Joeseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat (2009 SLOC Production)

Last weekend I was treated to another delightful production by the Schenectady Light Opera Company: Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. Although I had heard the music from it a few times, I had never seen a production of it before. SLOC's production had a young, urban theme to it with a set of scaffolding and graffitied walls. The audience was even younger than the usual sea of gray heads I tend to seen around me. Before the show started I couldn't help noticing some rather obnoxious young people talking on their cell phones. I wasn't too happy about this, and thought they might disrupt the performance. But I convinced myself that it was important for new generations to become acquainted with musical theater. Little did I know that these young people were part of the performance! When the first notes began, the rowdy audience member ran to the stage and revealed themselves to be Joseph's eleven brothers!

Again, I was blown away by the quality of the cast. Everyone truly had an excellent voice, particularly the narrator and Joseph. Like all of the Webber/Rice musicals, it is sung throughout with no dialogue, which seems to me must be challenging for performers. The only slight flaw with the production, which was also true of The Pajama Game, was that the sound mixing was sometimes off. At times the music overwhelmed the voices. It wasn't consistent with any one singer, but affected everyone at one time or another. This was more of an issue in this production since it is all sung and must be heard to understand what's going on. Hopefully this will be alleviated when the company moves to it's new home in a larger theater next year.

Every song in the musical is enjoyable, but here are a couple I especially liked in the SLOC production. These videos are from the 1999 Great Performances production with Donny Osmond.

Joseph's Dream:


Courtesy of OfficalRUG on YouTube

They had corn in Israel then?

Potiphar:


Courtesy of OfficialRUG on YouTube

Since I enjoyed The Pajama Game so much, I volunteered to serve as an usher for future performances. So after seeing Saturday night's performance, I was lucky enough to serve as an usher for Sunday's matinee performance. This was a lot of fun, and I could see myself becoming more and more involved in SLOC (culminating with my one-woman production of South Pacific).

The Pajama Game (2009 SLOC Production)

This past weekend I had the pleasure of seeing a performance of The Pajama Game by the Schenectady Light Opera Company. SLOC is devoted to producing four musicals a year. Regrettably, I’ve only seen one previous performance there: the 2000 production of Little Me. This was truly excellent, and I’m not really sure why I haven’t been back in nine years. I’m very sorry to have missed some of their past productions like Anything Goes and Thoroughly Modern Millie (even without “The Tapioca”), but I don’t feel too bad about missing Assassins and The Full Monty. Still, I have to give them credit for branching out from the old favorites.

When I saw that The Pajama Game was on the roster, I decided to get tickets. Although I had enjoyed Little Me, I arrived at The Pajama Game with some trepidation. The previous weekend I saw a local dramatic production, and it was less than stellar. I won’t say what it was, but let’s just say that last night I dreamt I went to Schenectady – and it was a nightmare. Thankfully, The Pajama Game left me with only pleasant dreams.

The Pajama Game (music and Lyrics by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross; book by George Abbott & Richard Bissell) features some well-known songs like "Hey There," "Steam Heat," and "Hernando's Hideaway." I missed the recent Broadway revival with Harry Connick Jr., but I have seen the 1957 Doris Day/John Raitt movie version.

The SLOC version was delightful. Initially I was concerned about the casting of the leads. The Sid Sorokin character seemed to be much younger than the Babe Williams character (although the actors may have been about the same age). Any doubts that I had evaporated when I heard Josh Gray, playing Sid Sorokin, sing. He has a beautiful voice, and I hope he will be in future productions (I'm thinking Joe Cable. They haven't done South Pacific since 1967). Natalie Bain as Babe was also excellent. The supporting cast was also stellar, in particular Kevin X. McNamara as Hines.

The only slight flaws in the production were technical; sometimes the sound mixing wasn't quite right. Other than that, I was blown away by the quality of the performers. Since I can't share this performance, I'll share some of my favorite songs from other productions.

Here's the 2006 Broadway Revival cast performing "There Once was a Man" and "Hernando's Hideaway":



Courtesy of sftMusicals on YouTube.

Here is the great version of "Steam Heat" from the movie:



Courtesy of MarcosCohen on YouTube

Since The Pajama Game was so enjoyable, I'm planning on seeing their next production, Joseph and the Amazing Techicolor Dreamcoat in December.