Upstage-Downstage

Wednesday, October 24, 2018

THE FERRYMAN: A TOP CONTENDER FOR BEST BROADWAY PLAY OF 2018-19

Cast of Jez Butterworth's THE FERRYMAN
Photo by Joan Marcus

Jez Butterworth is an English playwright who is now the toast of Broadway, courtesy of his majestically sweeping play The Ferryman, which opened this week to a wave of well-deserved critical accolades. If you go to Show-Score.com, you will find summaries and links to full reviews, including mine.

The play, a sprawling family saga set against "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland in 1981, is brilliantly written and directed (by Sam Mendes). It is gloriously performed by a cast of 22, every one of whom is absolutely top-notch and all of whom are vital to the story.

Production Photo by Joan Marcus

There are three generations represented, including a real baby -- not one of those pretend babies you usually see portrayed by a bundle of cloth. There's also are a live rabbit and goose in the mix.

The play takes place in a farmhouse in the country. It is the home of a large extended family that is getting ready for the harvest and for the great harvest feast.

The Ferryman is a feast itself, filled with humor, joy, and tenderness, folk tales, family stories, dancing, singing, and music - ranging from traditional Irish tunes to revolutionary songs to The Rolling Stones.

Production Photo by Joan Marcus

Given the context of the violence that is taking place in Northern Ireland, do know that the outside world must and does intrude.

You may have heard that it is a long show. And, indeed, it does run three hours and 15 minutes. But there is no fat on these bones, and every moment is filled to the brim with Butterworth's magnificent storytelling. Truly, this is the most thrilling play I've seen in a very long time. Come Tony Awards time, The Ferryman will be the one to beat!

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Feel free to share this blog with your friends, and to offer up your own theater stories by posting a comment. I also invite you to check out the website Show-Score.Com, where you will find capsule reviews of current plays from Yours Truly and many other New York critics.

Tuesday, October 16, 2018

THE OPEN GATE: Inventive New Musical About Jewish Life in Poland at the End of the 19th Century.

THE OPEN GATE
Cast photo by Steven Pisano

In 1964, Broadway theatergoers saw the first performance of Fiddler on the Roof, the much loved musical about life in the Jewish shtetl in czarist Russia. It was adapted from a series of stories written in Yiddish by Sholem Aleichem. At its center is the bigger-than-life character of Tevye, a man torn between the traditions of life as he had always known it -- tied to his upbringing, his community, and his religious faith -- and the incursion of the modern world into that life.

Three years later, in 1967, while Fiddler was still filling seats on Broadway, another author writing in Yiddish, Isaac Bashevis Singer, published a novel titled The Manor, which also focused on Jewish life in Eastern Europe in the latter part of the 19th century. The Manor is a sprawling saga, this one centered on a Polish-Jewish businessman named Calman Jacoby, who, likewise, is caught is the intersection between two worlds. The Manor, however, weaves a far more complex and ambiguous tale, one in which the possibility of upward mobility is a temptation too hard to resist.

Now, playwright David Willinger has adapted The Manor into a sprawling musical called The Open Gate, with music by Arthur Abrams, a cast of 17, and five musicians. Equity actor Joel Martin heads up the company in the central role of Calman Jacoby.

Like Tevye, Calman is in the throes of a personal conflict between strictly adhering to the traditional values of his Jewish faith, and participating in the wider world outside the physical and metaphoric gates that both protect and isolate him and his wife and four daughters. The Open Gate is being touted as a "historical mosaic" about the tug-of-war between the simple and pious life on one side of the gate, and the intellectual and worldly temptations waiting on the other side.

Photo by Steven Pisano

You can catch The Open Gate now through

Photo by Stevan Pisano

October 27 at the Theater for the New City on 1st Avenue at 10th Street. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8:00, with matinees on Sundays at 3:00. Tickets are $20, discounted to $10 for seniors and students. They can be purchased by visiting www.smarttix.com or by calling 212-868-4444.

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Wednesday, October 10, 2018

THE HYSTERIA OF DR FAUSTUS: Gutsy, Small Theater Company Takes the Next Leap with This Original Work Based on the Faust Legend

Brandon Walker (right) as Dr. Faust solidifies a pact
to sell his soul to Mephistopheles (Eric Cronican)
in exchange for a life of pleasure, fame and fortune.
Photo by Russ Rowland

The Seeing Place Theater is unique among the treasure trove of (sadly) underfunded small companies that occupy various corners of New York City, making theatrical magic out of sheer willpower, talent, and bottomless imagination. Where others come together, sometimes just for a single production, The Seeing Place is now entering its ninth season, bravely taking on everything from Shakespeare to Martin McDonaugh, to John Osborne, to Tom Stoppard and Caryl Churchill.

What makes The Seeing Place well worth keeping an eye on is not just that they go out of their way to select challenging works, and not even that they always strive to place a new spin on them. It's that they keep challenging themselves to avoid repetition or predictability, while keeping true to their mission of offering visceral, intimate, and honest productions that carry with them the edginess of actor-driven improvisation. This is not something you can fake, and it is the reason I make room on my calendar to check them out as often as I can.

So what do you do after eight seasons of classics, contemporary, and experimental works? In this case, what you do is come up with an original play, an adaptation of the oft-told tale of Faust, a man who sells his soul in exchange for experiencing the pleasures that have eluded him for his entire life: money, power, fame, and sex.

Titled The Hysteria of Dr Faustus, the play, in performance at the Paradise Factory through October 21, was written by The Seeing Place's producing artistic director Brandon Walker. In it, Walker examines the famous story through contemporary eyes, while staying true to its origins and various interpretations by, among others, Goethe, Marlowe, and Gounod.

In this iteration, Walker plays both the elderly Heinrich Faustus, a physics professor fed up with having to deal with bored, self-absorbed and disaffected students, and the younger, transformed "Henry Faust," who has happily signed away his soul to Mephistopheles. The latter is played by Erin Cronican, the company's executive artistic director, who also directs the production.

The plot follows the traditional Faust storyline, from the title character's initial unhappiness, self-loathing and attempted suicide; through his pact with the Devil's minion; the wooing and seduction of Gretchen, the innocent woman (Broghanne Jessamine) whose life he will ruin; and his own final downfall. Walker places a modern spin on things, not just by setting it in today's world, but by emphasizing the #MeToo elements within the story.

Faust is readily caught up in the power that seems to come with the territory of being an attractive and wealthy young man. Supported by the overseeing Mephistopheles, Faust blithely shatters the lives of the play's female characters, the virginal and pious Gretchen, her aunt (Candice Oden), and his own loyal assistant (also played by Ms. Cronican). More pointedly, no matter how much harm he does, he denies culpability at every turn, a familiar trope to anyone who has followed the drama surrounding the likes of Bill Cosby, Harvey Weinstein, and Brett Kavanaugh.

Broghanne Jessamine and Candice Oden
Photo by Russ Rowland

Brandon Walker as Faust
Photo by Russ Rowland

The Hysteria of Dr Faustus works best when it focuses on this major theme, in which the Faust character becomes more and more like Robert Louis Stevenson's "Mr. Hyde," or the kind of predatory, self-important, entitled man of wealth and power whose misdeeds have been subjected to much public scrutiny of late.

Truthfully, there are a few tangential plot elements that pull the play in too many directions and weaken its overall impact. A tour of hell and an overlong seduction scene, for example, weigh down the first Act. A twenty-minute trim would sharpen things significantly. Still and all, The Seeing Place Theater is to be commended for its continuing efforts at exploring new territory. This play is well-worth seeing, and, more importantly, it represents the next great leap forward for this always-exciting company.

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Monday, October 8, 2018

POPCORN FALLS: Funny Play with Lots of Heart

Popcorn Falls, opening tonight at the intimate Off-Broadway Davenport Theater, is a clever, fun and delightfully unpretentious play about small town folks with big dreams and even bigger hearts. It also is, blessedly, a snark-free breath of fresh air at a time when it seems that everywhere we turn these days, we are faced with raised fists and angry rants. The worst you'll get from the citizens of Popcorn Falls (who like to refer to themselves as its "kernels") are a few quibbles.

Written by James Hindman and directed by two-time Tony winning actor Christian Borle, Popcorn Falls is the saga of a town that is hovering on the brink of bankruptcy; its one tourist attraction, the waterfall after which it is named, has dried up, thanks to a dam that was built upstream.

With two performers bravely playing 21 different characters, along with a minimal set design (there's a perfect explanation for why both of these are so), Popcorn Falls is bound to have a long and successful life at regional and community theaters around the country. In fact, it had its premiere at the Riverbank Theatre in Marine City, Michigan, with the playwright himself in the role of the beleaguered new mayor of the beleaguered title town, one Mr. Trundle.

Here, that part is being played by Adam Heller. He also plays a few of the other "kernels," but the bulk of the mayhem of quick changes is carried out by Tom Souhrada, who has been with the play from the start. He has perfected the chameleon-like role that requires him to morph among individuals of varying ages and genders on a moment's notice.

Tom Souhrada and Adam Heller
Star in POPCORN FALLS
Photo by Monique Carboni

The fate of Popcorn Falls lies precariously in the hands of the greedy Mr. Doyle, who heads up the county's budget committee and who intends to take advantage of the situation by letting the town collapse and then putting up a sewage treatment plant. The only thing that stands in the way of his scheme is a previously-approved arts grant that is tied to establishing a community theater and putting on a play. Doyle can't stop the grant directly, but he can attach a requirement that will allow him to yank the money by setting a deadline for getting both the theater and the play up and running within one week.

Small problem: There is no actual theater. There is no play. There is no one with more than minimal acting or directing experience or, really, anyone who knows much of anything about how to make this happen.

The bulk of the play becomes a farce-like race to make the impossible come to fruition. There is lots of slapstick fun as things unfold, but more than that, there is a real warmth behind the fun as we get to know the characters.

As calm and in control as Mayor Trundle seems, we learn he is a recently divorced recovering alcoholic who has come to Popcorn Falls to get back on his feet. But we also get to know many of the other residents. Among them are Joe the flustered janitor, whose wife is expecting their third set of twins; Ms. Parker, the cat-loving town librarian who has dramatic pretensions and whose conversations include blithely tossed about quotes from such unexpected sources as Angels In America; Floyd, the owner of the local lumberyard who is drafted into building the sets; and a very sweet young woman named Becky, who has reluctantly returned to her hometown after a failed attempt at attending an acting program.

Thanks to the performances by Heller and Souhrada, who sometimes have to trade off characters in order the keep the juggling of roles going non-stop, the stage seems to be filled with the entire population of Popcorn Falls as Mayor Trundle attempts to build up everyone's enthusiasm to pull off the impossible.

When all is said and done, you will realize there has been a great deal of creative magic going on before your eyes, with a cast of two most impressively creating a world of characters with nothing but their talent, the playwright's lovely script, and Christian Borle's direction. Popcorn Falls makes for an altogether charming, fun, and pleasurable evening of theater.

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Wednesday, October 3, 2018

THREE ACTRESSES WHO ARE BURNING UP BROADWAY AND OFF-BROADWAY STAGES

If you want to see some humdinger performances on or off Broadway these days, better turn to the women. Here are three you won't want to miss:

First up: Janet McTeer in Theresa Rebeck's Bernhardt/Hamlet at the American Airlines Theatre, one of the Roundabout Theatre Company's Broadway houses. This one is smack dab in the heart of things, on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues.

Ms. McTeer is mesmerizing as the great 19th French actress Sarah Bernhardt, who is preparing to perform the title role in Hamlet. Of course, she is surrounded by idiotic naysaying men who want to "protect" her from what they assume will be a public humiliation and the ruination of her career. Not hard to guess where this will go.

Anyone looking for a straightforward and historically accurate portrait of the actual Bernhardt had best visit the library. But this isn't a biography, it's a play. And a damned good one at that.

No bones about it. Janet McTeer is ideally cast and gives a

performance that -- although it is ridiculous for me to make this prediction so early in the season -- will surely bring her a Tony nomination. Ironically, her stiffest competition might be last year's winner, Glenda Jackson, who is returning in the title role of yet another Shakespeare tragedy, King Lear.

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Let us move Off-Broadway next, with the fabulous Edie Falco starring in Sharr White's heated political drama The True, a production of The New Group at the Pershing Square Signature Center, further west on 42nd Street close to 10th Avenue.

In The True, Ms. Falco plays the real-life Polly Noonan, the long-time adviser and close personal friend to the mayor of Albany, New York. The play takes place in 1977, when, after more than three decades in office, the mayor and the woman behind the throne are heading into a primary election battle that promises to be a fight to the death.

Ms. Falco is giving a truly powerhouse performance as Polly Noonan, who, as it happens, was the grandmother of U. S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. They way she charges forth like a fire-breathing dragon, the guys who try to get in her way don't stand a chance in the world.

A word of caution: Polly Noonan's was known for lacing her conversations with profanity, and Ms. Falco drops F-bombs like they were breadcrumbs being fed to the pigeons. But, wow, what a performance! They don't give Tonys for Off-Broadway productions, but they do give Obie and Outer Critics Circle and Drama Desk Awards. Expect to hear the name of Edie Falco come nomination time.

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Last, but by no means least, is the equally wonderful Mare Winningham, who is giving a knock-out performance as one of the lost and broken victims of the Great Depression, in the Conor McPherson/Bob Dylan collaboration Girl from the North Country. This one is downtown at the Public Theater, but it really is easy to get to by public transportation. Or you could take the risk based on whispers that the show may move uptown to a Broadway house. But if you miss it, it's on you! (Remember, a little thing called Hamilton started out at the Public.)

Girl from the North Country is an ensemble piece, and it boasts an altogether excellent cast and musicians who perform songs from Bob Dylan's vast trove. But rising above the rest is Ms. Winningham.

Her character, Elizabeth, is said to be suffering from dementia. My take is, that's just a two-bit diagnosis that allows her husband to self-justify an affair he is carrying on right under her nose. I actually found her to be as sharp as a tack and hope you will as well.

I have seen Ms. Winningham in many plays before, but this is the first time I've heard her sing. So let me end by saying that when she performs Dylan's "Like A Rolling Stone" at the end of Act I, and "Forever Young" at the end of the evening, you might want to have some tissues ready; you or the person sitting next to you may very well need them.

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NEW YORK INNOVATIVE THEATRE AWARD WINNERS 2018

For several years now, it has been my privilege to serve as a judge for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. The organization brings recognition to the great work being done in New York City's Off-Off-Broadway, honors its artistic heritage, and provides a meeting ground for this extensive community.

For me, however, the great honor of being a judge is that it gets me to all sorts of out-of-the-way spaces, where I have had the thrill of experiencing the magic that creative, dedicated, and highly talented theater artists are able to conjure, generally with very limited resources.

Outstanding Premiere Production:
THE SNOW QUEEN

The 2018 IT Award winners were selected from a pool of nominees that include 157 individual artists, 53 different productions, and 52 different theatre companies in Queens, Brooklyn, and Manhattan.

Kudos to the winners listed here and, indeed, to all who work so diligently to bring live theater to all corners of the city.

Outstanding Production of a Musical:
1917-2017: TYCHYNA, ZHADAN and the DOGS

Outstanding Play Revival:
DANNY AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

Outstanding Ensemble:
FOLLIES

Outstanding Revival of a Play
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Sea Dog Theater

Outstanding Premiere Production
The Snow Queen
Blessed Unrest in association with New Ohio Theatre

Outstanding Production of a Musical
1917-2017: Tychyna, Zhadan & the Dogs
Yara Arts Group in association with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club

Outstanding Performance Art Production
Soot and Spit
Our Voices Theater in association with New Ohio Theatre and IRT Theater

Outstanding Ensemble
Follies
Astoria Performing Arts Center

Outstanding Original Full-Length Script
Eric Avilés
Where You From? What You Be About?
Liberation Arts Collective

Outstanding Original Short Script
Joseph Hefner
Agency
The Company Ink in association with Michael Johnson

Outstanding Director
Mark Lewis
Danny and the Deep Blue Sea
Sea Dog Theater

Outstanding Choreography/Movement
Sara Brians
Follies
Astoria Performing Arts Center

Outstanding Set Design
Maruti Evans
Precious Little Talent
Shea Delves Productions

Outstanding Lighting Design
Stacey Boggs
AMP
Goode Productions

Outstanding Sound Design
Dan Bianchi & Wes Shippee
The 9th Annual H.P. Lovecraft Festival
Radiotheatre in association with Theater At St. John's

Outstanding Costume Design
Jennifer Jacob
Follies
Astoria Performing Arts Center

Outstanding Innovative Design
Lisa Renkel
Outside Paducah: The Wars at Home
Poetic Theater Productions

Outstanding Original Music
Julian Kytasty, Serhiy Zhadan & the Dogs
1917-2017: Tychyna, Zhadan & the Dogs
Yara Arts Group in association with La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club

Outstanding Solo Performance
Valerie Redd
You / Emma
Wandering Bark Theatre Company in association with IRT Theater

Outstanding Actor in a Lead Role
Ryan McCurdy
Greencard Wedding
Goode Productions

Outstanding Actress in a Lead Role
Maggie Low
Chickens in the Yard
Adjusted Realists

Outstanding Actor in a Featured Role
Todd Ritch
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee
5th Floor Theatre Company

Outstanding Actress in a Featured Role
LaDonna Burns
Follies
Astoria Performing Arts Center

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Tuesday, June 12, 2018

2018 TONY AWARDS: Monday Morning Quarterbacking and What You Should Try to See

Fourteen.

That's how many of my predictions matched the actual winners of the 26 Tony Awards handed out last night at Radio City Music Hall. That's 54%, if you are interested in such things.

My biggest against-expectations prediction went for the Best Revival of a Musical. I was happy to champion the nigh-unto-perfect revival of the Lynn Ahrens/Stephen Flaherty musical Once On This Island.

Once On This Island Cast

The one-act, 90-minute show was up against some formidable competition with the full-scale productions of Carousel and My Fair Lady. Both had their supporters, and conventional
wisdom was that My Fair Lady would win. So yay for this one!!! In my view, OOTI Director Michael Arden ought to have won as well, but there is no separate directing award for revivals, just a single Tony for direction of a musical, new or revival.

This year, David Cromer, a wonderful director in his own right, was swept up in the evening's wave of awards that went to The Band's Visit, which, coincidentally, is another 90-minute musical. It walked away the big winner, picking up 10 awards: Best New Musical, Best Director, Best Original Score (by David Yazbek), Best Orchestrations (by Jamshied Sharifi), Best Book (by Itamar Moses) Performance awards for its stars Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub and for Featured Actor Ari'el Stachel, Lighting Design (Tyler Micoleau), and Sound Design (Kai Harada).

Katrina Lenk and Tony Shalhoub

Let's give special kudos to orchestrator Sharifi, for whom this was his first theatrical musical project (he has number of film scores to his credit). He has done an especially fine job of orchestrating the music for the performances by the very talented on-stage band of David Yazbek's jazz-infused Middle Eastern-sounding score.

You could not go wrong seeing either of these. If you love theatrical storytelling and that good old stage magic, I'd say go with Once On This Island, a charming, occasionally darkish fairy tale with a Caribbean flavor performed by a great ensemble of actors, dancers, and singers and beautifully staged and directed by Mr. Arden.

The Band's Visit tells a softer and gentler story. Personally, I was more taken by its original Off Broadway production at the Atlantic Theater Company, a smaller, intimate space better suited to the show than a big Broadway stage. But Katrina Lenk's performance remains one of the true highlights of the season. You should know that Tony Shalhoub has left the production and will be replaced shortly by Sasson Gabai, who played the role in the original 2007 film on which the musical is based. I expect he will be fine. It is Ms. Lenk's performance you will want to catch.

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Here's a question. Why do so many productions seem uncertain how best to make use of the humongous stage at Radio City Music Hall, and, more importantly, how best to display their musical numbers for the television cameras? Surely, it is the much larger, potential ticket-buying TV audience they would want to reach out to. Yet year after year, so many of the staged excerpts fall flat or are swallowed up in the vastness of the performance space.

Of the production numbers presented at this year's Tonys, the most exciting was a non-winner. That would be Summer: The Donna Summer Musical. Smart move to have Donna Summer's daughters introduce the segment, and then have the three actress who play the Disco Queen at various stages of her life (LaChanze, Storm Lever, and Ariana DeBose) break out into a thrilling performance of "Last Dance."

Be warned that as a full-scale Broadway production, Summer lowers the bar to the floor when it comes to the quality of its Wikipedia-lite script, and only LaChanze is able to provide a sense of Donna Summer's power as a singer. But we're talking here about the performance at the Tonys, which I'd call a showstopper and ticket-seller of the highest order. The show at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre is pretty much critic proof. If you are an authentic Donna Summer fan, nothing I can say will keep you away, so go and have fun.

As for the other highlighted musicals, only My Fair Lady offers a clear vision for what could have been a musty revival of a museum piece. Director Bartlett Sher puts Liza Doolittle at front and center, emphasizes her growing independence as a woman, and pretty much does away with the idea that MFL is simply an old fashioned romantic comedy. If you want a reproduction of Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews (or Audrey Hepburn from the movie), this is not for you. Otherwise, it's certainly well performed and includes all of those "loverly" songs you remember, presented rather better than they were in the mash-up compilation you saw on the Tonys. As a bonus, there is the ever-glorious Diana Rigg, magnificent in the role of Henry Higgins' mother.

Carousel is, musically, one of the greatest shows ever written. The singing throughout the current revival is excellent, but the overall direction is disappointingly muddy and timid. Lindsay Mendez deservedly won a Tony for her sparkly performance as Carrie Pipperidge, brightening up the stage whenever she appears. The all-male dance number ("Blow High, Blow Low") you saw performed on the Tony show is an excellent example of Justin Peck's Tony-winning choreography. My recommendation here is half-hearted, however. I much prefer the PBS Live From Lincoln Center televised version from 2013, which you may be able to watch online.

Mean Girls and Frozen cater to fans of their respective movies. SpongeBob Squarepants is much more creative, lively, and fun, but it helps a lot to be familiar with the characters before going in. None of their production numbers as shown on the Tonys did them justice.

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With respect to the non-musical shows, there is no doubt that the revivals of Three Tall Women and Angels In America are being given magnificent productions and are well worth seeing. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child makes for a fitting entry to the HP series, although if you are not a fan of the "boy who lived," I don't know why you'd want to see it, especially as it is split into two separate plays (the second is the far stronger, by the way). That's quite a commitment for a disinterested theatergoer, even with its excellent staging and performances. A play that opened post-Tony deadline, The Boys In The Band, is being given a solid production. It is a milestone work that is also well worth seeing.

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Finally, some takeaways from the Tony show itself.

This was one of the better shows in recent years. Hosts Josh Groban and Sara Bareilles were ideally suited to the task.

They brought a sense of their own delight as theater geeks. It was so nice to get away from snarky jokes and just to relish the pleasures of Broadway with hosts who seemed to do just that.

Many of the acceptance speeches included heart-felt pleas for compassion and embracing of our differences. Tony Shalhoub spoke of his Lebanese father's arrival at Ellis Island. Ari'el Stachel talked about pretending he was not a Middle Eastern person. Lindsay Mendez told us how she had been encouraged to change her last name to something like Matthew, "or I wouldn't work."

Several spoke out on behalf of LGBT rights. There was Andrew Garfield's "Let's just bake a cake for everyone who wants a cake to be baked," and John Tiffany's leading a community singing of "Happy Birthday" to his boyfriend in the audience. But I was most moved when Nathan Lane choked up when giving a shout-out to his husband. Others have done the same in recent years, but at the age of 62, Lane surely remembers when being openly gay was a risky business, personally and professionally (as it still is, in many instances). So this was a significant public moment of joy and pride during Pride Month.

And there was the awarding of a Tony to drama teacher Melody Herzfeld. The honor was given for her wonderful work as a theater teacher, but we know, as well, that she protected five dozen students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida during the mass shooting in February. Even more visible to the live and home audience, and quite a moving tribute to their resilience, was a performance by her students of "Season of Love" from the musical Rent.

It is easy to cynically brush these off as lightweight gestures. But each of these moments represents a bit of hope for a nation that has become increasingly angry and intolerant - on both sides of the political spectrum (need I mention Robert De Niro's self-indulgent bleeped-out remarks?)

All in all, it was quite an evening.

Meanwhile, the new Broadway season has begun. The Boys In The Band was first, but this summer will also see Broadway productions of Straight White Men, Head Over Heels, Getting the Band Back Together, and Pretty Woman.

One year has ended, and the next begins. Curtain up!!!

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