The Real Delaware Theatre Company

Bud Martin

The Delaware Theatre Company has just hired Bud Martin, the very successful director of Act II Playhouse in Ambler, Pennsylvania to the position of Executive Director. He started his duties on May 1. Mr. Martin inherits a wonderful site with a great deal of goodwill earned by previous prizes and plays and a wonderful education program at the DTC, but he will need our support.

Of course we should be ready to support him by buying tickets for the season he has planned for 2012-2013. The first play starting on October 10 is The Outgoing Tide, a story about a family who plan to deal with illness and their future while vacationing on the Chesapeake Bay. The author, Bruce Graham, is from the Philadelphia area and has won Barrymore awards for best new play twice. A compelling theme, a local playwright and a new director should have us all pull together and fill the house.

Delaware Theatre Company

The next shows will be of a lighter nature, making it even easier to boost ticket sales: Patrick Barlow’s production of A Christmas Carol is a rousing version sure to put the Christmas spirit in us all. Boeing Boeing by Marc Camoletti will also provide comedy for the dreary winter starting January 23. Then the season finishes with My Fair Lady starting on April 17.

Audiences have certainly dwindled for all of the arts in the past few years, and so have the educational programs which introduce our schoolchildren to the arts. DTC’s Charles Conway has been a fearless advocate of taking the theatre to the public – and not just to the fur-coated potential donors. Mr. Conway has won awards for his work with young people with disabilities. The program, Totally Awesome Players, has taken wings since he first designed it. He has also won the 2009 Stevie Wolf Award for New Approaches to Collaboration for his work with the Ferris School for Boys.

Is there a way to help promote these and similar programs in our schools – having kids experience theatre to get a taste of why their teacher makes them read Shakespeare and who they can emulate when they feel the urge to write? Will we provide that solid support that pushed the little firehouse play theatre into the anchor site on the Wilmington Riverfront that has taken root and helped the entire area to flourish?

If we do, then we shall have done what Cleveland Morris had so hoped for when he said of the current site, “Here lies every wonderful opportunity to relish our own city’s colorful past and participate in its even finer future.”

Let’s do it!

See http://delawaretheatre.org/

A Wonderous Exploration of The Planets with The Delaware Symphony Orchestra

Artwork via DSO

Once a season, the Delaware Symphony Orchestra offers a “Family Pops” program, an afternoon of family-friendly selections when children are openly welcome to experience the magic of live symphony. On Saturday afternoon, I brought my 12-year-old son, a budding middle school percussionist, to the Grand Opera House to see The Planets, the 1917 suite by British composer Gustav Holst, conducted by David Amado.


The seven-part tribute to the planets of our solar system (it excludes the home planet Earth and the then-undiscovered Pluto, which works out, since it lost its designation as a planet in 2006) has the feel of a modern science fiction movie score -- and it virtually becomes one, minus the “fiction,” as spectacular real and digitally animated footage from nearly 40 years of space exploration is shown on a big screen over the orchestra. 


Parallels between Holst’s early 20th Century piece and later sci-fi and fantasy pieces are clearly drawn; before the screen is unveiled, the program features popular pieces such as John Williams’ “Adventures On Earth” from E.T., “Star Wars Suite for Orchestra,” and “Double Trouble” from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban; as wells as the selections “Over the Rainbow” and George Gershwin’s “I’ve Got Rhythm” by the Wilmington Children’s Chorus, directed by Kimberly Doucette. To experience such familiar pieces played by a live symphony orchestra is real treat, both for kids and for the parents who grew up with most of them.


After a brief intermission, the main event begins. Narrated by David Stradley, who sets up each section with an explanation of of the visuals to accompany the music, The Planets is truly otherworldly, even with footage that is clearly scientific. The amazing sounds and sights make you feel small, as the sheer awesomeness of the solar system is explored. I wasn’t bored for a moment (though my mind did wander as I absorbed the suite, in a good way); my son and niece, who also attended, agreed that the upbeat “Jupiter” and “Uranus” were their favorites. At two hours total, one might expect the young audience members to become restless. If any were, they didn’t cause much of a disruption, making it wonderful way to spend an afternoon, with or without kids.


http://www.delawaresymphony.org/

The CTC Rocks Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

Righteous Jolly. Photo: Joe Del Tufo

It’s the rare production that’s as funny, entertaining, thought-provoking and utterly disturbing as Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, City Theater Company’s latest offering, directed by Michael Gray. It’s a rock musical (or, more accurately, an emo musical, complete with punk rock/steampunk styling) about a pretty horrid era in American history, the birth of the Democrat party, and the second-most memorable president of the 19th Century.

As soon as you enter the Black Box, it’s clear that this show is going to be something special. Instead of rows of seating on one side of the room, a narrow stage sits in the center, with tables and seating on either side, neon-lighting and a corner bar, which will become part of the scenery. The audience is warned that the actors will use the entire room (protect your drinks!). It’s easily the coolest stage setup I’ve seen in Delaware.

Jackson, awesomely played by Righteous Jolly, clad in a leather jacket with a shock of purple hair, is a cowboy and a rock star, the voice of the frontier and a stark contrast to the stuffy Washington elite. He’s also a bigot (he especially despises Indians, even though he adopts an Indian child), a ruthless killer and, eventually, a president who sees no use for Congress and the Supreme Court, only the will of the masses he’s rallied. He’s a great politician -- he defines the cult of personality. He rouses the people with speeches on the “common man.” He’s sexy and cool. You really do want to root for him -- and, in fact, the audience joins in on chants of “Jackson!” at one point. Amazing and not a little unsettling, but it’s part of what makes the play great. 

The ensemble. Photo: Joe Del Tufo

While Jolly dominates, BBAJ is an ensemble piece, and the ensemble pulls no punches. Kerry Kristine McElrone is hilariously salacious as Rachel Jackson; Melissa Bernard has some of the funniest moments as various characters, most of them male; Jim Burns brings genuine emotion to the role of Black Fox; Frank Schierloh is a blast as John Quincy Adams; and Maggie Cogwell kills it as the storyteller and (via puppetry) Jackson’s young son Lyncoya. The biggest standout for me -- and let me be clear, no one is a dud -- is Adam Wahlberg, both in the ensemble and as Martin Van Buren, who goes from foppish as Jackson’s political adversary to the only grownup in the room as his vice president.

The music, directed by Joe Trainor, is infectious, with songs ranging from upbeat ensemble songs like “Populism, Yea, Yea!” to the haunting “Ten Little Indians.” Trainor even sings lead on a couple of songs, leaving his spot with the band to take the stage.

Fair warning: In order to portray Jackson with any semblance of historical accuracy, BBAJ is aggressively anti-PC in its humor, and full of profane language. This is not a show for the ultra-sensitive or the faint of heart. Jackson’s abhorrent treatment of the Indians is played for laughs, the Washington elite are portrayed as effeminate as if it’s a character flaw, and self-mutilation is cool (well, it is an emo musical). Pushing the bounds of taste as far as it does helps to keep from over-romanticizing Jackson -- though the play does leave out some unromantic details about his wealth and slave ownership by the time he ran for president (the play does mention that he acquired one slave as a young man, but not that he had well over 100 by the 1820s). Instead, we see his sexier scandals such as his apparent bigamy. And while some historical figure portrayals are unfair (John Quincy Adams as a clueless election-stealing spoiled brat is funny, but in reality he was one of the most fiercely anti-slavery leaders of the early 19th Century), the play doesn’t try to tell you that Jackson was a hero. It goes so far as to note that some historians see him as an “American Hitler.” And yet, on stage, he’s somehow sympathetic. Not because he’s a good man, but because he’s lost so much in his life and quest for the presidency. And he sure does throw a good party.

BBAJ Runs through May 12 at the Black Box. See www.city-theater.org for tickets, including special stage-side VIP seats (drinks included).