TheatreDate.com Reviews

Community Review by Sarah King

King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies. It is also incredibly long, 5 acts. The directors of the show had to takes five acts and make it two acts. In my opinion they did it beautifully!

The story of King Lear, is not a happy one. A king, going slowly mad gives his land to his daughters, his bitchy daughters. Because she won’t falsely flatter her father his sweet daughter is left out. I’m not going to spoil the play, you should go see it, I’ve given you enough to get you started.

The cast is huge and very talented. With a simple bare bones set and costume plan, the actors and their characters are center stage. The costumes are very well done and were made by John Mich. Excellent work. The set was simple and useful.

The actors were fantastic. King Lear, played by Jerry Miller was a character I won’t soon forget. His madness and passion were played to the fullest. The role of his fool, played by Loki Miller brought some of the only comic relief found in the play. The three daughters, played by Ashley Maurhan (the sweet one), Sara St.Pierre (bitchy one), and Paige Patterson (bitchy one), were played so well that one would think they had played these roles before, maybe several times. The Earls and Dukes, were fantastic, they brought such depth to the play, explaining and showing us important plot points with crystal clear delivery. Along with King Lear’s stand out performance, Poor Tom/Edgar of Glocester played by Zac Yorkivick was superb!

There was a good deal of sword fighting, all of which was well executed and brought a very dynamic feel to the show.

This show is excellent and is not to be missed! Go see it now.

Community Review by Sarah King

I recently saw Jesus Christ Superstar at the Chico Cabaret. I was so excited to see this performance; I have always loved this musical. It was very enjoyable. The singing was wonderful, the lead characters, Jesus, Judas and Mary blew me away. Peter’s voice was also very nice; his duet with Mary, “Could we start again” was fantastic. Caiaphas and Annas were well performed, Annas was perfectly suited to his role. Pontius Pilate was well sung, but I felt he missed the mark during the whipping scene, why didn’t he count the lashes? The chorus sounded good as well and really brought a full sound to the show. The band accompanying them was spot on as well.

The costumes were well done; however, I don’t understand why one costume was cut so high. This is not a sexy show, it’s a Jesus show, the slit was not appropriate for the time. But that was only one costume out of many.

I was thoroughly enjoying the show until the big numbers, where the cast was dancing. The choreography was not good, it didn’t match the energy of the music, nor did it look well rehearsed. Dancers were out of sync with each other and the music, dragging down the energy of the big, important numbers. King Herod’s number was particularly bad; it was poorly choreographed, poorly danced and poorly sung. Rock and Roll musicals deserve good, rock and roll choreography and this musical doesn’t have that.
I would recommend this show to anyone! I really enjoyed it and found the cast to be delightful and talented. Even the bad choreography didn’t diminish my enjoyment because everything else was so well done. Go see Jesus Christ Superstar!!