I’ve seen some fabulous touring productions over the years, I’ve even seen this touring production of Les Misérables when it was at the Orpheum in 2018. I recall enjoying the that production and being particularly taken with the set design, but this time was different. Perhaps it was the cast or possibly not being in the balcony as I was last time, but instead down close and centered on the main floor. Whatever the reason, this time I was completely swept up and amazed by the overwhelming beauty of Les Misérables. A jaw droppingly gifted cast including homegrown actor Christine Heesun Hwang and featuring a production and lighting design that makes every scene look like a Rembrandt painting come to life. Inarguably one of the greatest musicals of the late 20th century, every note of music, every lyric is perfection. A powerful story, the message of which seems especially pertinent given the ever-increasing inequity in the distribution of wealth and the dispensation of Justice. For a show nearly three hours in length there is not a single moment that doesn’t drive the story forward or feel completely necessary. I’ve no idea why I was so stunned by this production for I knew what I was getting into, I’ve seen it before, yet somehow I was unprepared for the power and artistry that unfolded before me.

Les Misérables for the unfamiliar is a musical based on the novel by Victor Hugo with music by Claude-Michel Schonberg, lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer. Set in France in the first half of the 19th century, Les Misérables tells the story Jean Valjean who after spending 19 years on the Chain Gang for stealing a loaf of bread is finally paroled. Finding himself free only to discover that no one will give him a chance at a fresh start. Beaten down and starving, he’s taken in by a Bishop, given food and a place to rest, but out of desperation he steals some silver. When he is caught and brought before the Bishop by the police, the Bishop lies to the police saying that the silver cups were gifts. Given this reprieve from being sent back to the Chain Gang, Jean Valjean breaks his parole and changes his name in order to start a new life. The story then moves eight years into the future where Jean Valjean has become a factory owner and the Mayor. In his Factory we meet Fantine, who is soon dismissed unfairly, beginning the downward spiral which results in her having to sell everything she can including her hair and her body to stay alive and to send money for her daughter Cosette’s care. When she fights back against a wealthy man who is abusing her, she is on the verge being taken to prison by Javert when Jean Valjean comes to a rescue and has her taken to the hospital instead. A chance accident with a cart causes Jean Valjean to rescue a man. His act of strength reminds the policeman Javert of his former prisoner Jean Valjean he tells the Mayor of the similarity and comments that Jean Valjean has just been arrested. Jean Valjean realizing if he doesn’t say something then an innocent man will pay for his crimes goes to the court and confesses. Before he is taken back into custody Jean Valjean promises Fantine on her deathbed that he will look after Cosette. Overpowering Javert, he escapes again. He goes and finds Cosette, who is living with the unscrupulous Thenardiers, an innkeeper, his wife, and their young daughter Eponine. After paying them off he and Cosette head out to make a new start. The story picks up nine years later in Paris where all of these characters along with a few new ones converge. Cosette falls in love with young student Marius whose in turn loved without his knowledge by Eponine. It’s a time of unrest in the city and a group of students seeing themselves as revolutionaries build a barricade to have a standoff with the authorities. All the key players come together and their fates are all intertwined. It all seems terribly complicated but somehow the story is quite easy to follow. It also all sounds terribly depressing but it isn’t, it’s uplifting, it’s powerful, it is wonderous.

The cast is nothing short of amazing Nick Cartell plays Jean Valjean with a vocal range equally astonishing in the deeper registers as he is in the upper. Powerful and passionate in the song “Who Am I?” where he contemplates whether to let the innocent man be tried in his place for his supposed crimes. Then, angelic in the higher pitched “Bring Him Home” where he sings to God to spare the life of Marius. I expected him to be pushing his voice to the limits but surprisingly it seemed perfectly within his range resulting in a tremendous round of applause from the audience. Everyone is of that quality in the cast. Haley Dortch as Fantine delivers one of the shows signature songs “I Dreamed a Dream” with all the tragedy and heartbreak of her character seeping into every line. The stand out (this was in my mind before I did my post show reading) was Christine Heesun Hwang as Eponine. Hwang, it turns out, is no stranger to Orpheum stage where as a student at Minnetonka High School she was part of Hennepin Theatre Trust Spotlight Showcase Program, winning Triple Threat her Junior year. It’s not hard to see why, if the character of Jean Valjean is the conscience of the show, Eponine is the heart. When she sings “On My Own” it veers towards a misstep as we genuinely find ourselves hoping that she will get together with Marius as opposed to Cosette. Vocally and performance-wise Hwang is as good as any performer I’ve seen on the Orpheum stage and better than most. Devin Archer is grand as the leader of the students, rousing the them stoking their anger at injustice. Hayden Tee is suitably dogged as Javert and gets one of the biggest moments of audience amazement in his final scene, which I will not spoil, but will say I gasped in wonder. Matt Crowle and Christina Rose Hall play the scheming M. and Mme Thenardier adding some well timed and much appreciated comic relief.

Not only does this show contain one of the most talented casts I’ve seen in one show but its production design including everything from the sets, the lighting, projections, and costumes creates one of the most beautiful looking shows I’ve ever seen. On one side of the stage there’s a doorway, on the other side there’s an a Stone Archway, those elements remain constant. Throughout the play those sides Push out to varying degrees and somehow these two openings come to look like completely new structures. It is a fascinatingly versatile set. It’s large and impressive solid-looking and yet, it seems to flow and change and reconfigure fluidly. Set and image design is by Matt Kinley they’re inspired by the paintings of Victor Hugo. Paule Constable is the lighting designer and he doesn’t just direct and point lights he seems to paint with light. There’s such a melding of physical set design and lighting in this show and it is through this marriage of these two art forms that this painterly aesthetic it’s achieved. And yes, when the set and the lighting design look this good it is absolutely an art form. Having just seen some of the least successful bigger scale projection use last weekend at the Ordway, the projection is this show realized by Finn Ross and Fifty-Nine Productions was a reminder how well it can be used. This is a judicious use a projection that effectively enhances the environment and created some breathtaking illusions.

Les Misérables runs through December 18th at the Orpheum Theatre in Downtown Minneapolis As part of the 2022 – 2023 Bank of America Broadway on Hennepin season. For more information and to get tickets go to https://hennepintheatretrust.org/events/les-miserables-broadway-tickets-minneapolis-2022/ A word of warning if you are one of those folks who can’t seem to be in your theater seats when the show begins prepare to wait in the lobby until an approved late seating interval. From what I’ve heard the production enforces some fairly strict policies in this regard. Frankly if you can’t be on time I don’t care if you miss 15 minutes of the show, but I do feel sorry for the people you disrupt when you are allowed to take your seat.

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The Ordway’s own production of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast the Broadway Musical opened this last weekend and it is a splendid looking show to be sure. The set design is wonderful as are most of the elements of the production. With a cast filled with local favorites, this homegrown production is something the Ordway should feel proud of. Fans of the classic Disney film will enjoy seeing these characters brought the live-action life. Though a little long for young children it should appeal to fans age 10 and up, with the spectacle of the show holding their interest over its two and a half hour runtime. While I admired the show production values and many of the individual performances, I am aware that I am not the target audience for the show.

Based on the 1991 Disney film which was nominated for Best Picture and featuring songs by Alan Menken and Howard Ashman, the Broadway version has several new songs with lyrics by Tim Rice. The book for the musical is written by Linda woolverton and is relatively faithful to the film with a few slight alterations, due to the inability to recreate certain aspects. Lori is a classic fairy tale of a young prince was transformed by a curse into a beast as are all of his servants who are transformed into objects. The curse can only be lifted if the Beast finds true love. Enter Belle who agrees to take the place of her trespassing inventor father Maurice and become the Beast prisoner. The servants led by Cogsworth, Lumiere, and Mrs. Potts attempt to get the Beast and Belle to fall in love and thus break the spell. But finding true love is not the only obstacle placed in front of the Beast and Belle, there is also interference from the village conceited heartthrob Gaston who with the help of his sidekick Lefou, plans to marry Belle himself against her wishes.

Leading the cast are Rajane Katurah as Belle and Nathaniel Hackmann as the Beast. At first I wasn’t sure that Katurah had the voice for Belle, the first songs didn’t seem to have the power behind them necessary but by the end, she had won me over. Hackman at times had trouble making every word heard but for the most part he was solid as well. Where the cast really shines is in the supporting performers filled with such local favorites as Max Wojtanowicz, Phillip Taratula, Rush Benson, Jamecia Bennett, and T. Mychael Rambo. Wojtanowicz as Lumiere and Taratula as Cogsworth, are a particular joy especially when they’re playing off of each other. Much of the show’s comic relief comes from their interactions and reactions. An equal share of the comedic fun comes from import Reagan Featherstone’s portrayal as Gaston which seems stepped right out of the animated classic onto the stage. You can almost see his teeth Sparkle when he smiles and like the above pair, his interactions with Benson’s Lefou are priceless. Jamecia Bennett’s portrayal of Mrs. Potts, particularly her rendition of the song Beauty and the Beast, is a little different take but had a soulful tweak that I found very appealing.

The production is directed by Michael Heitzman with music supervision by David Holcenberg and choreography by Robbie Roby. I have not seen Beauty and the Beast the Broadway Musical produced on stage previously. I have a few reservations about changes made from the film but they may be inherent in the original production which the Ordway probably doesn’t have the authority to change. One of these issues is that the end when the villagers storm the castle, rather than having a battle with the enchanted servants they simply disappear and are never seen again. One wonders if the villagers and servants interaction was going to be cut and the only action shown was Gaston’s battle with the Beast, why they simply just didn’t have Gaston come to the castle on his own. The scenic and projection design are by Adam Koch and Steven Royal, the set design is amazing. It’s basically a three-story set of the Beast’s Castle. What is really effective and certainly owes something to the lighting design by Cory Pattak, is how effectively when the scene changes to something like the village, to some extent the castle disappears into the background and their focus is entirely on this new location. What didn’t work as well for me was the use of projection. The back wall is a screen, on which various backdrops are projected. This can sometimes be an effective way to change the location and at times it works well here but the quality is inconsistent. There are times when it’s used to give us a sense of movement but it’s not well choreographed with the action on stage and just takes us out of the story. It also alternates between styles, at times it fits with the overall design and its animation roots, but at other times it looks like bad video game computer animation from the 90’s, the look is just too inconsistent. Highmark’s go unreservedly to the costume designs by Ryan Moller and hair, wig, and make up designs by Bobbie Zlotnik.

Beauty and the Beast runs through December 31st at the Ordway in St. Paul. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://ordway.org/events/beauty-and-the-beast.

Don’t want to miss a single review from The Stages of MN? You can subscribe and have every post sent directly to your email. To Subscribe on your computer: from the home page on the right, enter your email address and click subscribe. On your mobile device scroll to the bottom of the page and do the same. Also you can follow me on Facebook, search @thestagesofmn and click follow and on Instagram thestagesofmn. I am also a member of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers, you can read roundups of shows by my colleagues and I on facebook @TwinCitiesTheaterBloggers. Follow that group, It’s a great way to see reviews for shows I don’t get to. We have some exciting things in the works for 2023 for the TCTB and our readers follows us to be the first to know about those happenings.

Christmas at the Local, you had me at Fairytale of New York. I know I’m not alone, because my wife agrees, but I was disappointed that Theater Latté Da’s home grown Christmas musical All is Calm was out on tour this year and would not be performed in the Twin Cities. Theater Latté Da you are forgiven, it is now my sincere hope that All is Calm will be absent from the theater’s stage every other year so that it can play in rotation with Christmas at the Local. In a theater holiday season filled with “must see” productions, Christmas at the Local raises the bar and becomes “the must see show.” Nostalgically reminding us of Christmases of the past while sending a message of peace for today and the future. Filled entirely of music, prose and poetry, there is no narrative among the characters on stage but that which we the audience project on them. All we are given, indeed all we need, are eight performers who gather at The Local, pull out their instruments and play and sing songs for one another and share a story and a poem. Gathering in a way that is familiar from our collective youths and yet so foreign to us now. It makes one long for the days when we uninhibitedly sang Christmas Carols around the tree and gathered with the aunties and uncles, cousins and family friends to celebrate en masse. More a gathering in a local bar listening to local musicians than a musical, more a feeling of sitting in a family room sharing stories then a poetry or spoken word recietal. It’s hard to describe the completeness one feels at this performance which is so simple, yet so perfect.

Christmas at the Local features songs from the likes of Paul Simon, Shane Mac-Gowan and Joni Mitchell as well as traditional Welsh songs. The eight performers including among them Jason Hansen, who is also the Music Director and arranged and orchestrated all of the music, play all of the music on stage and several play multiple instruments. It’s like hitting the right bar on open mic night where everyone is fantastic and joins in with one another. The show also features a telling of A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas with music composed by Cerys Matthews and Mason Neely. It was a version of this composition by Matthews and Neely on MPR radio that sparked the idea for Christmas at the Local with Theater Latté Da’s artistic Director Peter Rothstein. Originally slated to debut in 2020, the Pandemic caused the delay but also inspired the inclusion of the poem “The Longing for Amazing Peace” by Dr. Maya Angelou with music by Chastity Brown. The spoken word pieces are performed by the entire cast with the Proprietor of the Local played by Joy Dolo featured most prominently.

When you have a cast of eight and they are all perfect it’s hard to know what to say other than then entire ensemble is brilliant. So let’s start with Joy Dolo, who appears to be the least musically gifted member of the cast as the instruments she plays are the triangle and a couple of other moments of percussion whereas the rest of the cast are playing violins, guitars, horn, pianos, accordions among others. Now to be fair she is serving drinks and handing out candies and when it’s her turn to sing, she proves that you don’t have to play an instrument to be musically gifted. But where Dolo shines is when it comes to the spoken word performances. Taking the lead as the main narrator of A Child’s Christmas in Wales, she is wonderfully expressive sucking you into the humor and beauty of Dylan Thomas’ perfectly chosen words. Playful but not childish, it’s perfectly calibrated, changing tones from sentence to sentence; at times a wistful remembrance, at other times a riotous tale of childhood mischief. At the start of the show it feels like Dolo is there as a support, to keep the glasses full and lend her voice to the chorus, by the end it’s clear she is the heart and soul of the production. I first noticed Dolo last year at Jungle Theater’s production of Every Brilliant Thing, add this performance to the list of brilliant things.

The entire cast is fantastic, it’s an embarrassment of riches to be sure. Phinehas Bynum an alum of All Is Calm is on keys and has a nice supporting role in the Thomas piece as the narrator’s friend. Bradley Greenwald must feel right at home as this feels reminiscent of his own show The Longest Night, also a mixture of spoken words and music, his rich voice and baritone horn are a perfect compliment. Matt Riehle who came to my attention in Latté Da’s production of Once is once again here with guitar in hand and I loved his appropriately sanitized version “Fairytale of New York.” Rounding out the cast are Spencer Chandler on Accordion, Elizabeth Reese on Flute/Saxophone, Quinn Shadko on Violin, and of course as mentioned above Jason Hansen on a multitude of instruments including the Mandolin. All sing beautifully, particularly angelic are Reese and Shadko whose voices complement each other nicely. I also want to highlight the Scenic Designer Benjamin Olsen, whose set for The Local is one of the best I’ve ever seen. He has perfectly created the neighborhood haunt of our collective imagination, the place where everyone knows your name, where stories told are for all to share in, and everyone joins in the singing of songs. The set is recognizably a present day location while simultaneously feeling like it could have existed 50 years ago exactly as it is. It adds to the timelessness on the entire production

Christmas at the Local will transport you to an idyllic world. Where the Christmases of our remembered, with advantages, past seem like yesterday and there is a place we can gather together. A place where we all sing well and speak eloquently of peace and good will to all. The show runs through January 1st, for more information and to purchase tickets got to https://www.latteda.org/christmas-at-the-local

Don’t want to miss a single review from The Stages of MN? You can subscribe and have every post sent directly to your email. To Subscribe on your computer: from the home page on the right, enter your email address and click subscribe. On your mobile device scroll to the bottom of the page and do the same. Also you can follow me on Facebook, search @thestagesofmn and click follow and on Instagram thestagesofmn. I am also a member of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers, you can read roundups of shows by my colleagues and I on facebook @TwinCitiesTheaterBloggers. Follow that group, It’s a great way to see reviews for shows I don’t get to. We have some exciting things in the works for 2023 for the TCTB and our readers follows us to be the first to know about those happenings.

Two weeks ago this very night I attended the opening night of the Guthrie Theater’s annual production of A Christmas Carol and enjoyed it thoroughly. Tonight I attended a new adaptation Christmas Carol A Ghost Story presented by Wayward Theatre Company and staged throughout the James J. Hill House. I surprisingly have to give the edge to this new staging. Maybe it’s a familiarity of the Guthrie’s production, it’s relatively unchanged from last year, or maybe it’s just the more intimate and altogether spookier take on the tale that Wayward has created. The fact is you cannot go wrong with either, they are both faithful tellings of a story so well constructed that no matter how many times we experience it we always come back for more. The uniqueness of this staging is that we move throughout the grand mansion from room to room, up and down staircases, experiencing the story in a more immersive way. This is the third of Wayward’s James J. Hill House staged production I have seen, I enjoyed each one, but this one surpasses both Hamlet and Macbeth. This is truly an outstanding experience and I urge everyone to get your tickets now, this show is selling out fast.

I’m not going to bore you with a synopsis of A Christmas Carol, the odds that one of the 37 people in Minnesota who don’t know the plot are reading this seems miniscule. I will instead touch on the emphasis and interesting touches that writer and director Sarah Nargang has brought out. First off, this is a very faithful adaptation but wasn’t sure when it began with a very brief scene that had a sort of music hall broad comedy feel to it. But that opening scene is designed I think to subvert our expectations as well as allow for any late comers or delays that might have occurred depending on which start time you are attending. Probably should clarify that, there are three start times each evening 7:00 PM, 7:30 PM, and 8:00 PM, each start time has a different cast in the three main roles of Scrooge, Cratchit, and Fred. The production is timed so that as one audience moves throughout the house and another is 30 minutes behind them. Aside from the main three characters the other actors can simply stay where they are and wait for the next audience to appear. I attended the 7:30 PM start time and I never saw any sign of the audience ahead or behind me. The planning that must have gone into the logistics of this production are sort of mindblowing, There is at least one room that we visit twice and is reset between visits, which must be redone three times a night. Nargang definitely leans into the “Ghost” or spooky aspects of the tale, not so much in script but in the look and mood of the piece. There is also a subtle emphasis on the concept of time, there are a few words added to dialogue that just slightly adjust how we look at Scrooge’s journey with the three ghosts. One touch that shouldn’t work is the use of the song “Time in a Bottle“, I say shouldn’t, but it plays wonderfully and feels perfectly natural despite being an anachronism.

My cast was led by Lolly Foy as Scrooge, she recently impressed me at DalekoArts in another spooky little play called The Thin Place. Miss Foy’s performance proved one thing, when it comes to Scrooge you need to cast the right person, not the right man. There is no gender swap in the role, it’s still Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge, she’s great in the role and after the initial realization, I never thought about it again – to quote Bill Murray in Meatballs “It just doesn’t matter”. Luke Aaron Davidson was our Bob Cratchit who initially functions as our entry into the story segwaying between the comic opening in an employment office to Scrooge’s place of business and the start of the story proper. In said place of business, we meet the other performer who is unique to our start time Michael Quadrozzi as Scrooge’s nephew Fred. All three, indeed the entire cast nail the difficult task of performing naturally in such intimate spaces. On top of that they are several sections where they need to sing and everytime the sound was exquisite. There is a scene towards the end where Scrooge’s sister Fanny played by Abigail Walker begins to sing “Auld Lang Syne” that is so beautiful that I felt transported to another plane of existence such as the one her character long deceased was singing from. Daniel Vopava as the Ghost of Christmas Past was tremendous, there was something about him, maybe it was the scottish burr or the costume or the way he carried himself, but I was reminded of Alastair Sim (my personal favorite film Scrooge) as the Headmistress of St. Trinian’s.

What is most astonishing is how technically solid a show this is given that it is staged in an old mansion that is now a museum. The production design by Justin Hooper is nothing short of amazing. Easy enough to let the structure itself do the heavy lifting, but it just takes a moment to look around each set up and realize how much goes into creating what is needed for each space and the requirement of each scene. The costumes designed by Rhiannon Fiskradatz were top notch, Particularly effective where the various Ghost costumes, my favorite being the above mentioned Ghost of Christmas Past. Rounding out the look and feel of the production were the various props assembled by Teri Ristow, the lighting design by Jake Otto and the sound design by Pete Kivdera. This is one of those productions where everything works perfectly together creating a unified feel and atmosphere.

As I said at the top the tickets are selling fast for this production and the reason is because it is a unique and rewarding take of a holiday favorite, if you see only one A Christmas Carol adaptation this year, it should be this one. For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.waywardtheatre.org/

Don’t want to miss a single review from The Stages of MN? You can subscribe and have every post sent directly to your email. To Subscribe on your computer: from the home page on the right, enter your email address and click subscribe. On your mobile device scroll to the bottom of the page and do the same. Also you can follow me on Facebook, search @thestagesofmn and click follow and on Instagram thestagesofmn. I am also a member of the Twin Cities Theater Bloggers, you can read roundups of shows by my colleagues and I on facebook @TwinCitiesTheaterBloggers. Follow that group, It’s a great way to see reviews for shows I don’t get to. We have some exciting things in the works for 2023 for the TCTB and our readers follows us to be the first to know about those happenings.