[CBS6's Virginia This Morning] 'South Pacific' Returns!

[CBS6's Virginia This Morning] 'South Pacific' Returns!

RICHMOND, Va - Riverside Center for The Performing Arts features many great productions during the year. Their latest musical offering is “South Pacific” that creates a story during World War 2 that is filled with laughter, sorrow, and thought-provoking moments. Producing Artistic Director Patrick A’Hearn along with actors Branch Fields and Kate Marshall stop by CBS6’s Virginia This Morning for a brief interview and a musical performance.

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[Culpeper Times] CURTAINS: “Pirates…” The Very Model of a Modern Operetta
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[Culpeper Times] CURTAINS: “Pirates…” The Very Model of a Modern Operetta

They fancy themselves a dangerous lot, but the grim list of killed and captured by the Pirates of Penzance is…nonexistent. Their job is to be fierce and take hostages, but somehow - dash it all! – the hostages always turn out to be orphans! And being orphans themselves, they just can’t take ungentlemanly advantage. That means our pirates are no more successful now in 2019 than they were back in 1879. That’s when this Gilbert and Sullivan jewel first held audiences captive with its rapier wit, and it’s been swashing its buckles ever since.

Three cannon shots of congratulation to Riverside for staging this gold nugget and doing it justice.  In a whimsical modification, director Catherine Flye has renamed this the “Rascals of the Rappahannock” and brought the pirates to Fredericksburg in the time of George III, as opposed to the Victorian era Cornwall coast.  

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DC Metro Theater Arts Review: ‘The Pirates of Penzance (or the Rascals of the Rappahannock)’ at Riverside Center

DC Metro Theater Arts Review: ‘The Pirates of Penzance (or the Rascals of the Rappahannock)’ at Riverside Center

Riverside Center of the Performing Arts reprises Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, a two-act comic operetta that was first produced in December of 1879, and remains in production to this day! Director and Adaptor Catherine Flye gives the show (originally set in Cornwall) a local spin by placing the action on the banks of the Rappahannock River and offering the revised title Rascals of the Rappahannock.

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[The Free Lance-Star/Culpeper Star Exponent] Review: A shipshape 'Pirates of Penzance' is swashbuckling fun at Riverside

[The Free Lance-Star/Culpeper Star Exponent] Review: A shipshape 'Pirates of Penzance' is swashbuckling fun at Riverside

Brilliant wit, successfully delivered, is a rare delight—to experience such wit, joyously sustained and sprinkled steadily over several hours may occur only a handful of occasions in a lifetime.

“The Pirates of Penzance,” onstage now at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Stafford County, qualifies as one of those occasions—an opportunity to be avidly sought and relished by any intelligent music lover with a sense of humor.

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[The Zebra Press] Review: Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, Fredericksburg, Va.

[The Zebra Press] Review: Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance” at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, Fredericksburg, Va.

I have just seen/heard an absolutely first-rate production of “The Pirates of Penzance or The Rascals of the Rappahannock” at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Va. Honestly, I’ve attended many, many productions of this piece with all kinds of adaptations, and this is—hands down—the best. Boom. Period.

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[The Free Lance-Star] Riverside's 'The Pirates of Penzance' gets a Fredericksburg-themed hook

[The Free Lance-Star] Riverside's 'The Pirates of Penzance' gets a Fredericksburg-themed hook

Arrrrr, matey. Let’s go on a pirate-filled adventure, shall we?

Don’t worry, this one isn’t dangerous or life-threatening like you’ll find off the Somalian coast. Instead, it’s a beloved comic operetta hitting a local stage and being customized with familiar places and people galore.

Gilbert and Sullivan’s “The Pirates of Penzance—The Rascals of the Rappahannock” opened at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts on Wednesday and runs through July 7.

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[CBS6's Virginia This Morning] Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents “The Color Purple”

[CBS6's Virginia This Morning] Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents “The Color Purple”

RICHMOND, Va. - The 1982 Alice Walker novel "The Color Purple" was introduced to a wider audience with the 1985 movie, starring Whoopi Goldberg and Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey was among the producers who helped bring a musical based on the book to Broadway in 2004.  That musical is the latest offering of the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg. The theatre's producing artistic director, Patrick A'Hearn along with Kanysha Williams and Kadejah One, who play Celie and Sofia in the production are here to share about the musical and perform a song.

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CURTAIN CALLS: 'The Color Purple' is the new gold

CURTAIN CALLS: 'The Color Purple' is the new gold

For some reason, stories about rape, incest, degradation, and spousal abuse don’t spring to mind when we think of plots for uplifting musicals. Nevertheless, such is the searing, epistolary story that forms the basis for “The Color Purple”, Alice Walker’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel of 1983 which was quickly followed by a film in 1985. A musical version had to happen.

That Broadway hit, which ran from ’05 to ’08, garnered eleven Tony nominations and a Tony-winning revival that ran from late 2015 to 2017. Dramatically speaking, “…Purple” is gold.

That musical revival in all its scorching, heart-breaking glory awaits patrons at the Riverside Center through May 5. If you pick and choose which shows to see, see this one. If you’ve never been, but always meant to go, go now.

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Review: ‘The Color Purple’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Review: ‘The Color Purple’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts

Magic. Magnificent. Marvelous. There are only so many superlatives I can muster in such a small space, but The Color Purple, now running at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts, is phenomenal. Director Amy Jones, Music Director and Conductor Garrett Jones, and Riverside’s Producing Artistic Director Patrick A’Hearn, who also produced the show, have put on the must-see show for this spring.

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A vibrant and powerful ‘Color Purple’ soars at Riverside

A vibrant and powerful ‘Color Purple’ soars at Riverside

Over the past several months, the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts has brought an enchanting Disney tale (“Beauty and the Beast”), a rollicking Buddy Holly revue (“A Rockabilly Christmas”) and an endearing drag queen extravaganza (“La Cage aux Folles”). With its current offering and season-closer, “The Color Purple,” Riverside is going straight for the heart.

Audiences, be prepared to be put through an emotional wringer.

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[Free Lance-Star] YOUNG LIFE: Tales of friendship from Winnie-the-Pooh and friends at Riverside
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[Free Lance-Star] YOUNG LIFE: Tales of friendship from Winnie-the-Pooh and friends at Riverside

The current production of Riverside Children’s Theatre, “Winnie-the-Pooh,” proves that the lovable, caring “bear of little brain” has the continuing capacity to win—and melt—the hearts of audiences young and old.

The show’s director Priya Paranthaman said that her team tried to stay close to the original vision of author A.A. Milne—who first introduced young readers to the whimsical world of Pooh in 1924—in this production, which includes actual dialogue from the books.

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