At one of the last rehearsals of “Mary Poppins,” I saw a young woman fly. What’s more, she was singing. Onstage, technicians scrambled around, at work on location and timing. But Dani Boal, up on the wires that will carry her over the rooftops of London, delivered a lovely melody.
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Posted November 26, 2014in Center Stage
Actors, Inc., has a hit on their hands. The Ames company had to put in extra seats, and as their barn-like space echoed with laughter, it grew toasty. Onstage, meanwhile, there was another kind of community spirit. A farce like “The Game’s Afoot” demands a slick ensemble. Players need to
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Posted November 19, 2014in Center Stage
When I interviewed Clifton Owen, the man playing Motown founder Berry Gordy in the tour of “Motown the Musical,” the show was in Detroit — Motown itself. As you might expect, the cast was finding the experience a love fest. “People in Detroit are so proud of this music,” said
Read More →For the people who put together “Neighborhood 3: Requisition of Doom,” the show must feel like going home. For those who watch it, home may never feel the same. “Neighborhood 3” at StageWest brings together the same crew that mounted the show a couple of years ago for the Social
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Posted November 05, 2014in Center Stage
Every now and then, Des Moines plays host to one of the movers and shakers of performance. This September, Andrew Lloyd Webber slipped quietly into the Civic Center to catch the reboot of his “Phantom of the Opera.” This weekend, watching the Paul Taylor Dance Company, will be Paul Taylor
Read More →On the chalkboard outside the Des Moines Social Club Basement, I saw some sad news. I was there for last week’s late-night “Cabaret,” but for this week, I saw conventional start times. That’s a shame. This is a show made for after-hours. “Cabaret” remains best known for the 1972 movie,
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Posted October 22, 2014in Center Stage
The title says it is all about the girls. The standout performance comes from Nancy Zubrod as a “woman of a certain age” who is nonetheless party-hearty. Yet the essence of the hilarity onstage at the Playhouse might turn up in one of the men. This would be Cody Schug,
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Posted October 15, 2014in Center Stage
Onstage, drama comes in three dimensions. The players have heft and the set can trick you into thinking you see a house, a cornfield, a Metropolis. What happens, though, when all you have to go on is the words? When all you’ve got are voices and stage directions? For instance,
Read More →Just before one of the last rehearsals for “Carrie: The Musical,” two of the leads treated everyone to a few bars of lovely harmony. This, too, was rehearsal, of course, one more run-through of a tricky duet between Carrie and her mother. Still, it turned heads, a soaring passage shared
Read More →Few shows put the “community” in community theater more emphatically than the one in Ankeny right now. The cast of “The Little Princess” includes six adults, with day jobs like insurance adjuster, and more than twice as many local children, ranging in age from third grade to 10th. These players
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