Published: Friday, July 9, 2010
Plenty to feel good about
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Photo by Jay Koh
Jennifer Weingarten (Anytime Annie) and Matt Wolfe (Bert Barry) perform “Shuffle Off To Buffalo.”
Village Theatre’s “42nd Street” is one razzle-dazzle revival.
This tap-dancing odyssey starts out with the curtain rising only enough to reveal a stage full of legs. Those legs seemed to continue nonstop in perfect synchronization and at times sounded like a gushing downpour on a tin roof.
If you are like me and are a sucker for all things tap — Shirley Temple, Fred Astair, even the film “Happy Feet” — then you are in for a real treat as the 26 dancers in this musical about a musical immerse you in the American invention known as tap.
“42nd Street” not only showcases tap as a symbol of American culture, it’s a perfect stage for the spectacular talents of director and choreographer Steve Tomkins, who is clearly at the top of his game here, delivering sparkly large-scale tap numbers and getting these dancers’ feet to really sing with the music.
He was helped in the choreography by dance captain Kristin Culp.
“42nd Street” is feel-good from start to finish, with splashy dancing, a nostalgic score and a story line that, too, is all American: a small-town pretty nobody named Peggy Sawyer becomes an overnight stage sensation when she’s tapped at the last minute to take the leading lady role in a new musical.
Sawyer was played by tap master and veteran Village Theatre actress Krystle Armstrong, who is 130-ish pounds of spunk, and who had us believing that she could indeed “do any tap step ever invented.” Her confidence and enthusiasm went a long way to carrying the show.
Other heavy lifters in this production included powerhouse Leslie Law as producer Maggie Jones, the commanding John Bogar who makes his Village Theatre debut as notorious director Julian Marsh, the beautiful and devilish Shelly Burch as prima dona Dorothy Brock, whom you might remember as Delila from “One Life to Live,” and James Scheider doing some fine acting along with some eye-popping flips as leading man Billy Lawlor.
The score for “42nd Street” is a veritable cache of timeless songs. There’s “You’re Getting to be a Habit with Me,” “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “Lullaby of Broadway,” and the number with criminal amounts of gold lame “We’re in the Money.”
As with any retro production, you might at times have to keep your feminism in check while you are watching the number “Dames” — concentrate on the choreography not the beach balls — and “Shuffle off the Buffalo,” which I found a bit too Betty Boopish.
The show ends in the epic eponymous finale number, “42nd Street.”
But that’s not all. The dancers keep on going, adding an encore number before the final curtain.
This is really an all-American musical, main-staging tap as much a part of our culture as baseball and apple pie.
And speaking of baseball, I have to quote one of the gentlemen in the audience who said during intermission that the show was better than watching a Mariners game because he felt like he was watching a hit.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424; goffredo@heraldnet.com.
“42nd Street”
Opens at 8 tonight at the Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett. Shows are at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and 7 p.m. selected Sundays through Aug. 1.
Tickets are $15 to $52. Call 425-257-8600 or 888-257-3722 or go to www.villagetheatre.org.
This tap-dancing odyssey starts out with the curtain rising only enough to reveal a stage full of legs. Those legs seemed to continue nonstop in perfect synchronization and at times sounded like a gushing downpour on a tin roof.
If you are like me and are a sucker for all things tap — Shirley Temple, Fred Astair, even the film “Happy Feet” — then you are in for a real treat as the 26 dancers in this musical about a musical immerse you in the American invention known as tap.
“42nd Street” not only showcases tap as a symbol of American culture, it’s a perfect stage for the spectacular talents of director and choreographer Steve Tomkins, who is clearly at the top of his game here, delivering sparkly large-scale tap numbers and getting these dancers’ feet to really sing with the music.
He was helped in the choreography by dance captain Kristin Culp.
“42nd Street” is feel-good from start to finish, with splashy dancing, a nostalgic score and a story line that, too, is all American: a small-town pretty nobody named Peggy Sawyer becomes an overnight stage sensation when she’s tapped at the last minute to take the leading lady role in a new musical.
Sawyer was played by tap master and veteran Village Theatre actress Krystle Armstrong, who is 130-ish pounds of spunk, and who had us believing that she could indeed “do any tap step ever invented.” Her confidence and enthusiasm went a long way to carrying the show.
Other heavy lifters in this production included powerhouse Leslie Law as producer Maggie Jones, the commanding John Bogar who makes his Village Theatre debut as notorious director Julian Marsh, the beautiful and devilish Shelly Burch as prima dona Dorothy Brock, whom you might remember as Delila from “One Life to Live,” and James Scheider doing some fine acting along with some eye-popping flips as leading man Billy Lawlor.
The score for “42nd Street” is a veritable cache of timeless songs. There’s “You’re Getting to be a Habit with Me,” “I Only Have Eyes For You,” “Lullaby of Broadway,” and the number with criminal amounts of gold lame “We’re in the Money.”
As with any retro production, you might at times have to keep your feminism in check while you are watching the number “Dames” — concentrate on the choreography not the beach balls — and “Shuffle off the Buffalo,” which I found a bit too Betty Boopish.
The show ends in the epic eponymous finale number, “42nd Street.”
But that’s not all. The dancers keep on going, adding an encore number before the final curtain.
This is really an all-American musical, main-staging tap as much a part of our culture as baseball and apple pie.
And speaking of baseball, I have to quote one of the gentlemen in the audience who said during intermission that the show was better than watching a Mariners game because he felt like he was watching a hit.
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Theresa Goffredo: 425-339-3424; goffredo@heraldnet.com.
“42nd Street”
Opens at 8 tonight at the Everett Performing Arts Center, 2710 Wetmore Ave., Everett. Shows are at 8 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays, 2 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays and 7 p.m. selected Sundays through Aug. 1.
Tickets are $15 to $52. Call 425-257-8600 or 888-257-3722 or go to www.villagetheatre.org.
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