One way to attract an audience, as the theory goes, is to create a show from songs they already know. Thus was born the jukebox musical, made of existing hits from a particular composer or performer. Needing a subject too, this soon led to the jukebox biography, which tells the story behind the music illustrated with those familiar songs. That explains the recent glut of … [Read more...]
‘Steel Magnolias’: Definitely not a pity party
Maltz Jupiter Theatre audiences have usually seen director Marcia Milgrom Dodge’s innovative work on musicals (The King and I, Fiddler on the Roof), but she jumped at the opportunity to stage Robert Harling’s tragicomic Steel Magnolias, about a handful of Southern women who gather each Saturday at a makeshift beauty salon. While fueled by comedy, their mettle is tested when the … [Read more...]
Fierce reading of Rose drives strong ‘Gypsy’ at Maltz
As imported ringers go, Vicki Lewis continues to be a welcome visitor to the Maltz Jupiter Theatre. The 5-foot-1 “bundle of dynamite” – to borrow a phrase from her current triumph in Gypsy – has won over audiences here in such unlikely roles as the pushy title matchmaker in Hello, Dolly! and comic villainess Miss Hannigan in Annie. But neither performance quite prepared us … [Read more...]
For actress Lewis, it’s her turn to play Mama Rose
She has appeared on Broadway in revivals of Chicago and Damn Yankees, and can be heard in countless animated films from Finding Dory to TV’s Rugrats. But for audiences at the Maltz Jupiter Theatre, Vicki Lewis is the big-voiced, pint-sized actress who takes on such unlikely starring roles as matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi in Hello, Dolly! and crabby orphanage matron Miss … [Read more...]