Went to a show put on by this group last night. The play was "The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940"; I wasn't expecting a lot for local theater, frankly, but was pleasantly surprised at getting a good amount of laughs out of the evening.
Since it is a small, local troupe, the quality of the acting was somewhat varied, but on the whole the group meshed fairly well. Some of the actors were more challenged than others by their roles, possessing characters with tough accents (German, Irish, etc.) Standout performances came from Bill Griffith as a comedian who gets mixed up in the murder mystery, Al Pindell as the over-the-top composer character, and R.J. Torres as the cop (who has perhaps the funniest scene in the play, involving misconstrued pantomime).
The theater in Bicentennial Park where it was put on was a bit hard to find, because there weren't any obvious identifying signs on the building itself! It also wasn't a structure that screamed "Theater!", so my companion and I drove by it once and then back, going, "Is that it?" (We were early, so people weren't exactly streaming in yet.) Clearer signage would be a plus.
The set was quite impressive, involving several moving bookcases (the setting is an old mansion with secret passages); a couple of times they didn't want to open or close, but everyone played it off, and in one scene where a character is struggling not to be dragged into one of the passages, they came perilously close to taking out one of the walls, but gladly that did not come to pass!
Overall, it was an enjoyable and affordable way to spend an evening (tickets were $10). Thanks, JDG, for bringing the theater to Joliet. read more
