Laugh until your sides hurt tonight, June 19 at Bucks County Playhouse's late-night comedy benefit performance of Villain: DeBlanks.
After its wild success at 54 Below in New York, Villain: DeBlanks is coming to Bucks County Playhouse for its regional premiere!
Featuring the cast of BCP's smash hit, Company, this side-splitting murder mystery features Villain: Deblanks veteransJustin Guarini (Wicked and American Idol Season 1), John Bolton (A Christmas Story: the Musical), Jennifer Cody(Seussical, Disney's The Princess and the Frog), and Laura Jordan (Cry-Baby, Silence! the Musical), as well as Kate Wetherhead (Legally Blonde, "Submissions Only") and Company Director Hunter Foster (Urinetown, Bridges of Madison County).
All proceeds will benefit Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS and the Bucks County Playhouse Education Department.
Read more: http://www.broadwayworld.com/philadelphia/article/Hunter-Foster-and-More-Set-for-VILLAIN-DEBLANKS-BCEFA-Benefit-at-Bucks-County-Playhouse-20150618# PHOTOS and Broadwayworld.com article
The Bucks County Playhouse, a grist mill by the Delaware River that was turned into a theater in 1939, used to be one of America’s top summer-stock houses. Alas, it fell on hard times, closing down in 2010, but now it’s back in business and presenting an increasingly ambitious roster of mainstream shows. When it comes to musicals, you can’t get much more ambitious than “Company,” the 1970 show about modern marriage in whichStephen Sondheim and George Furth rewrote Broadway’s postwar playbook. So I’m thrilled to report that Bucks County’s new production, directed by Hunter Foster, choreographed by Lorin Latarro and starring Justin Guarini as the commitment-phobic, sexually ambivalent Bobby, is outstanding in every way. Not since John Doyle revived “Company” in 2006 have I seen so noteworthy a staging.
Working in tandem with Jason Sherwood and Jennifer Caprio, respectively the set and costume designers, Mr. Foster has chosen to produce “Company” not as a “Mad Men”-style period piece but in a modern-dress-and-cellphones version, discreetly altering the now-whiskery cultural references (Eleanor Roosevelt becomes Ruth Bader Ginsburg) to give it a fresher air. Not only does this approach work dramatically, but Bobby’s morbid fear of settling down is, if anything, more to the point today than it was 45 years ago. The staging, which makes advantageous use of a turntable, speeds the cast from scene to scene with unostentatious fluidity, and Ms. Latarro’s smartly crafted dances never fail to serve the plot.
Mr. Guarini’s splendidly sung Bobby put me in mind of Dean Jones, who created the role in the original Broadway production. Initially affable yet guarded, he opens up in “Being Alive” to overwhelming emotional effect. The 13 actors with whom he shares the stage all give sharply and imaginatively characterized performances. Candy Buckley and Kate Wetherhead, who play Joanne (Elaine Stritch’s old role) and Amy, have the biggest parts and thus make the deepest impressions, but there are no weak links elsewhere in the cast. The pit band is a bit on the small side but very well drilled and rhythmically tight.
Like most summer-stock productions, this one had just two weeks of rehearsal. That so fine a revival of so complex a musical should have been put together on such a tight schedule, however, borders on the miraculous. If all its present-day shows are as strong as “Company,” then the Bucks County Playhouse is surely headed back into the spotlight.
