All Star Productions presented a new chamber production of Leonard Bernstein’s 1953 musical WONDERFUL TOWN.
The show tells the story of two sisters, Ruth and Eileen, who move from a rural town in Ohio to experience the bright lights, the big city, and the crazy characters of Greenwich Village, New York City. Ruth is an aspiring writer and Eileen is a dancer who wants to pursue a life on stage. One sister can’t find a man no matter what she does, the other can’t keep them away. Together, these two sisters take on the world, pursuing their dreams and finding love along the way.
WONDERFUL TOWN features a bright Leonard Bernstein score, including such classics as A Little Bit in Love, One Hundred Easy Ways to Lose a Man, A Quiet Girl and Ohio.
Presented on a thrust stage the production presented a number of problems including the fact that there were nearly always a row of rather unprepossessing empty chairs behind the actors rather than set. The lighting had to be three dimensional which meant that wherever I shot from there were shadows on some of the actors faces in virtually all the scenes.The splendid dancing was energetic and fast and it was quite difficult to get as far back from the stage as I would have liked to get everyone in.