Thursday, December 3, 2009

On Stage in November and December: Part 2

Another post about some of the more interesting theatrical interpretations of fairy tales during the holiday season:

Little Red Riding Hood

Hoit directs the fractured fairy tale “Little Red Riding Hood,” a comedic semi-opera written by Marian Partee and Richardson.

Worley is hysterical as the 13-year-old Red, played as a spoiled modern teen obsessed with her Blackberry. Red’s mother, played by Murphy, shares with her daughter a priceless give-and-take that begins the story.

Keating is very funny as Junior Wolf, a teen wolf who wants to be a vegetarian chef. His father, The Big Bad Wolf, is played by Walker, who gets to sing some funny lyrics about hunting down and eating people.

Red and Junior team up to save all the old retired fairy tale heroes at their retirement home.

Murphy, now playing Red’s grandmother Aurora; McLane as one of the three pigs, Hamlet; Beck as an old and frisky Prince Charming; and Hildebrand as Rapunzel are simply insane and uproarious.

The puns fly throughout and several modern day references are lampooned to great success.

Rapunzarella White (Hackensack's Avellino directs revamped 'Rapunzarella')

Rapunzarella White is a brand new musical tale spun from the familiar threads of Rapunzel, Cinderella, and Snow White, in which they are actually triplets cast off into their own separate stories by a very angry witch. Herschel, an adorable Fairy Tailor, weaves together their sad plights before our favorite fairy tale princesses reunite as sisters, when each finds her true Prince Charming...and true love. "Happily Ever After" may never have seemed so far off, but fear not...as in all fairy tales, happiness and love prevail.

The Princess and the Handmaiden (see Class warfare for the kids and Fairy tale isn't kid-friendly)

Leslie Arden's new musical for children, The Princess and the Handmaiden , takes The Goose Girl , one of the lesser-known fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm, adds a few shakes of The Prince and the Pauper , a pinch of All's Well that Ends Well and, to make its Canadian provenance that much more evident, a soupçon of a plea for universal magic care.

1 comment:

  1. In case the rest of Little Red Riding Hood did not catch my attention (which it did), this line alone would have my interest: "Red and Junior team up to save all the old retired fairy tale heroes at their retirement home." These all sound great!

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