partial review of *Hairspray*

“Welcome to the ‘60s”: It may sound quaint, but Hairspray‘s anthem isn’t just a return to Beach Boys innocence. As shimmied and shouted in director Kirk Mouser’s Coeur d’Alene production, it’s a party-whoop celebration of freedom from prejudice and the sheer joy of living. The plus-size mother-daughter team, Edna and Tracy Turnblad (Roger Welch and Lindsey Hedberg) may have personified Dowdy and Dorky until now, but a revolution is underway, and the big girls, the black girls — and especially, the big black girls (like Deidra Grace’s Motormouth Maybelle) are going to get some respect and get it now.
The Dynamites (think: the Supremes) start harmonizing, some of those crazy kids from The Corny Collins Show start cavorting all over the stage, and soon Edna and Tracy are popping out of Mr. Pinky’s Hefty Hideaway in matching outfits: They’re here, they’re heavy, and they don’t give a hoot. “Welcome to the ‘60s,” like the show it encapsulates, is a joyous bitch-slap to the faces of snobs and bigots everywhere.
And that’s why people enjoy Hairspray so much: the unloved, unpopular, put-upon kid in all of us … she gets to stand up and sing! And dance! And make out in the backseat with that dreamy Link Larkin! Go, Mama, go-go-go!
With creative choreography, inventive direction, a tuneful score, plenty of energy and an anti-discrimination message, Hairspray (through Aug. 21) is clearly CdA Summer Theatre’s best production this season.

{This is the first half of the review that will appear in the 8/12/10 Inlander; photo by Young Kwak -- from left: Lindsey Hedberg as Tracy Turnblad, Keyonna Vene Wright as Little Inez, Deidra Grace as Motormouth Maybelle, and Gabe Lawson as Seaweed J. Stubbs}

Hairspray welcomes you to the ‘60s on Thursdays-Saturdays, Aug. 12-14 and Aug. 19-21, at 7:30 pm, and on Sunday, Aug. 15, at 2 pm at NIC’s Boswell Hall, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene. Tickets: $39; $35, seniors; $25, children. Visit cdasummertheatre.com or call (208) 769-7780.

CST's 2011 season: 3 of 4 shows announced

Bobo's been taking a summer siesta, and he' s known about this for a week, but ... Coeur d'Alene Summer Theatre Executive Director Laura Little announced last night (on opening night for Hairspray -- more on that later) what's on tap for most of their summer next year:

The Sound of Music (not done at CST since '94; received second-highest number of votes in their playgoers' poll)

Sondheim's A Little Night Music (recently revived on Broadway with Catherine Zeta-Jones and Angela Lansbury, who were even more recently replaced by Bernadette Peters and Elaine Stritch; it's based on Ingmar Bergman's Smiles of a Summer Night, which you must get on Netflix even if it is a '50s Swedish comedy in black and white, especially for the scenes when the actress engineers the confrontation of her two arrogant lovers and the failed-suicide-followed-by-pop-out-bed.

... and we'll off skip down the Yellow Brick Road in The Wizard of Oz.

Partial review of *Putnam County Spelling Bee*

at Coeur d'Alene Summer Theater through June 26

(basically, the middle third of the review that will appear in The Pacific Northwest Inlander on Thursday, June 17)

... With the exception of the title song, composer/lyricist William Finn’s melodies aren’t particularly memorable. And this isn’t a glitz- or dance-heavy show. (It’s kids standing at microphones — not exactly a spectacle — though director Roger Welch maintains the flow with hyper-speed and slo-mo spelling sequences.) But in her book of the musical, Rachel Sheinkin is good at creating a sense of community, then building the tension before each speller performs.
The little mock-introductions that each speller receives — and the definitions they request when they’re up at the mic — are among Spelling Bee’s funniest lines. But there’s plenty of fun in the scripted parts of the show, too, as we follow the tribulations of our six contestants: the nerd, the Boy Scout, the unloved child, the multi-talented genius, the prodigy, the mystic hippie.
Playing the pressured-by-her-parents overachiever in “I Speak Six Languages,” for example, Yvonne Same demonstrates an impressive range of talents. She demonstrates a lot more than just fluency — martial arts, musicianship and other feats of physical prowess all made rapid-fire appearances.
The nose-picking nerd with his shirttail hanging out (Andrew Hartley, disgusting but vulnerable too) performs his “magic foot” spelling routine: He’s an oddball, but he’s going to stick to his oddball guns.
With nine actors playing twice that many characters, there’s a danger of repetition. But the show avoids predictable, one-after-another character revelations, and there are unexpected second-act sequences involving Jesus and the Taj Majal that propel the narrative unexpectedly toward satire and even compassion. With all the tonal shifts, cast members could afford to improve their diction: The CdA sound system can be harsh and blarey, and some of the rapid-fire details of characterization got muddled.
For all its displays of nerditude, Spelling Bee is a show with a heart. It’s effective whether or not you know or care about spelling bees, and it brings back all the fears and joys of youth.

[ photos by Young Kwak for The Inlander ]

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee continues at NIC’s Boswell Hall, 1000 W. Garden Ave., Coeur d’Alene, on Thursdays-Saturdays, June 17-19 and June 24-26, at 7:30 pm, along with a matinee on Sunday, June 20, at 2 pm. Tickets: $41; $37, seniors; $27, children. Visit cdasummertheatre.com or call (208) 769-7780.

The same production transfers to the Idaho Rep at UI's Hartung Theater, Sixth St. and Stadium Way, Moscow, Idaho, on Monday-Friday, June 29-July 2, at 7:30 pm. Visit uidaho.edu/class/irt 

*Spelling Bee* photos

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
Music and lyrics by William Finn
Book by Rachel Sheinkin
ran for 1,100 performances on Broadway from April 2005 to Jan. 2008
nominated for six Tonys in 2006, winning for Best Book of a Musical and Best Featured Actor (Dan Fogler as William Barfee)

June 12-26 at Shuler Performing Arts Center, inside NIC's Boswell Hall, in Coeur d'Alene
Visit cdasummertheatre.com or call ((208) 769-7780

Continues June 28-July 2 at UI's Hartung Theater, Stadium Dr. and Sixth St., Moscow, Idaho
Visit idahorep.org or call (208) 885-7212

Three adults (each with their personal problems and anxieties) conduct a middle-school spelling bee with six contestants (the overachiever, the hippie, the Boy Scout, the nerd, the neglected child, the one's who's politically intense) and everyone, in the midst of singing all those songs and spelling all those words like "hemidemisemiquaver," turns out to be very, very neurotic.



Directed and choreographed by Roger Welch
Musical direction by Chris Thompson
Sets by Michael McGiveney
Lights by Dean Panttaja
Costumes by Tessa DeMoy
PSM: Kim Crawley


with (most actors double in other roles as well)
Andrew Hartley as William Barfee
Laura Sable as Rona Lisa Peretti
Jay Paranada as Chip Tolentino
Mallory Cooney King as Olive Ostrovsky
Matthew Wade as Leaf Coneybear
Reed McColm as Douglas Panch
J. Reese as Mitch Mahoney
Kara Jones as Logainne Schartzandgrubenierre