Shave-ian wit abounds in Wit’s End Players’ summer show Sweeney Todd

By James MacKillop

Stephen Sondheim has been the dominant force in the American musical theater for four decades, but you’d never know it from community theater productions. Most local companies assume his shows are box-office poison because of excess irony and cool. And the shows call for big voices able to maneuver complex, tongue-twisting lyrics.

Ithaca’s Hangar Theatre adds more luster to the musical classic Oklahoma!

By James MacKillop

Director-choreographer Dan Knechtges might have the least musical name in show business, but he more than makes up for it with glowing credits. Among his recent Broadway hits are the stagings of Xanadu and The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Closer to home he’s been the man behind many of the Hangar Theatre’s recent hits, including Cats (choreographed by Knechtges, and directed by Wendy Dann, 2004) and The Wiz (2005). Upon entering the Ithaca venue we immediately grasp where he’s going to take Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Oklahoma!, the most familiar of all American musicals. Beowulf Boritt’s surreal stage setting, with the suggestion of a cabin off to the side, has covered the entire stage with pine boards. Every square inch becomes available to make dance prime in this production.

Life’s a Beach at Ale’n’Angus, while the Pascale Bakehouse serves up yummy treats nearby

By Tom Kahley

Rise and shine: Kristin Hughes of Pascale Bakehouse Café displays a medley of their fresh baked bread. Michael Davis photo.

Many people only take downtown Syracuse at face value. Heading from the northern suburbs into the city, Hanover and Armory Squares are the first to greet those looking to drink in or get a taste of our big-city culture. Both bustling hangouts have their share of fine restaurants and pubs, which tend to get loud and crowded during daily lunch hours and the many downtown festivals in the summertime. But there are less-deafening alternatives.

Audiences get a taste of tradition and defy the weather patterns at this year’s Blues Festival

By Matt Mumau

Kim Wilson, front man for The Fabulous Thunderbirds and one of the major headliners at the New York State Blues Festival, commented in a July 3 phone interview that part of what inspires him to write music in that good ol’ traditional genre is the fact that “Women listen to music differently. They feel it.” Whether you take his mantra as truth or just a bluesman’s great pickup line, plenty of musicians poured their hearts out during the downtown fest held on Saturday, July 12, and Sunday, July 13.

Robert Randolph: Check out the blues man and his band at Utica’s F.X. Matt Brewing Company on Friday.

Mark Knopfler: Dire Straits frontman will perform a solo gig at the Landmark Theatre on Sunday.

Steel this: Works of automotive art, such as this 1959 Chevy, will be on parade during this weekend’s Syracuse Nationals at the State Fairgrounds. Michael Davis photo.

The ladies charge the floorboards for this season's selections at Canada's Shaw Festival

By James MacKillop

Many Syracuse New Times readers saw the glossy brochure from the Shaw Festival tucked into the June 18 issue. On its cover are two smiling young women in 1930s costumes, representing the Sherwood sisters, Ruth and Eileen, of the neglected Leonard Bernstein musical Wonderful Town. It’s the top-featured musical revival this season, richly restaged in the main Festival Theatre, and running until Oct. 5. Even if Wonderful Town is only one of 11 productions, the cover reveals much about what’s happening at Ontario, Canada’s Niagara-on-the-Lake this year. 

In her fifth season on the job, Shaw Festival artistic director Jackie Maxwell is producing the first dominantly gynocentric season. That’s when women’s issues or women’s points of view are made central. It does not mean feminist agitprop or male bashing, but instead all the plenty that live theater can provide: comedies, dramas, melodramas and musicals, but with attention to women. George Bernard Shaw, a famous champion of women’s rights, would surely go along.

Scott Weiland: Returns to his righteous throne as front man of Stone Temple Pilots, performing Tuesday at Canandaigua’s CMAC venue.