I went back to high school tonight. My old drama department was putting on Thoroughly Modern Millie, my favorite musical, and so I had to go!
Review: Muzzy, Ching Ho, and Mrs. Meers were GREAT! Millie, Mr. Graydon, and Dorothy were okay. Jimmy was awful, which is so sad because the OBC had Gavin Creel as Jimmy and his voice is pure honey. The set and lighting designs were awful beyond awful. Blocks and outlines of things painted on flats with no detail work at all. There were unnecessary light changes that were very distracting and it was too dark. Use darker lighting for intimate settings, not for a musical. And the designer was obsessed with using down light, which of course meant that the actors' faces were half in the dark. If you use down light, you have to supplement it or at least make it softer than your side lighting. The costumes looked like they came from the 60's not the 20's. (Note on fashion history: although the 20's are well known for hiking up the hemlines, in comparison to what we wear today, it was hardly shocking. Three inches below the knee to at the knee, that's it. So any of this above the knee action ain't gonna cut it.)
And if you're curious as to what Thoroughly Modern Millie is, watch their Tony performance. If you imagine the energy being at about half and the mics going in and out, that would be the performance I saw tonight.
On another note, I've decided that I am an alto. I've been parading as a soprano for those choirs I've joined and I took voice lessons as a soprano. But my real power comes from a lower range. Maybe I'm just not exercising my range well enough. This is another thing I can add to my list of "things Lynne wants to do if she could ever afford it." I want to take voice lessons again. I really enjoyed doing that senior year. Voice lessons and dance lessons.
I attempted to work on costumes for LMD today. I feel like I barely made a dent. There's so much to do for this show :sigh:
No comments:
Post a Comment