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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Quick Hit Theater Review: Come Fly Away -- The Bushnell

Tanairi Sade Vazquez and Ron Todorowski in COME FLY AWAY. Photo: © 2011 Joan Marcus 
Come Fly Away
Conceived, Choreographed and Directed by Twyla Tharp
Vocals by Frank Sinatra
The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts 

Summary:
Dance Legend Twila Tharp creates another Broadway dance musical in the tradition of her successful Movin’ Out (featuring songs by Billy Joel), turning this time to more than 25 tunes made famous by Frank Sinatra. An ensemble of 14 dancers performs the choreography with a live band on stage, accompanied by the recorded vocals of Sinatra. There isn’t any dialogue and no plot to speak of. The lyrcis of the songs provide some guidance for the choreography, which loosely follows four couples falling in and out of love in a setting resembling a night club (James Youmains designs the set). 

Highlights:
Dancers Anthony Burrell and Ashley Blair Fitzgerald stand out from the fine ensemble with their excellent stage presence as they perform seemingly effortless turns, leaps and lifts. The 13-member band, conducted by Musical Director Rob Cookman, swings (especially those horns) in a brisk 75-minute performance. 

Lowlights:
Well, there’s really no plot. The main dancers are listed by character names in the program, but seriously, we never know what their names are or what really is taking place. If you spend too much time trying to assign a story to what you are seeing, you’ll miss the best part – dance.

Some of the choreography seems misogynistic – women being felt up, treated roughly, thrown over the shoulders of men vying for them, etc. A technical glitch delayed opening night on Tuesday by about 30 minutes (and a zipper glitch provided a moment of embarrassment for Burrell). 

Information:
The show closes the 2011-2012 Broadway season at the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Ave., Hartford, and runs through June 3. Remaining performances are tonight at 7:30, Friday and Saturday at 8 pm, Saturday at 2 pm and Sunday at 1 and 6:30 pm. Tickets range from $17 to $72 and are available at 860-987-5900 or www.bushnell.org.
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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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