“Director-choreographer Kari Hayter takes the Best Musical Tony winner Parade and reconceives it so stunningly, even those who’ve already seen the Jason Robert Brown-Alfred Uhry gut-puncher will feel they are experiencing it anew on the Chance Theater stage.”
“Hayter’s striking new vision for Parade is evident from the get-go in a scenic design that eschews realistic sets for a nearly bare hardwood-floored stage, with only a dozen or so straight-back wooden chairs and a few tables brought on and off in various numbers and configurations, a Fred Kinney design whose surrealism fits Leo’s nightmare dilemma to perfection…”
“…visually stunning series of altered perspectives that compound Leo’s steadily darkening horrors…”
“In his finest performance to date, a revelatory Allen Everman vanishes inside Leo’s painfully repressed, socially awkward skin opposite Erica Schaeffer’s mousy-turned-radiant Lucille, and both sing quite gloriously indeed…”
“A couple of featured turns stand out, Robert Collins’s powerhouse Jim Conley stopping the show with “That’s What He Said” and “Blues: Feel the Rain Fall” and Dillon Klena adding depth to ball-of-fire Frankie, giving the Young Soldier gorgeous pipes, and earning a laugh or two as a folksy young prison guard.”
“Chance favorite Laura M. Hathaway impresses as both the vivacious Sally Slaton and a gut-wrenching Mrs. Phagan, Robert Stroud is riveting as terrified night watchman Newt Lee…and Summer Greer is heartbreaking on the witness stand as Minnie.”
“From The Who’s Tommy to Jerry Springer: The Opera to West Side Story to Hairspray to A Chorus Line, Chance Theater’s summer musicals have established a standard of excellence unmatched in the OC.”
“Parade, relevant in ways that might have seemed unimaginable even a year ago, carries on this esteemed tradition to unforgettable effect.”
Read the full article on StageSceneLA.com
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