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Saturday, January 16, 2010

Quick Review: Cirque Dreams Illumination – The Palace


What:
Cirque Dreams Illumination at the Palace Theater, Waterbury
Created and Directed by Neil Goldberg

Original Score: Jill Winters and David Scott (additional music by Tony Liperti)
Scenic Design Jon Craine
Production Design Betsy Herst
Lighting Design: Kate Johnston
Costume Design: Cirque Productions, Leonora Taylor, Santiago Rojo
Act Design: Neil Goldberg, Heather Hoffman, Iouri Klepatsky

Summary:
A colorful, fast paced show in the style of Cirque du Soleil (but not at all the same thing) featuring a soloist and music mixed with circus acts.

Highlights:
• Entertaining for kids of all ages
• An act by two male acrobats that is dizzying and groin-defying
• A contortionist, stop-motion dancer
• A high-flying bath-tub act with interesting water effects (watch out, front row)
• A juggling drummer
• A hilarious movie scene directed by a whistle-blowing clown and featuring selected audience members
• Many of the acts you expect to see in this type of show are given a different spin that sets them apart from the norm.

Lowlights:
• The music is canned and very loud, especially when the soloist, who has a belt so loud that she hardly needs a mike, joins the mix. Audience members were especially chatty throughout the show, perhaps thinking their constant and distracting conversation couldn’t be heard over the loud music (they are wrong).
• Sometimes there’s way too much taking place at once. A rope climbing and balancing act compete with each other for attention. When you don’t notice some very large, disembodied suits bopping around on stage, there’s too much to take in.

Information:
Two more shows are available today (Saturday, Jan. 16) at 2 and 8 pm. Tickets are $49-$59 and are available by phone at 203-346-2000, online at http://www.palacetheaterct.org/, or in person at the Palace Box Office, 100 E. Main St. in Waterbury. Groups of 20 or more qualify for discounted rates and should call the Group Sales hotline at 203-346-2002.

No comments:


Lauren Yarger with playwright Alfred Uhry at the Mark Twain House. Photo: Jacques Lamarre)

My Bio

Lauren Yarger has written, directed and produced
numerous shows and special events for both secular and Christian audiences. She co-wrote a Christian musical version of “A Christmas Carol” which played to sold-out audiences of over 3,000 in Vermont and was awarded the 2000 Vermont
Bessie (theater and film awards) for “People’s Choice for Theatre.”

Yarger trained for three years in the Broadway
League’s Producer Development Program, completed the Commercial Theater Institute's Producing Three-Day Training and produced a one-woman musical about Mary Magdalene that toured nationally and closed with an off-Broadway
run.

She was a Fellow at the National Critics Institute at the O'Neill
Theater Center in Waterford, CT. She writes reviews of Broadway and off-Broadway theater (the only ones you can find in the US with an added Christian perspective) at http://reflectionsinthelight.blogspot.com/. She
is editor of The Connecticut Arts Connection (http://ctarts.blogspot.com), CT Press Club's award winner of first place for web editing and second place in feature writing for the web in 2012.

She is a contributing editor for BroadwayWorld.com and is a theater reviewer for the Manchester Journal-Inquirer. She previously served as Connecticut theater editor
for CurtainUp.com and as Connecticut and New York reviewer for American Theater Web. Yarger is a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly and freelances for other sites. She is a member of the National Book Critics Circle.

She is a freelance writer and playwright and member of The Drama Desk, The Outer Critics Circle, The American Theater Critics Association and The League of Professional Theatre Women. She served as a judge for the SDX Awards presented
by the Society of Professional Journalists. She also is a member of the Connecticut Critics Circle (awards committee).

A former newspaper editor and graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, Yarger also worked in arts management for the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts,
the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and served for nine years as the Executive Director of Masterwork Productions, Inc. She lives with her husband in West Granby, CT. They have two adult children.

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