorded music, plus one live guitarist, Eli Stone (who wrote the songs along with director Joe Johnson*). SmashHammer is one fun, crazy, fringey musical.

*The original album is available for purchase at HiFi Hair Salon and Records.

"Sasquatched! The Musical" by Imagined Theatre at the Sabes JCC Theater

The new original musical Sasquatched!, written by local playwright and composer Phil Darg, premiered at the New York Music Theatre Festival last year and has now come home to a series of shows in the Twin Cities this summer. It's a fun, silly, family-friendly musical with catchy songs that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's nothing ground-breaking, but it's cheesy good fun for the whole family.

In Columbia National Park in the Pacific Northwest, we meet Arthur, a "Sasquatch American" who doesn't fit the image of Bigfoot. Yes he's big and hairy, but he's also intelligent, well-spoken, and kind, a true gentle giant. He's lost and trying to get back to his family when he meets Sam, a lost little boy. In the tradition of a child befriending an alien creature (see also E.T. and ALF), the two become friends and help each other through their predicament. In the meantime, many people are looking for Sam and "Bigfoot," including Sam's "Helicopter Parents," a park ranger, the hosts of a reality TV show called Modern Monsters, and some locals who are hoping to profit from the discovery of Bigfoot. Eventually everyone works together to protect Arthur from those who are trying to exploit him and his kind, so that he can live a quiet happy life in the Sasquatch community in a remote area of the park.

This production of Sasquatched!, directed by creator Phil Darg and his wife Jules, features a new local cast, and I can only assume it was improved from last year's version by Jim Lichtsheidl's "Storieography" (his word for choreography and movement and such). One way it was not improved is by the use of pre-recorded music instead of a live band. The NYMF production lists a music director and assistant music director, so I assume they had live music. As a former band geek I take offense at that, and frankly, canned music just sounds cheap and karaoke-like. How can you respect a musical with no live music? The show would be greatly improved by ditching the track and adding even just a keyboard, guitar, and percussion.

reality TV show hosts with the local
(Rick Baustian, Daniel Flohr, and Cayla Marie Wolpers)

I love a show that knows what it is (namely, silly campy fun) and doesn't take itself too seriously. It even pokes gentle fun at the medium of musical theater with winking comments to the audience like "it's been three dance numbers since we've seen them," and the song "Rhubarb" in which the chorus sings about, well, being a chorus. The large cast jumps wholeheartedly into this spirit with broad comedic performances. Except for Dylan Omsted as Arthur, who really is the straight man amongst the wackos, the calm center with a big deep voice one would expect from Bigfoot. Young Alex Michuda is pretty adorable as Sam, Cayla Marie Wolpers and Rick Baustian provide a great skewering of reality TV show hosts (the latter is a cross between Bear Grylls and Phil Keoghan with a Kiwi accent), opera-trained Roland Hawkins has a gorgeous voice and tongue-in-cheek performance as the proud seismologist, and Ali Daniels is charming as his love interest, the spunky park ranger. The show also touches on issues such as environmentalism, reality TV, the media, and overparenting, albeit in a pretty light-hearted and not very deep way.

Sasquatched! continues this weekend at the Sabes JCC Community theater, followed by free outdoor performances in Maple Grove, and a two week run at the Old Arizona in late July (click here for details). Bring your family for some fun summer musical theater.

"The Diary of Anne Frank" at Yellow Tree Theatre

Anne Frank's story is a remarkable one, unbelievably tragic, but sadly not unique. What makes Anne Frank unique is that she wrote her story down on paper, and her writings survived when she did not. She has become a symbol for the Holocaust, providing a face for the unfathomable tragedy that is the murder of six million people. Through Anne's very human writings, filled with not just the atrocities of persecution but also very relatable issues of growing up, we get a glimpse into what it was really like to be a Jew living in Europe during the Nazi era, trying to survive and make some sort of a life for oneself. Anne and her family, along with four other people, lived in a few small rooms above her father's business in Amsterdam for two years, until they were finally discovered and sent to various concentration camps. Anne's father was the only one to survive, and was given Anne's writings from the friends who helped to hide them, who had found the papers after the family was taken away. Otto Frank succeeded in his daughter's wish to publish the diary (she rewrote her original entries after hearing a radio broadcast about collecting diaries and letters as eyewitness accounts of the war). The Diary of a Young Girl was first published in English in 1952, and was adapted into a play in 1955. Yellow Tree Theatre is presenting the revised version of the play from the 1997 revival, and they do a wonderful job with this story. It's a powerful piece of theater.

Yellow Tree has gathered a strong cast of favorites and newcomers to the theater, under the direction of Jon Cranney who directed Yellow Tree's last show, The Glass Menagerie. He brings a similar style, raw and natural, to this much larger cast. In fact, it's one of the largest casts I've seen at Yellow Tree. Eight people living in a few small attic rooms is crowded, and ten people on the cozy Yellow Tree stage is too. But it never seems overwhelmingly crowded, everyone moves around the space smoothly and efficiently, even in the quick scene changes. The star of the show is Ali Daniels as Anne Frank. As my friend The Playbill Collector noted, for a college graduate she's a very believable teenager (and she looks a little like a young Judy Garland in braids). Spirited and wide-eyed, but with the wisdom of a child, she successfully conveys Anne's essence, both in conversation with others and in reciting passages from Anne's diary. I was reminded of the History Theater's Coco's Diary this spring, although obviously Anne had a much more difficult life than Coco. But both are insightful observations of the world around them.

the cast of The Diary of Anne Frank on the set
(Anne and her family had to remove their
shoes during the day to reduce noise)

Real teenager Gabi Jones (she's in 8th grade!) is lovely as Anne's quieter, more obedient older sister. Nathan Surprenant, last seen as Mozart in the whimsical Still Life with Iris, is strong and sympathetic as Anne's father, doing the best he can to protect his family but falling short. He closes the play with a moving soliloquy after the war is over. Also noteworthy are Melanie Wehrmacher as Anne's mother, with whom she has a strained relationship typical of teenage girls and their mother; Ryan Nelson as the dentist who moves in with the two families, providing entertainment and frustration; and Janet Hanson as Mrs. Van Daan, clinging to her fur coat as the last remnant of her old life.

As usual, Yellow Tree makes the most of their small stage, transforming it into the cramped but cozy quarters of the families. In a set designed by Rick Polenek, this place that they called home for two years comes to life. Photos from the real location and clever staging help us to imagine what the real hiding place looked and felt like.

Anne Frank's story is a powerful one, an important one to remember as it gives us an entry into the wider tragedy of the Holocaust. Yellow Tree does it beautifully; it's an entertaining and moving evening of theater (playing now through October 21). It has inspired me to read the book (I can't remember if I ever did), and the next time I'm passing through Amsterdam, I'll be sure to visit the museum that is now in the location of her hiding place. The one bright spot in Anne's story is that this wish came true: “I don't want to have lived in vain like most people. I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I've never met. I want to go on living even after my death!”