Kelowna Actors Studio knocks one out of the park!

Sat, 26 Mar 2011 14:51:04 -0700

I can't imagine it's easy taking a Neil Simon Broadway production, originally choreographed by Bob Fosse no less, and turning it into a local hit...but they've done it! And they've done it Big Time.

Sweet Charity is the latest offering from KAS and it's definitely right up there in the top three productions I've been fortunate enough to take-in. This production rivals anything you'll find on any stage in any Canadian city.

The production works for so many reasons, but mainly because of:

Tracy Ross
Ross has developed into one of Kelowna's best theatrical performers with a hat-trick of talent: She's a brilliant dancer - an amazing singer - and a great comedic actress - the complete package. Playing the lead of Charity Valentine, Ross' scenes with veteran actor Randy Leslie are worth the price of admission alone.

Nate Flavel
Timing is everything and Flavel's direction of this huge cast, combined with Jennifer Davies' choreography, makes it work beautifully. A cast of 23 are brought into perfect sync under Flavel's toutelage. Stage harmony!

The Ensemble
This group has gelled. The "Fandango Girls", the "Pompeii Club" dancers, all evidence of a group that knows each other, works well together, and probably understands the next performer's moves as well as their own. It's pure pleasure to watch.

Bottom Line:
SEE THIS SHOW before it sells out. I guarantee you will not be disappointed. It runs until April 17th.

www.kelownaactorsstudio.com

Kelowna gets a weekend of art, music and theatre By Glenna Turnbull

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 10:46:20 -0800

I don‘t know how KAS keep doing it, but they just raise the bar higher and higher and higher. The strength of this cast
combined with the award winning writing of playwright Neil Simon made for a wonderful, albeit late, night out – especially opening night as KAS announced the line up for its 2011-2012 season.
Kim Fournier as Kate Jerome was simply brilliant, as was Frank Takacs as her husband, Jack. Actually, everyone – from young Emma Butler and Gillian Reed who played the Morgan sister, and Michelle Hussey as their mother Blanche to Scott Lawler as brother Stanley – all seemed to shine in this production. The biggest
applause of the night, however, went out to young teen Thomas Fournier who had the lead role of Eugene Jerome. His timing and the way he flawlessly carried the narration of the play along was key to its success – a lot of pressure to put on one so young, but he rose to the occasion beautifully under the direction of James Long.
Brighton Beach Memoirs continues its run at KAS Thursdays through Sundays from now through to Feb 27, with a special show added for Valentine‘s Day on Feb. 14. Tickets are at the box office, online at kelownaactorsstudio.com or by calling
250-862-2867.

‘30s tale still resonates By Jude Campbell

Mon, 31 Jan 2011 10:42:07 -0800

Often referred to as one of Neil Simon‘s crème de la crème plays, Brighton Beach Memoirs bares the heart and soul of a struggling family, offering an artful, but not fanciful look at their ordinary lives.
Set in the midst of the Great Depression, the play is narrated to the audience by
15-year-old Eugene Morris Jerome, who lives in an over-crowded house with six family members and not much privacy.
His list of complaints starts with wishing he wasn‘t named Eugene, because it‘s the world‘s second-worst possible name.
His other discontents include preferring to have been born Italian instead of Jewish (all the best ball players are Italian), obsessing about puberty and girls‘ breasts.
As the first of three semi-autobiographical plays penned by Simon, Brighton Beach follows Eugene as he copes with a formidable mother, an overworked father, his older worldly brother, a widowed aunt and her two daughters.
Drawing on his own experience, Simon crafted lines suitably rife with emotion and angst: “I love tense moments, especially when I‘m not the one they‘re all tense about.”
Or: “Actually, I‘d give up writing if I could see a naked girl while I was eating ice cream.” Or: “Stay on your own side of the street. That‘s what they have gutters for.”
With art imitating life, the roles of Eugene and the mother, Kate, are taken on by the mother-son team of Kim and Thomas Fournier.
“We‘ve got a great repartee on stage, and it‘s been a lot of fun being able to nag him at home and now on stage too,” she quipped. “I recognize a bit of myself in Kate. She‘s the central hub of the family, sometimes to her own detriment.”
“She‘s a typical mom in a typical family just trying to get through the financial crunch, opening the doors to her sister and girls when they needed it, being concerned about what‘s happening in Europe,” she said.
“There are a lot of layers, it all seems very real. This is a real family, facing real issues, with very real characters.”
It‘s the first time the two Fourniers have shared the spotlight, and she said that it took some getting used to “not jumping to his defence or trying to help with the directing, giving my two-cents worth.”
As rehearsals carried on, the role of real-life mother and son was taken out of the equation, and replaced with co-actors just doing their job.
“It‘s a big role, a huge challenge,” Thomas said. “I‘m the narrator, so there are lots of monologues, lots of memorization. But it‘s also great because I have the opportunity to connect more directly with the audience.”
Brighton Beach is the first play he has taken a lead role in, although he‘s been in numerous musical productions.
“Musicals are all about wow and dazzle,” he added. “This is more in depth, more internal emotions that have to be created for the audience.”
As Eugene, he shares his musings on growing up, jotting down his life observations in his daily journal.
Like most American teens, he‘s consumed with the really important things: baseball and when will he get to see a naked girl.
“The puberty scene between the two brothers is my favourite,” Thomas said. “I love it. It‘s really funny, and it‘s probably going to get some chuckles and maybe a few gasps!”
Kim added that the scene is “funny and light” and “all talk and no action.”
“Hopefully, no one will be offended,” she said. “Maybe sexuality is a little risque, but it is a very important part of coming of age. A natural curiosity.”
The coming of age story, even though set in 1937, still resonates true with Thomas and Kim.
“There‘s always family problems, no matter what the year,” he said. “There‘s relationships between brothers and sisters, dealing with parents, money trouble. It‘s all there whether it‘s 1937 or 2011.”
Cast members include Frank Tacaks as father Jack, Scott Lawler as the gambling brother Stanley, Gillian Reed and Emma Butler as the daughters and newcomer Michelle Deighton Hussey as Aunt Blanche.
The play received numerous drama awards on stage, including best performance for Matthew Broderick and rave reviews when it was turned into a 1986 movie starring Jonathan Silverman.

QUICKFACTS

What: Brighton Beach Memoirs written by Neil Simon, with Kim and Thomas Fournier.
When & Where: Feb. 3- 27 at Kelowna Actors Studio, across from the public library, Ellis St. Performances Thursday to Sunday with Saturday matinees.
Tickets: Dinner theatre or theatre and dessert options. Available at the on-site box office, call 250-862-2867 or online at: KelownaActorsStudio.com.

By the seat of their pants

Thu, 6 Jan 2011 16:51:50 -0800

By Jennifer Smith - Kelowna Capital News
Published: January 06, 2011 6:00 PM
Updated: January 07, 2011 11:41 AM
It’s kind of like a sneak preview for audiences as well as for the actors and crew at Kelowna Actor’s Studio who are putting the show on.
New this year, performances slated under the Music Stand Series offer the dinner theatre a chance to test-run a few ideas with a lot of laughs in between.
Earlier in the season, the pick was Carousel, but next week Kelly Whelan, a staple of the Kelowna Actor’s Studio casts, will get her first crack at these crash course performances in the somewhat appropriately titled show, Anything Goes.
“It’s a series of mishaps and misunderstanding and mismatched love affairs; it’s just a fun campy show,” said Whelan, adding “it’s really more about the music.”
With a title like Anything Goes, the song Anything Goes clearly figures prominently, but so do Sinatra standbys like I Get a Kick Out of You and Cole Porter’s It’s De-Lovely.
The show is a creation of Porter’s, described as a musical comedy set aboard the S.S. American with stowaways, nightclub sirens, shipboard romance, mistaken identity, a gangster and nonstop fun.
How the shenanigans will all play out is yet to be seen, but if there’s one certainty, it’s that Whelan should have no problem with the score.
As a side gig she also works at the Green Room across the street as a singing server; and she did roughly six years in Toronto’s theatre scene before making the move out west.
As for the rest, this particular production is “totally based on sight gags and costume changes,” so Whelan said even she is looking forward to seeing how the staging will turn out. With only three rehearsals before the dress rehearsal, or approximately a week to work with the material, the actors just learn their roles, figure out how to arrange their scripts (they will have them on stage—no memorization necessary) and then take a run at it in front of a live audience.
“It’s about seeing shows you wouldn’t necessarily see and testing out what works for the audience,” she said, noting it helps the studio experiment with types of material they might work into future programming.
Whelan found out she was cast last August after auditioning in June, but with the regular show and rehearsal schedule, said it really comes down to this week when the work gets done—at it’s quite high pressure.
While this year is technically her third season with the studio, she did take a year out to work in Vancouver, returning to do Mame, Sweeney Todd and On Broadway.
Cole Porter’s Anything Goes runs at Kelowna Actor’s Studio Jan.13 to 15, with tickets on sale now, via their website at www.kelownactorsstudio.com.
jsmith@kelownacapnews.com

Drunks and Rabbits

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:13:24 -0700

Review by Glenna Turnbull in Event Magazine
A standing ovation was the reward for the Kelowna Actors Studio cast on opening night as they launched the run of Harvey, a comedy about a man who likes to drink, loves to make friends and happens to have a six-foot invisible rabbit as his best friend.
Ray Mordan bumbles along brilliantly as the slightly inebriated, kind and ever-so-pleasant Elwood P. Dowd, who gets taken by his sister Veta Louise (portrayed with panache by Patricia Burns) to the sanitarium. But somehow things get terribly mixed up, leading to plenty of laughs along the way.
Fraught with sexual tension between both Dorothy Dalba as Nurse Kelly and Scott Lawler as the young and ever-so-handsome psychiatrist Dr. Sanderson, and Elwood‘s niece (Sarah McCall), who has the hots for an orderly at the sanitarium, (James Long), the subplots of these characters is what causes a great deal of the laughs.
Long‘s biggest laughs of the night, however, come early on when he portrays the rich upper society woman, Mrs. Ethel Chauvenet – particularly during a certain foot cleaning episode.
Filled with several truths that are bound to make you think twice about how you judge people, Harvey continues its run at Kelowna Actors Studio through to Oct. 31. Tickets at the KAS box office, website or by calling 250-862-2867.