"Mary Poppins" at MPHS: A Spoonful of Sugar for the Eyes, Ears & Heart

By The Good Girls
The Good Girls appreciate the rich arts scene in Wilmington. Brenda is passionate about volunteering, food, the outdoors and learning tennis. Brynn, a 4th Grader, enjoys horses, traveling, singing and learning to crochet. Brynn's friend Madison joined us for her first theater experience. She is a 1st Grader who likes dancing, playing outside and solving math problems. 

Drama is serious fun at Mount Pleasant High School, with a year-round program featuring a fall play, student-directed (and many student-written) one-act festival and the spring show.

The cast of Mary Poppins at Mount Pleasant High School.
Photo courtesy of MPHS Drama.

This year’s spring show is the timeless Mary Poppins, based on the stories of R.L. Travers and the 1964 Walt Disney film. The expansive cast, orchestra and crew includes a record 24 seniors involved in the production. Many of the players have roots in prior Mount productions as well as those of other local performing arts staples, like Wilmington Drama League.

Drama is a community endeavor at Mount. While the school funds the staff, many other daunting expenses — such as securing the rights to perform the plays, costume rentals, lights and other tech — are all underwritten by volunteer fundraising efforts (raffles, concessions, program ads, etc.). Many, many volunteer hands join together to present these gems to us.

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious showcased the captivating costumery and choreography, and the catchy classic had parents and children in the audience irresistibly singing and bobbing along. 

Brynn’s first experience with this mouthful was a delight to share in! Throughout the play, she bonded with child characters Jane and Michael Banks and quietly encouraged their father that Mary Poppins was in fact teaching them manners...with fun!

See MPHSdrama.com. 

Eighth Blackbird Soars in Museum's Performance Series

By Christine Facciolo
Let’s get right to the point: eighth blackbird is the best contemporary classical chamber ensemble on earth. Maybe even in the universe.

Need proof? Since its formation by six Oberlin Conservatory students 20 years ago, it’s captured four Grammy Awards, issued seven acclaimed recordings and successfully commissioned and performed new works by composers such as David Lang, Steven Mackey, Missy Mazzoli and Steve Reich. The blackbirds also received the MacArthur Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2016.

Eighth Blackbird contemporary classical chamber ensemble.
Photo from eighthblackbird.com.

The musicians are products of some of the country’s most prestigious music schools, including Oberlin Conservatory, the Juilliard School, the Curtis Institute, Northwestern University and the University of Cincinnati-College of Music. The current roster is made up of Nathalie Joachim,  flutes; Nick Photinos, cello; Michael Maccaferri, clarinets; Matthew Duvall, percussion; Yvonne Lam, violin and Lisa Kaplan, piano.

The blackbirds didn’t need to present any credentials to please the audience at the Delaware Art Museum on Saturday, though, where they offered a program of six pieces complementing the Museum’s collection and current exhibition Eye on Nature: Andrew Wyeth and John Ruskin.

Listening to these selections was a bit like walking through a museum: In fact, many of the pieces were composed by members of the Sleeping Giant musical collective, the works having been inspired by the art featured in the Maxine and Stuart Frankel Foundation for Art. Eighth Blackbird applied the aural landscapes to the works of Wyeth and Ruskin.

Timo Andres’ Checkered Shade (2015) showed how tiny fragments of repeated material resolve into a larger pattern, in this case, an expressive chorale. Similarly, Jacob Cooper’s Cast (2015) built an aural analogue to an artistic process of absence with nostalgic gestures that trail off into a sonic encasement of Messianic-like piano chords, scratchy violin phrases and a repetitive vibraphone riff

John Luther Adams’ The Light Within (2007) offered an alluring sensory experience of the interplay of light and color through luxurious layers of sound and whimsical harmonies.

Furthering the nature connection, Duvall communicated with a tree in Matthew Burtner’s Song for Low Tree (2011). This was by far the most interesting piece on the program as evidenced by the number of concertgoers who gathered around Duvall to ask questions at intermission. Scored for a kit of wood blocks, log drum, low drum and bass drum, the piece uses interactive software to process the voice of the performer and the percussion sounds, merging these signals with tree exhalation ecoacoustics.

Robert Honstein explored the merger of the human body with the computational process in Pulse (2015) (from Conduit). Expansive lines in the flute and cello move through a cloud of asynchronous repeated notes, taking the listener right into the unseen world of the computer itself.

Duvall and Photinos gave a nod to acclaimed composer Steve Reich with a rendering of Clapping Music (1972) which sounded as fresh and unpredictable as it did when it was composed almost 50 years ago.

See www.delart.org.

See www.eighthblackbird.org.

The Wonder of "Wonderland" in Wilmington

Wonderland at Delaware Children's Theatre.
Photo by Mike Malaney.

By Guest Bloggers Traci Murphy and Mallory Murphy. Traci Murphy is editor & co-founder of Brandywine Buzz, a free weekly email and blog for parents in the Brandywine Valley. Her daughter Mallory, age 12, is a theatre enthusiast, actor and 6th Grader at Brandywine Springs School.

Fighting siblings. A dog that only listens sometimes. Questionable food and drink. Insane acquaintances. Picking your battles. A leader that has no patience left. If there was ever a theatre metaphor for parenthood, this mom thinks it’s Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure, running at Delaware Children's Theatre February 24 through March 18.

Wonderland reminds us that "children and unicorns are fabulous monsters” — and together they have fabulous fun together onstage. Perfect for the "curiouser and curiouser” kids and tweens you’re corralling, Wonderland has fun music, plenty of dancing and audience participation to engage even the youngest theatre-goers (some parts are a smidge dark), and clever lines will amuse the adults that are tagging along. After all, we are all the Queen of Hearts sometimes — particularly when she tells Alice to “...best do what I say just because I said” — who can't relate to that? And while Alice and the Queen command your attention, your heart will be stolen by the little Dormouse who naps the scenes away.

Wonderland: Alice’s Rock & Roll Adventure raps and rhythms its way into stealing your heart while it rocks your socks off. 

The 'flowers' in the cast of Wonderland at Delaware Children's Theatre.
Photo by Sheena Brooker.

-Traci

I really enjoyed going to see Wonderland at the Delaware Children’s Theater! I was an actor in Madagascar at this theater this season, so it was very fun to get to see people that I work with performing in a new show. 

The show was really fun, and the actors were very talented. I think my favorite part of the show was the music — it made the play a lot different than the animated movie. The costumes were beautiful, especially the flowers. Good job, cast and crew! 

- Mallory