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SF Jr. Presents... our inaugural children's production! |
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"45
captivating minutes of light-hearted |
This work was created as part of the
Edge of the World
Theatre Festival, Los Angeles,
as part of EdgeFest's L.A. Future Project.
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PREMIERING
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 4th, 2003 |
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OCTOBER 5th-NOVEMBER 1st, 2003 |
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This show is appropriate for ages 6 and up. |
Featuring...
Bill Celentano, Stephanie Dees, Aaron Francis,
Doug Gabrielle,
Dean Jacobson, Corey Klemow,
Lisa Anne Nicolai and Ruth Silveira
Video
- Ben Rock
Tree Builder - Aaron Francis
Costume Crew - Ruth Silveira, Dean Jacobson & Lisa Mir
TYA Consultant for the L.A. Future Project - Jane McEneany
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REVIEWS! |
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BACKSTAGE WEST Commissioned as an entry in EdgeFest's L.A. Future Project, this Sesame Street-styled children's play is subtitled "What Whole Are You a Part of, and What Parts are You the Whole of?" Writer/director Joe Jordan and composer/sound designer Brenda Varda have fashioned a fanciful Through the Looking Glass-type adventure designed to provide young audiences with an uplifting moralistic message about cultural diversity and self-pride. The unpretentious undertaking provides 45 captivating minutes of light-hearted entertainment.Young Alex (Stephanie Dees) is uncertain about how she is supposed to fit in with her various social roles: as a family member, a team baseball player, and an indistinguishable student in a large classroom. She seems destined to be more of an automaton than a unique human being. She's perhaps not mature enough to appreciate an existential journey of Beckettian dimensions, but she stumbles into an epiphany of sorts when she goes for a walk in the words and climbs up a pomegranate tree, then tumbles down. She meets assorted characters, including a wise but cheeky owl (Dean Jacobson), a loony doctor (Bill Celentano), microscopic human components such as neutrons, and quarrelsome government officials from several nations on the brink of war. She learns important lessons, which she carries back to the classroom: nurture and cherish our individuality, respect differences in others, and celebrate the common core of humanity that binds us. The free-form piece is energized by Varda's lively music and the amusingly stylized movements depicting Alex's regimented universe. Dees is an appealing and funny heroine, and the excellent ensemble is highlighted by Celentano's vaudevillian turn as a rubber-faced doctor with a bizarre bedside manner. --
Les Spindle |
