The 39 Steps @ Fountain Hills Theater

Terry Gadaire and Deborah Ostreicher star in the

Fountain Hills Theater's production of "The 39 Steps."

Patty Torrilhon

On Sunday I saw the last performance of The 39 Steps at the Fountain Hills Theater.  I had never seen the 1935 Alfred Hitchcock film before, so like always I obtained the DVD from the library and watched it before seeing this play.  I usually don't like old Hollywood movies, and The 39 Steps was no exception.  I thought the movie was pretty awful, really boring, and took itself way too seriously.  So it's PERFECT to spoof!  This hysterically funny play was Alfred Hitchcock meets Monty Python meets The Carol Burnett Show.  Even the lead actress, Deborah Ostrecher reminded me of comic actress Vicki Lawrence with her brilliant physical comedic performance. 

The play exactly follows the movie, but there are only four cast members playing all the characters.  Terry Gadaire plays only the lead character Richard Hannay and is on stage the entire time and he is hilarious, he cracked me up with all his comical facial expressions.  He is just so funny!  Deborah Ostreicher plays the three main female roles, and all extremely well.  All the other characters, both male and female are played by Clown 1, Roger Prenger, and Clown 2, Michael Stewart.  These two guys were fabulous, and had the hardest and the most physical job of all.  They had to constantly change costumes and dialects, and sometimes while on stage in the same scene too.  They both gave outstanding performances. 

This play was extremely well done and so wonderfully entertaining I only wish I had not seen it on the last day of its run, because I would definitely go see it again...it was that good. 

Over the River and Through the Woods @ Theatre Artists Studio

The show features the talents of Scott Hyder, Shana Rebilas Bousard,
Judy Rollings, Dolores D'Amore Goldsmith, Michael Fleck and Bob Barr
Photo by Mark Gluckman

On Sunday I saw at Theatre Artists Studio Over the River and Through the Woods -  to grandmother's house we go.  The play is about a single man, Nick, who lives in Hoboken, NJ and like every good Italian grandson he goes over to grandmother's house every Sunday for a great big Italian dinner.  But this time he has to tell his grandparents that he was offered a big promotion at work, and has to move to Seattle, so no more Sunday dinners at grandma's house.  The grandparents don't take this news so well, and that's where the play gets really funny when they set out to sabotage his moving plans.
 
Well, Nick does make the move to the West Coast despite his grandparent's efforts to keep him on the East Coast.  After three of his four grandparents pass on, he invites his only living grandmother to come live with him, but she declines to leave the only home she knows.   Now that could be another very funny play altogether...taking your grandmother to a new place.  I know this well...first hand.

I could relate very well to this play because my husband's Italian family would go every Sunday to grandma's house for the big afternoon Italian supper.  When my mother-in-law moved to Scottsdale from Chicago, she took her 81 year old mother with her.  Taking a woman who only left Chicago once in her entire life to another place to live can make for a real funny play.   I have tons of funny stories about grandma's new adventures living in Scottsdale.  One of my favorite stories is when my mother-in-law took her mom with her to one of her friend's house who lives in a guard gated community.  When they started to drive up to the guard gate, grandma shouted, "Look! How wonderful. Your friend has a vegetable stand in front of her neighborhood." 

Forever Plaid @ Hale Center Theatre

I went to a Wednesday afternoon performance of Forever Plaid at the Hale Center Theatre.  I had never seen this musical before, and really enjoyed the performances.  The four guys who played the Plaids were outstanding singers and exceptionally funny too. 

This is the second show I saw at the Hale Theatre...the first one was The Secret Garden.  Funny how  both musicals feature characters that are dead.  The four Plaids were unfortunately killed by a bus of parochical school virgins who were on their way to see The Beatles perform live on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.  But even physical death did not stop this group from putting on one amazing show...they were heavenly.

Man of La Mancha with Scottsdale Musical Theater Company

Over the weekend I went with some out-of-towns friends to see Man of La Mancha presented by Scottsdale Musical Theater Company.  I first became familiar with this company when they performed at the Herberger Festival of the Arts in October. This company produces only a couple of Broadway musicals a year, and now their new home is the Dorrance Auditorium at the Phoenix Country Day School in Paradise Valley. My out-of-town friend is a retired high school music teacher, and when I told her about this theater company doing Man of La Mancha, she begged me to get tickets. This is one of her favorite Broadway musicals and she has seen it several times. I have never seen this musical before, but like most everyone was familiar with the famous song, The Impossible Dream. I of course studied up on the storyline before seeing this production. My friend told be to skip seeing the 1972 movie which she said was not so good.
 
Anyway, I enjoyed the musical very much...happy I read what it was about before seeing it...helped me follow it much better. This company only performs four shows for the entire run, so the sets are minimal, but the voices from all their actors were enormous. Boy, could these people sing...and sing well. They were such gifted singers that you could have listened to them sing Happy Birthday for two hours and been thoroughly and completely entertained...they were that superb.  And the cherry on the cake is that they always perform these musicals with a live orchestra.

Hector Coris as Sancho, Aaron Jacobson as Cervantes/Quixote, and Alexus Poulette as Aldonza/Dulcinea