Laura: Saturday afternoon we saw the Young Peoples’ Theatre‘s production of Cheaper By the Dozen in Woodbridge Virginia.

Mike: Cheaper by the Dozen is was dramatized by Christopher Sergel, based on the book by Frank Gilbreth Jr. and Ernestine Gilbreth Carey. It’s the story of an industrial engineer who has a family of twelve kids. He keeps them in line the same way he keeps his factory in line. He has schedules, with everything planned out to the instant. He runs a tight ship and that’s the only way you can do things. There were several misadventures and the girls in the family are growing up. They want to start doing girly things. That of course doesn’t fit into the schedule. There is a great deal of conflict within the family, but it’s all handled with a great deal of charm and love.

Laura: This was a fun show, with a fairly big cast. The kids ranged in age from four to sixteen. I could hear most of them. Some of the younger ones just weren’t quite loud enough. Young Peoples’ Theatre doesn’t have microphones. The older kids did a good job, but some of the younger ones I couldn’t hear too well. It was still fun and I enjoyed it.

Mike: Young Peoples’ Theatre does two shows a year. Generally they focus on allowing homeschooled children to get involved with the shows. That’s a great thing. They usually do shows with a really large cast so that everybody gets a chance to do a part. There is a different cast each of the two weekends in some of the different parts. The kids do learn flexibility. They learn the basics of learning lines and things like that.

This was a pretty good kids production of Cheaper By the Dozen. I’m thinking there were probably a few things cut out of it. There were a few spots that felt a little jumpy. There were a few spots where kids jumped lines.They had a good time up there. They didn’t give up. They kept the show moving right along. The characterizations overall were pretty good. One thing we have a policy about is we don’t give actor’s names if they’re under 18. We won’t be able to talk about any specific performers from the show. We’ll talk about the character that was played, but not the actor who did it.

Laura: The actress who played Ann, the oldest Gilbreth daughter did a very good job. She’s one to watch over the years. I think she has done some stuff at Aldersgate before. She showed a lot of emotion. She listened to and, usually, responded to what her father was telling her was not appropriate. You could just see the “Oh, Dad” look on her face that she gave him. I thought that was really cute.

Mike: The two performers who played the Gilbreths as adults worked well together. The actor playing Grown Frank kind of mumbled a bit at the beginning. He might have been nervous since this was the opening performance. He got a bit better as they warmed up. The spotlights were a little bit off. I liked how they transitioned from the memories that they were taking about onto what was happening on stage with the original aged performers.

Laura: The person playing the Dad did a very good job. He had a lot of lines to handle and for the most part did that pretty well. He was always uptight, always focused on what was going on. Kind of reminded me of of a commander on a navy ship or something like that, keeping a tight ship. Then when the girls especially started growing up and wanting to do other things, he just wasn’t quite sure what he was going to do with that.

Mike: I liked how the kids all stayed focused when there was an incident with a part of the set falling over. The actor playing Frank the father came in and fixed it without really breaking the scene. He just fixed the part that had fallen over and kept going on with the scene. Didn’t make a big deal about it. That was nice to see how professionally that was handled.

Laura: Some of the supporting characters also did well. The girl playing the maid the weekend we were there did a good job. She was very rough and having a houseful of 12 children to feed and cook and clean for I think would overwhelm anybody.

Mike: I didn’t really like the character of the mother of the family. I felt like she was just too wishy washy. She could have been walked all over. At the end of the show when Frank had to go over to Europe on a business trip, she stepped right in and took control. I felt like maybe the script didn’t let her be a real strong character.

Laura: Young Peoples’ Theatre has their productions at the Lazy Susan Dinner Theatre. The set they used for the shows these two weekends was the same set that the Lazy Susan uses for their evening shows. It was really well done.

Mike: One thought we had pretty much every time we see a YPT show is that we need to add a significant section to our website listing all the different options for helping children learn more about theater. Places like Laurel Mill Playhouse in Maryland have a Summer program. Other places, such as the Aldersgate Community Theatre, has a youth program. There have got to be others that we’re not tracking right now. So we do need to make a section of our website that has more information about how children can get involved with theater.

Laura: Young Peoples’ Theatre’s production of Cheaper By the Dozen is playing this weekend. Their final performances are Saturday and Sunday afternoon at 1 PM at the Lazy Susan Dinner Theatre in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Mike: And now, on with the show.

Laura: Hi, this is Laura. And normally this is the part where Mike would say, “And hi this is Mike”, but he’s at a rehearsal for The Time Of Your Life so I’m going to talk about Guys and Dolls presented by The Young People’s Theatre in Woodbridge, Virginia.

Guys and Dolls is the story of Sky Masterson, a gambler who comes to town to find out about a crap game. And Sarah Brown, who is in charge of the Save a Soul Mission in New York City. They meet and fall in love, fall out of love, and fall back in love again.

This was a really cute show. It was almost a packed house. There were a lot of friends and families there to support the kids who really worked hard to do a really great job. There were a lot of dance numbers. A lot of singing, but I really think the kids put a lot of heart and soul into it and it showed on their faces. The audience, I think, really enjoyed it.

One of the main characters was Sky Masterson. He did a really good job. He had some nice dance numbers. A lot of expression on his face. Sky had a scene with Sarah Brown, who was in charge of the Save a Soul Mission. That worked really well. There was a lot of emotion between them. They also had a dance that they did together and really sang well.

One of the down things about performing at the Lazy Susan is the sound. For the Young People’s Theatre they didn’t have any mike’s or anything. I was sitting off kind of to the side so when they were facing away from me, I couldn’t really hear them at all. There were a few people I could hear. They had good lungs and were able to really belt it out. But some of them I couldn’t hear when they were facing away from me.

The set of Guys and Dolls Jr. is really good. They have a good backstage crew that comes on and sets up for the next scene quickly and quietly. So that really helps with the flow of the show very much.

Guys and Dolls, Jr. is playing through October the 8th at the Lazy Susan Dinner Theatre in Woodbridge, Virginia. Once you’ve seen the show, please feel free to leave comments on our website: ShowBizRadio.net. And now, on with the show.

Laura: This afternoon we saw the Young Peoples Theatre‘s performance of Grease: The School Version at the Lazy Susan Dinner Theatre in Woodbridge.

Mike: Grease: The School Version is a sanitized version of the musical Grease from Broadway. Very similar to the movie Grease that was out in the 70’s and starred Olivia Newton John and John Travolta. A lot of the material from the movie and the broadway show were taken out or rewritten for the school version. So what’d you think of the show?

Laura: I really liked it. I thought it was cute. The kids did a really good job. They looked like they were having fun and so the audience did, too. Everybody had a good time with it. What did you think of it, Mike?

Mike: I liked it also. It was about 2 hours long including a 20 minute intermission. They sang a lot of the songs from the movie, but did cut out some scenes and some songs. The ones they sang were really well done. The problem, of course with children, was you couldn’t hear all of the children all of the time.

Laura: The age range was between 6 and 17. Their diaphragms haven’t quite caught up with them. They tried really hard, but on some of the songs the music drowned them out.

Mike: I liked Sandy’s and Danny’s role and the way they portrayed their characters. Danny did really well with the singing and the dancing.

Laura: I really liked Vince Fontaine. He did a great job and stole the scene at the sock hop.

Mike: All of the actors did well with their parts. There was a lot of singing and dancing to put together, but they were all having fun. The background actors while the songs were going on were doing things appropriate to the song. They were making fun or helping support or doo-wopping. So they had a lot of fun with it.

Laura: I really liked the costumes. They were bright and colorful. Definitely in the style of the 50’s.

Mike: I was surprised by how many leather jackets there are. I wasn’t actually expecting to see that many Fonzi’s on stage. The scenery was well done. There was a rotating platform on one side where they could rotate a couple different scene areas. They also had some benches they could move on and off as well as some benches and tables for the kids to sit on and eat lunch. They had a car that rolled in and out for the drive in movie scene and the hubcap stealing scene. It was nice to have a “car” on stage with the actors.

Laura: That’s Grease performed by the Young Peoples’ Theatre performing at the Lazy Susan Dinner Theatre in Woodbridge. It’s a really fun show. I think you’ll enjoy it and definitely something for the whole family. It’s playing through next Sunday afternoon.

Mike: This would be a good opportunity if you have a child who doesn’t know anything about theater. It may get them interested. So I would encourage you to see the Young Peoples’ Theatre’s Grease: the School Version.

Laura: And now, on with the show.

Laura: This is our review of Clue the Musical performed by the Young People’s Theater at the Lazy Susan on Saturday, October the 8th.

Mike: It was a really rainy day. The Lazy Susan is a pretty good dinner theatre. It’s a professional theatre location. They do shows every night of the week except Mondays. The problem is, it’s a really old building.

Laura: And the roof is made out of tin.

Mike: So when you have rain like we had last Saturday, you don’t hear a thing.

Mike: So unfortunately, almost the entire first half of the show we couldn’t hear.

Laura: Yes, because none of the children were miked and they’re young enough they don’t project.

Mike: So that was disappointing. We’ve seen other Young People’s Theater shows. It was good. Generally you’re not going to go to a children’s theater presentation unless you know one of the children. We knew several.

Laura: That’s true, we knew several of them.

Mike: But they did a good job. The second act was much better. Partially they had the main detective had a microphone on. That helped a lot.

Laura: It also stopped raining.

Mike: So you put those together and it helped a lot. The basic storyline is the game Clue you played as a child probably. Everyone is walking around the rooms in this spooky house where someone gets murdered and you have to guess who did it, where they did the murder and what they used for the murder. People will show you cards and eventually you figure out, “Oh it was Mr. Plum in the Conservatory with the lead pipe.” And you win the game. So this was a musical of the board game. It was pretty neat. They had different characters of the game. They had Mr. Body who was the poor victim. They had a detective who was not in the game, but they needed that to pull the characters together. At the beginning of the game they had people from the audience come up and draw the three pieces of information randomly.

Laura: So Mr. Body knew who it was and then throughout the afternoon a scenario would play out and he would say, “You don’t have to worry about this character or his weapon ‘cuz neither one of them did it. ” Our program on the back was given each character, the room, and the weapon. And when Mr. Body would say you don’t have to worry about that you’d cross that out.

Mike: The problem with that of course was that the theater was very dark. There were no lights in the back where everyone was supposed to write down their guesses. A few people had flashlights so you’d see these flashes of light around the audience. That was a little distracting.

Laura: Everybody looked in to see who they could cross off.

Mike: And then part way through the first act the rain really kicked in and you couldn’t hear anymore so people stopped because there wasn’t any use to try to guess. But they did end up with a pretty good show. The kids tried their hardest. It was maybe an hour and a half total with one intermission in the middle. It was a musical, these were children age 6 to 15 or 16.

Laura: Actually I think the oldest was 17.

Mike: The older children did better because they were a larger body they could project better. Singing was pretty good. A little uneven again because it was a wide range. Another thing to be aware of in the children’s theater at least at YPT was they had two different casts. So one weekend you had one group of children do the show and the next weekend you have a different group. So I would say if you have children interested in drama that’s something you can look at. Young People’s Theatre in Woodbridge, VA. There are a lot of kids. I don’t even know how many parts there were. There were the six characters, the murderer, I mean the victim, the detective, four pieces. So that’s like 13 parts right there.

Laura: Yes, it was a big cast.

Mike: So it’s a pretty big cast. The Lazy Susan also has a very awkward stage. It’s not real deep. It’s maybe 10 feet deep and it’s the whole length of the room wide, which is really wide. So that was interesting, but they used it well.

Laura: I thought they did a good job of making each area of the stage distinctive. So you knew you were in the Conservatory or you knew you were in the kitchen or you knew you were in the living room or whatever. They were good about making each room distinctive.

Mike: Well, the show has already closed so you don’t need to worry about going to go see Clue the Musical. But if you ever get the chance it was a fun show and I can see an adult cast having a lot of fun with it.

Laura: Yes, me too. And now on with the show.