Photo by Joseph R. Saporito

cast

Arts Project Offers New Director and "Our Favorite Things"
By Sherri Rase

How can something be a Favorite Thing, yet still be new? James Belzer's conceptual "Our Favorite Things" combined elements of favorite Broadway shows, including the much loved "The Sound of Music," "Gypsy," "Funny Girl," "South Pacific," "Oliver!," "Cabaret," "Wicked," "The Wiz," "Mame," "Hello, Dolly" and more, and wove in threads of current events, i.e. the McGreevy divorce.

Each of the main characters makes a transition, but most notable were those of the Captain and Maria von Trapp Matos-McGreevy. Ironically, each travels to Cherry Grove to find out who each really is and does so with some surprising results.

Among the Grove favorites number Rose Levine, with her signature high kicks; the lovely Bella; and Dell Harbin in a surprise duet performance with songstress Porsche. Dell's number featured her on trumpet in silhouette and resplendent in tuxedo with cutaway coat and colorful custom vest. Best of all, Dell and Porsche crooning to "Summertime," with Porsche allowing that that the set put her as close as Dell has ever gotten her to a bed! Then "Summertime" became a Janis Joplin solo in tribute to Porsche's capable vocal cords.

Our own Bruce-Michael Gelbert turned in some of his best work in the eight years I've had the pleasure of listening to him as an opera buff who falls for our heroine not physically, but vocally! Floating a tune from "West Side Story" to crafting parody lyrics for Irving Berlin's "I Love A Piano," no one can hold a candle to him! Especially after the cadence of "Maria," where his falsetto tones rang sweetly over the VIP tables and into the balcony-magic!

New faces were welcomed also, like Sarah Downs, our Maria who is presently in rehearsals for "The Tales of Hoffman" and is a veteran of the national tour of the "Sound of Music." Sarah's performances and mobile, deft expressions made her presence a delight in her Cherry Grove debut.

Kristi Ambrosetti is another new face, gracing our stage as the leggy cabaret denizen Frenchy, and then lighting the audience up with the duet "For Good," from "Wicked," with Sarah. Kristi is another national tour veteran who took our topnotch performers higher still with her encouragement and amazing talent. Each of us is changed, each transforms, each transitions and the blending of these two vocal talents was one of many breathtaking moments in this show.

Ingenue Anna Raykhtsaum was our Liesl, though there was some question, since another ingenue, Bob Verbrugge, appeared first as the mysterious Liesel-Friedrich! And no one puts Friedrich in a closet! Or Liesl, or Liesl-Friedrich. Anna's rendition of "Sixteen Going on Seventeen," became "Sixty Going on Seventy" when Frau Rose allowed as how she'd take care of all. Bob's first season treading the boards of the Community House stage has been filled with a houseful of characters as he transforms like a chameleon from boy to girl to woman to man and back again.

Many thanks to James for bringing Anna, Kristi and Sarah together with a cast of Cherry Grove favorites to create new energy. New people and ideas elevate a cast, spurring all to greater heights. New ideas populate and propagate and there's nothing like meeting new friends. All the newbies have said they'll come back.

George McGarvey did double duty not only as the sweepingly transforming McGreevy/Hedwig, but also in transforming the stage as set designer. His "Midnight Radio" was especially plaintive and well done.

Musical Director Buster Freeze is delightful to work with and has a deft touch with musicians and singers alike. Chris Vassiliades did some early work with the cast as well, but his West Coast work prevented him from working with Buster and with us through the entire process.

Another of James' great finds was the Paul Johnson Jazz Combo, with Paul on keyboard, Timothy Dahl on upright bass, Mary Halvorson on guitar, John Rienze on percussion, and James Tweedy on tenor sax, as coordinated and directed by Buster, which provided an experience for audience and vocalists alike that is rarely seen at the Community House. Speaking for myself, the thrill of singing with a band, where you've got so many people combining and performing to the top of their skills, means the experience for all, including the audience, is greater than the sum of the parts.

Cherry Grove cast favorites included the electric Dale Lally as Max, our master of ceremonies, and sassy Jackie Presti and sexy firecracker Ann-Phetamine/Don Verteramo as "Cabaret" Kit Kat girls. Bill Perez was Rodin-thoughtful as he was "Reviewing the Situation" and Barbara Hirsch and Linda Dickerman displayed their wry humor, dazzling costume sense and spot-on lip synch talents in "Dites Moi" and "I've Got You Babe." Rose sang some of her signature songs including "And the World Goes Round" and Bella brought the house down with Lisa Koch's "Middle Aged Woman," which resonated for many.

New directors are rarely given such high visibility shows. Kudos to the Arts Project for taking a creative chance that was so well and richly rewarded. The house was filled to capacity for the final show and the new ideas and new energy made for a kick a** Labor Day weekend. Many thanks to Jane Haber and Tim Webster for yeoman's duty selling tickets and Maryanne and Gimmi Hoffa and the usher crew for fabulous hosting!

I Love Two Sopranos
By Bruce-Michael Gelbert

When operaphiles would ask each other, "Which is your favorite 'Ring des Nibelungen' opera?" or, when Beverly Sills would sing the so-called Tudor Ring, similarly query, "Which is your favorite Donizetti Queen opera?" most already knew that my answer would be "Die Walküre," in the first case, and "Maria Stuarda," in the second. And why?-two leading sopranos in lieu of one in each of these works. This was also the case in "My Favorite Things," where I reveled in Sarah Downs and Sherri Rase blending voices brilliantly in "Cherry Grove," originally "Bali H'ai" from "South Pacific," and "If You Believe," from "The Wiz." Sherri even quipped that, where some hetero men might get off on seeing two women together, my variation is getting off on hearing two women singing together.

In "Our Favorite Things," I got to sing with Sherri in ensembles "Rose," née "Mame," saluting Grove diva Rose Levine; "Hello, Bella," greeting Grove diva Bella; "Hey, Big Spender," opening the second act, and featuring APCG President Coco and Homecoming Queen Margo as well; and final numbers "Life Is a Cabaret" and "I Am What I Am." I also had my moment with Sarah.

Our director, James Belzer, conceived the idea that I would play the love interest Sarah finds in Cherry Grove, a combination Emile de Becque, from "South Pacific," and Tony, from "West Side Story," figure. I would sing "Some Enchanted Evening" and "Tonight" with her, the latter later dropped, and "Maria," transposed into a more comfortably baritonal key, about her. He called it acting. I called it a stretch. It just didn't sit right. One day I announced that my character doesn't love Sarah's character per se, he loves her for perhaps the gayest of reasons: her voice. Fine, said James, then come up with a song that says that.

I wracked my brain but couldn't think of any song that said exactly that. Maybe there was something I could alter to make it convey that. In her show "Curtain Up," Rose had just sung Irving Berlin's "I Love a Piano," one her signature tunes. Thus inspired, I started tinkering with the lyrics and "I Love a Soprano" was born ("Christine or Gretel/She'll show her mettle/whether in opera or Broadway./So you can keep your Merman, your Jlo/Give me an s-o-p-r-a-n-o./Give me a diva and I'll shout viva/'Cause her high tones are so grand!")

I was having some trouble with the cues for the repetitions of the name "Maria," sung as an obbligato to the melody in what I think of as the cadenza section of the song of the same name, so music director Buster Freeze, who rightly brooked few departures from the notes or tempo in the printed score, indulgently assigned tenor saxophonist James Tweedy, to play them with me. Did I have any problem with that? On the contrary, I was delighted. Donizetti's Lucia has a flute and/or a glass harmonica to sing with-I had a saxophone!

There proved to be many magical moments in "Our Favorite Things:" Porsche, making her APCG debut, and Denise "Dell" Harbin, collaborating on "Summertime," à la Ella Fitzgerald, then in Porsche's signature Janis Joplin version; Rose's transformation from matronly housekeeper to the von Trapps, overseeing cunning "children" Anna Raykhtsaum and Robert Verbrugge, to the glamorous singer of "How Lucky Can You Get;" Sherri's Mother Abbess, singing "Climb Every Mountain" like an angel, yet slyly tweaking the words "can't face" till they sounded like the rudest utterance ever to issue from the Community House stage; Bill Perez's louche "Reviewing the Situation;" Barbara Hirsch and Linda Dickerman as pretty babies introducing the "South Pacific" numbers with "Dites-moi" and growing up to be Sonny and Cher doing "I Got You, Babe;" Bella's empathetic paean to the "Middle Aged Woman;" Urban Sprawl ("It's a brush, not a wand"), then Margo, helping George to "Wash that Man," Captain McGreevy, right out of his hair and become the outrageous Hedwig of "Wicked Little Town" and "Midnight Radio;" Sarah's thoughtful l1 o'clock number, "Something Wonderful." Kudos, too, to Matt Baney and Mike Romanelli, on sound and lights, and to stage crew Arthur Cohen and Martha Pitkin.

No look at "Our Favorite Things" would be complete without mention of the scrumptious buffet provided by S.H.K. Catering Services, after both performances, and the unofficial after party at the Tides Cozy Bar, after closing night, where we sang with dear Buster at the piano once more, either numbers we sang-Rose's song from "Funny Lady," George's from "Hedwig and the Angry Inch"-or didn't sing-Sherri's "Music of the Night" with more high A-flats, Margo's "Never on Sunday" in Greek, my "So in Love" and "Anything Goes"-in the show.

Friends, you made "Our Favorite Things" a memorable experience.