Monthly Archives: February 2017

2017, Comedy, Loveland, Loveland Opera Theater, Review, Rialto Theater

The Merry Wives of Windsor” have moved from England to Scarsdale, New York

Loveland Opera Theatre Provides Great Fun – Greatly Sung

Reviewed by Tom Jones
February 27, 2017

Two neighboring wives in Scarsdale, New York, receive letters from the town lecher – John Falstaff, indicating his desire for rendezvous. He is a not very bright lecher, as the women receiving the letters live side by side in the community, and are most eager to share the silly request with each other. They decide to teach him a lesson by inviting him to their homes, with further plans to make him realize his foolishness.

PHOTO CREDIT: D. St. John Photography

So begins a delightful recounting of Shakespeare’s 1602 play, “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” now set to music. Shakespeare’s merry wives have seen many transformations. Italian composer Otto Nicolai wrote and conducted the music for a German language opera in 1849, with libretto by Salomon Hermann Munsenthal, first performed in Berlin. Forty-four years later, Italy’s Giuseppe Verdi took his turn with the play with his opera, “Falstaff,” premiering in Milan in 1893.
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2017, Arvada Center, Drama

Confident Cowboy Can’t Rope the Chanteuse of his Dreams

Sean Scrutchins and Emily Van Fleet Shine as Bo and Cherie in William Inge Classic

Reviewed by Tom Jones
February 25, 2017

Bo Decker is an extremely confident young rancher from Montana. He inherited the family ranch when his parents died, and has created a very successful operation. He is a naïve cowboy at heart, and his exterior bravado might be hiding a more pleasant interior. He remains on the rodeo circuit, and has completed a trip to Kansas City where his skills have earned him substantial awards and glory. That week, while not rodeo roping, he went to a local nightclub and saw the “doe of his dreams,” a worldly chanteuse, “Cherie.”
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2017, Drama, Fort Collins, OpenStage, Review

Pulitzer Prize Winner “August: Osage County” triumphs at OpenStage

Denise Freestone is Flawless as Heavily-Flawed, Pill-Popping Family Matriarch

Reviewed by Tom Jones
February 19, 2017

The sustained applause at the conclusion of “August: Osage County” was an unusual display of approval. The opening night audience had been in their seats for more than three hours, but was in no hurry to leave the theatre, as the cheering, standing ovation was endless. The play is one of the most interesting productions performed in northern Colorado in recent memory.

Denise Burson Freestone as Violet Weston in OpenStage Theatre’s production of August: Osage County by Tracy Letts, photography by Joe Hovorka Photography

Denise Burson Freestone and Bruce K. Freestone, Founders of OpenStage, took substantial risk in bringing the award-winning play to Colorado. Looking at a family in turmoil is not a particularly pleasant subject. The cast is large. The set is large. The play’s duration is long. The language is foul. And the show is a winner.

Bruce portrays Beverly Weston, a poet whose fame reached its pinnacle many years earlier. He is now an alcoholic, unhappy with life. Denise plays his wife, Violet, who is suffering from oral cancer and is trapped in her own world of pills and cigarettes. They live separate lives under the same roof of their home in Osage County, Oklahoma, not far from Tulsa. The father’s alcoholism and the mother’s addictions have driven two of their three daughters to move far away, leaving only a lonely unmarried daughter nearby.
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2017, Bas Bleu, Drama, Fort Collins

“That Championship Season” looks back on a winning team 25 years later – men whose lives are stuck in memories of past glory.

Marlin May and Jim Valone provide gut-wrenching performances in Bas Bleu production.

Reviewed by Tom Jones February 10, 2017

The fictional local Catholic high school basketball team in Scranton, Pennsylvania, won the State Championship 1952. Twenty-five years later four of the team starters gather at the coach’s home to pay him their respects and to relive memories of their long-ago success. Time hasn’t been good to them. Their coach appears to be dying. One of the players is an alcoholic drifter. His brother is a junior high school principal who has helped others throughout his life, and now wants to do something “important,” but has no support. Another is the town mayor desperate to keep his political power. The wealthy player remains wealthy, but has apparently had a romantic dalliance with another player’s wife. The town’s economy is in shambles Political intrigue is rampant. Egos are out of control. Power is the goal. Winning is everything. This is not a group that you would to invite into your home for a quiet evening of pleasant chatter. It is hard to imagine that 25 years earlier the men were a cohesive unit – claiming a last-minute victory from the jaws of defeat.
Continue reading “That Championship Season” looks back on a winning team 25 years later – men whose lives are stuck in memories of past glory. →