Posted July 01, 2015in Center Stage
“The Abduction from the Seraglio,” at Des Moines Metro Opera (DMMO), opened its third act under moonlight. The noble Belmonte lurks in the dark, intending to free his beloved Konstanze from the Pasha’s seraglio: his harem. Mozart’s hero wears a neon-purple frockcoat, and this glows mystically under a sky full
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Posted June 24, 2015in Center Stage
For one show this year, Des Moines Metro Opera brought in a woman from the Czech Embassy in Chicago. She spent a week teaching the cast her language. For another, performers learned to juggle opera Italian and cowboy lingo: “Howdy, ragazzi!” And for the third, by Mozart, the design team
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Posted June 17, 2015in Center Stage
In Winterset, the evening I saw “Nunsense,” they had a Classic Car invitational in the square. A cherry 1940s Mercury sat next to a sleek ’60s Mustang. Such wheels are impractical, of course — think of the gas mileage — but they make scrumptious eye candy. I got my fill,
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Posted June 10, 2015in Center Stage
Allow me a nerd moment. Back in Shakespeare’s day, we nerds know, “nothing” had a double meaning. Pronounced “not-ting,” it referred either to nothing, as it does today, or to gossip. So the fun starts in the very title of Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” It’s more than a cliché.
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Posted June 03, 2015in Center Stage
Only a rare theater scene offers a gem like this for free. “The Real Inspector Hound” charges no admission as part of the Fine Arts Series at Westminster Presbyterian. Nonetheless it maintains the standard set this winter with “The Mountaintop,” a haunting meditation on Martin Luther King Jr. “Inspector Hound,”
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Posted May 27, 2015in Center Stage
At a recent rehearsal for “The Addams Family,” the stage manager started things off with a weird warning. “Some of you,” he said, “have got to watch out for those dangling chains.” Ah, Addams Mansion, with its clanking chains and groaning ghosts. The set, by Alan Reynolds, will of course
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Posted May 20, 2015in Center Stage
Most shows at the Civic Center require a ton of setup — “The Lion King” tours with an endless caravan of trucks — but none have put 30 high schools onstage. Not until now, anyway, in year three of the Iowa High School Musical Theater Awards. For 2014-15, the awards
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Posted May 13, 2015in Center Stage
Ten minutes into a read-through of “Choices,” the latest from Des Moines playwright Karen Schaeffer, I found myself surprised by my own laughter. The way my chuckles kept erupting, I wondered when grownups got so silly? The answer lies with the woman who wrote the script. Schaeffer generated similar hilarity
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Posted May 06, 2015in Center Stage
Even in rehearsal, the chemistry starts to percolate. No sooner do Jim Benda (as Vanya) and Ann Woldt (as Sonia) settle in over their coffee during the opening of “Vanya, Sonia, Masha, & Spike,” the comic molecules start to bounce dizzily — and this when the actors aren’t yet in
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Posted April 29, 2015in Center Stage
Even as the U.S. tour of “The Lion King” is finishing its run in Cincinnati, it’ll start setting up in Des Moines. The show travels with “a dupe,” as Ken Davis puts it — a backup. As production stage manager, Davis takes pride in the jaw-dropping math of “Lion King.”
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