Reviews for Lawyer Eleanor Lediard in Sacramento Ca

Best reason Sacramento's theater scene gets 5 stars

Small contained theater groups taking big risks

Costumed actors courtesy of California Stage, www.calstage.org.

Photo By KYLE MONK

There'southward no doubt that the Sacramento theater scene is noteworthy. Recent arrivals often comment on how many—and how diverse, both in membership and artistic direction—the production companies are. The reason, nosotros believe, is at the bottom of the theater nutrient chain, in the "let's put on a show!" crowd.

These little groups provide the energy and the impetus for a thriving theater scene, and they do it without much in the fashion of financial support.

Some of the smaller production companies really are just a couple of people. Kolt Run Creations (www.koltruncreations.com) takes its name from the initials of its two primaries, Kelley Ogden and Lisa Thew. Fairly recent arrivals to Sacramento, they institute a theater community that was more than willing to make room for more than, and then Ogden and Thew jumped in with both feet. Thew compares Sacramento'due south theater scene to "a painting, and each niggling upstart grouping is filling in a role of information technology—a different color, a dissimilar texture, something that contributes to the whole. Anybody is doing something a little different and it all contributes to a very vibrant larger scene."

The niche Kolt Run found was in more political works, opening in May 2007 with Keely and Du, an intense little play that tackles abortion from every angle imaginable. Like the borough debate on abortion, the play offers no like shooting fish in a barrel answers and is neither tidy nor comfortable, only that's the sort of on-the-edge productions that little groups tin pull off well. Kolt Run followed that up with a production of Constance Congdon'due south Lips, in which a direct, female U.South. president has a fling with a lesbian. It'due south a show that skewers American attitudes nearly celebrity, sexual identity and politics all at once, and it might be enough to scare off some sponsors.

Having less in the way of fiscal commitments from donors who might want to telephone call the shots may brand information technology tougher to pay the bills, but information technology also buys some artistic freedom. The 39-seat Thistle Dew Dessert Theatre (www.thistle-dew.internet) doesn't accept much in the way of corporate sponsorship, unless you count the lawyer with an office above the theater who regularly buys advertizement space. What they have got, aside from yummy desserts at intermission, is a commitment to locally written plays.

In social club to brand that commitment work, Thistle Dew proprietors Thomas Kelly and Eleanor Lediard operate an all-comers Monday night playwright's workshop, where wannabes and journeymen alike spend some serious fourth dimension honing their arts and crafts. Plays that pass muster become produced, and local theater maintains a regular and truly local infinite.

Of course, that ways the productions may be a picayune uneven, if only because the experience levels of the playwrights tin can vary and so widely. And themes, premises and topics are all over the place—adoption, incest and Alzheimer's affliction, not to mention a religious farce that SN&R theater critic Jeff Hudson described in these pages every bit a "comedy of biblical proportions."

But the really crucial thing well-nigh Thistle Dew is that they have risks. Playwrights are given the back up they need at the workshop (forth with a heavy dose of serious criticism), and in the end, the entire company makes the leap to try something new. And they do it frequently. That besides means that new talent gets a chance to stretch and develop. It's not at all unusual to meet talent from Thistle Dew popping upwardly all over the rest of the Sacramento theater scene.

This fresh arroyo, whether it's a commitment to new works or to material that pushes the envelope, really does raise the bar. When a pocket-sized outfit like Beyond the Proscenium Productions (www.beyondtheproscenium.org) regularly brings advanced work to the table—and is rewarded for it by a loyal following—it makes it much more probable that other theater groups will take similar risks. BTP's The Showtime Thread relied on body movement to carry the show, while they took on the effects of the Republic of iraq war in ix Parts of Want—a more traditional production that drew its edginess from the subject matter. Could Sacramento possibly have had The Cobra and the Hare (a Pinkish Toupee Commonage production called "theater of the cool on acid" by SN&R theater critic Patti Roberts as she gave it four stars and a smilin' Willie) without the background done by groups similar BTP and the late, oftentimes-lamented Abandon Productions?

Photograph Past KYLE MONK

Without these small theater groups willing to have chances on thoroughly demanding or hard textile, local audiences would take to be content with umpteen productions of traditional community theater shows. Standards like Aforementioned Time, Next Year or Dearest Messages are proficient shows, only frankly, one tin can only take and then much. It'southward like eating pizza every day: ameliorate in concept than in practice.

These smaller groups provide a fine service in introducing new means of seeing theater to audiences, as well every bit raising theatergoers' expectations. That alloy of absurdly funny and deadly serious theater that Kolt Run produced with Lips only increases our appreciation for the next large risk-taking testify that mixes politics and edgy comedy, whether it's Celebration Arts' The Trial of One Brusk-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae or Thistle Dew's upcoming production of The End of an Error (timed to gloat the deviation of "Dubya" next January).

Information technology'south no accident that so much of what these small groups do is both funny and dangerous. That's what small groups do best. While we dearest the extravaganza that is Music Circus, the budget they need to put on such lavish shows means they tin can't beget to amerce or misfile corporate and charitable donors with a show any more offbeat than, say, Sweeney Todd. But a self-propelled and more often than not volunteer outfit like Artistic Differences (world wide web.artisticdifferences.cyberspace) can take information technology all off, equally they did with Hair, open up up a few veins and tear ducts with this summertime'southward Bare and assassinate a few presidents next fall when they take on the edgiest of Stephen Sondheim's works, Assassins.

So, yes, Sacramento'south trivial theater groups are tastemakers. Their willingness to follow their fine art makes u.s.a. a better audience. When information technology comes to theater, Sacramento would be remiss if nosotros failed to acknowledge the debt we owe to the piddling companies that can—and do. Bravo, modest companies! When information technology comes to theater, we love risky behavior.

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Source: https://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/content/best-reason-sacramentos-theater-scene-gets-five-stars/846766/

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