CD Giveaway - 33Miles, "One Life"
Ends Aug 4, 2010
The country-pop sound established in their eponymous debut is a mainstay for this album as well, and even adds a little more southern flavor.
CD Giveaway - Phil Wickham, "Cannons"
Ends Aug 3, 2010
With an opening shot that hits the sonic pinnacle, this collection of spiritual Brit pop/rock is heavily influenced by Keane, Travis, Coldplay, and U2.
The Fox Theatre of St. Louis is, by any account, an ornate and beautiful theater, with an art deco styling that truly makes the visiting guest feel as though they've entered opulence. Indian goddesses flank the stage, and the golden head of Ganesh keeps watch from high above the stage. It's the last place you'd expect to watch a show set in the untamed prairies of 19th century America, where ambitious homesteaders bet their lives against the government that they could make a go of things.
But that's exactly what people came to see Tuesday night, as director Francesca Zambello brought "Little House on the Prairie: The Musical" to St. Louis for its debut performance. The audience varied from utterly formal to off-the-street casual. There were a few components of girls in period costume, walking the same aisles as a coterie of young ladies who might have just stepped off the set of Gossip Girl. But they were all there to see the musical adaptation of the beloved classic of literature and television.
Kara Lindsay plays Laura Ingalls, full of the devil and filled with wanderlust. Lindsay pulls of the magic trick of growing up in front of the audience without them hardly realizing it happened, evolving from tomboy to young lady during the course of events.
Providing some enjoyable comic relief is Kate Loprest as Laura's hoity-toity nemesis, Nellie Oleson. Her number, "Country Girls," opposite Lindsay was one of many highlights of the evening, as was Laura's later struggle against her inherent impish nature in "Good."
While Lindsay rules the show, it can't be denied that the mainstream audience attraction had to be Melissa Gilbert, who immortalized the role of Laura Ingalls on the Michael Landon television series. Returning to the milieu she's come to embody, Gilbert takes on the role of Ma Ingalls, completing much the same circle as did Patty Duke, who played both Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan in "The Miracle Worker" (coincidentally alongside Gilbert in the latter version). Gilbert's presence lends a certain authenticity to the production, and was certainly an instant delight for her many fans in attendance. But it didn't take long for Lindsay's strong vocals and feisty performance to hook the audience and make them her own.
The musical plays on a range of emotions. Often subversively funny, it necessarily must also deal with the hardships faced by the homesteaders in the form of bleak winters and catastrophic prairie fires. At one point there's a lament that the land should never have been taken from the Indians, and how the buffalo have been hunted to near extinction. The sentimentality gets a bit thick after Mary (Alessa Neeck) is struck blind after a bout with scarlet fever, prompting Laura to undergo a speedy maturation and deliver a promise that she'll be her sister's eyes for her. It's shortly afterward that Laura decides to take up teaching, to raise the money to send the more scholarly Mary to a college for the blind.
"Little House" boasts a pair of strong male performances, coming from Steve Blanchard (Broadway's "Beauty and the Beast" and "Camelot") as Pa Ingalls, and Kevin Massey ("Tarzan") as love interest Almanzo Wilder. Massey's duet with Lindsay, "Faster," is a splendid piece which operates on a number of levels for those canny enough to catch the witty entendre. The cast is rounded out by a talented ensemble that turn in some truly rousing numbers. For the trivia obsessed, the actor portraying Willie Oleson in this performance is Gilbert's son, Michael Boxleitner.
Part of the charm of "Little House" owes to the sparse set design. Adrianne Lobel creates each scene through the clever reuse and rearrangement of minimalist props. The hoedown dance moves choreographed by Michele Lynch are deceptively complex and physically taxing, and create an even greater appreciation for the efforts put forth by those on the stage, particularly when climbing fences (or falling off of them, as required by Loprest in one scene).
"Little House on the Prairie: The Musical" will continue at the Fox Theater with the following schedule:
Wednesday, November 25: 7:30 pm
Friday & Saturday, November 27, 28: 1:00 pm & 7:30 pm
Sunday, November 29: 1:00 pm
