[DC Metro Theater Arts] Review: ‘Annie’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts
Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Annie, the beloved Broadway darling that has enchanted audiences through generations! With its Book by Thomas Meehan, Music by Charles Strouse, and Lyrics by Martin Charnin, Annie has won seven Tony awards, including Best Musical. Producing Artistic Director Patrick A’Hearn directs a powerhouse cast for this production, led by the incomparable Sally Struthers, who is reprising her role as Miss Hannigan from the 20th Anniversary National Tour.
[The Zebra Press] Review: This “Annie” Proves that Once is Simply Not Enough!
“Annie” now playing at the Riverside Center for the Arts has regained its position as a first-class musical. “Why,” you may ask? Because it has a first-rate, A++ cast! Not only that, the seven-piece orchestra conducted by Carson Eubank supports this production perfectly and can stand on its own (and does in several joyous instances). Additionally, the heroic set by Frank Foster includes brilliant projections curated by director Patrick A’Hearn that indelibly stamp the era in your mind before the show even opens and appear occasionally during the show to great advantage.
[Free Lance-Star] Review: ‘Annie’ is a big-hearted charmer at Riverside
Little Orphan Annie made her début in Harold Gray’s comic strip in 1924, and almost 100 years later, this spirited redhead continues to inspire people’s hopes for a better tomorrow.
“Annie,” now onstage at Riverside, is a sweet, feel-good family show. As the first few notes of the musical’s overture start to trickle out, it’s hard not to smile and feel nostalgic about the beloved 1982 film starring Aileen Quinn as the effervescent streetwise redhead. Movie lovers will notice some differences in the musical version featuring a book by Thomas Meehan (no scary bridge scene), but overall, one thing’s for certain: This story about an optimistic orphan in search of her parents has a big heart.
[Prince George’s Sentinel] ‘Leapin’ lizards!’ A swell ‘Annie’ with heart
…The world now knows and loves “Little Orphan Annie” simply as “Annie,” the eternally optimistic (and pro-Roosevelt!) red-headed protagonist of the stage musical and subsequent film franchise.
Just as we briefly returned above to the comic pages of yore, Director Patrick A’Hearn returns the musical to its original version, for – like the comic-strip character herself – the show “Annie” has been revised many times since the character’s first appearance on Broadway in 1977.
What A’Hearn found missing in post-1977 versions was heart, he told us, and that he restores in full measure in his production currently playing at the Riverside Center for the Performing Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
[Prince George’s Sentinel] An Enchanted Evening with ‘South Pacific’
“I wish I could tell you about the South Pacific. The way it actually was. The endless ocean. The infinite specks of coral we called islands. Coconut palms nodding gracefully toward the ocean. Reefs upon which waves broke into spray, and inner lagoons, lovely beyond description.”
So begins James Michener’s “Tales of the South Pacific,” the book which was the inspirational source of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic musical “South Pacific.”
The challenge of this musical was to combine visual beauty with the horror of war while sprinkling in elements of romantic comedy.
The Riverside Center for the Performing Arts production, masterfully directed by and choreographed by Penny Ayn Maas and produced by Patrick A’Hearn, succeeds in weaving these delicate threads of the music together and is complemented with an outstanding cast and brilliant singing and musical numbers.
[DC Metro Theatre Arts] Review: ‘South Pacific’ at Riverside Center for the Performing Arts
Riverside Center for the Performing Arts presents Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific. The winner of multiple Tony awards, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for Drama, South Pacific continues to charm audiences seventy years after its debut. Penny Ayn Maas directs and choreographs a powerhouse cast for this beloved production.
[Culpeper Times] CURTAIN CALLS: Islands of delight dot ‘South Pacific’
One enchanted evening many years ago (seventy, to be exact) Messrs. Rodgers and Hammerstein opened their mint new musical, “South Pacific”, for its New Haven and Boston previews. The response was immediate and enthusiastic… Riverside Center’s just-opened production scores where it counts most in this tale of two non-traditional love affairs and war in the Pacific. Central to the conflict are one middle-aged Frenchman with the mysterious past, Emile de Becque, and his much younger love interest, the Arkansas-bred nurse, Ensign Nellie Forbush. Around them swirl issues of Japanese invasion, high jinks among the sailors, and a separate, doomed love affair with further racial implications.
[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.
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.
[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.