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
