Native Gardens
Aurora Theatre
through June 2, 2019

This is another play by a prolific writer, Karen Zacarías, and one you will absolutely enjoy. Directed by Daniel Jáquez, a cast of 4 perfectly cast players take the stage which any theatre fan would immediately know was designed by the sisters Curley-Clay.

We all have neighbors, and we should all want to get along with them, for we’re all human. Except for some politicians. . . . Virginia (Carolyn Cook) and Frank (Bart Hansard) have some new neighbors who’ve recently moved in. While Virginia and Frank are really into fancy flowered gardens, and have dedicated loads of time and money to theirs; it may seem that the new neighbors, Pablo Del Valle (Christian Gonzalez and his wife Tania (Fedra Ramíez-Olivares) are more into natural growth, be it a huge tree or some growths which could look like my yard which would win the worst in the neighborhood if we had such a contest.

And contests are in the wind. Frank is concerned as the local garden contest is this weekend and he wants to finish first. Pablo is concerned as he is a new member of a local law firm and wants to host a big outdoor bash on the same date. These things don’t seem to collude. And, things get more difficult when Pablo finds out that a bed of pretty flowers planted by Frank may actually be on Pablo’s land, according to the plat filed with his deed.

OK. Don’t sweat it. There are some loud exchanges when each gets in the face of the other, but all comes out right in the end, and they all get on with life. So there is a lesson to be learned; that we’re not all the same, but we’re not all quite that different. Good neighbors are good friends, and always have been.

A really nice one act show that’s a pleasure to sit through and enjoy. More info at AuroraTheatre.com

Billy Elliot
City Springs Theatre
through May 12, 2019

Billy Elliot is a tale of a young lad growing up in a coal mining town in the UK back in 1980’s. Those were days when the government was nationalizing the coal industry, trying to do away with the National Union of Miners and things weren’t easy. Most of the hard working folks were just about penniless and they may have had to go on the dole, but they preferred to work for wages.

The Iron Lady, Margaret Thatcher, was PM, and the Tories weren’t inclined to go to the table with those country bumpkins. The bloody strike lasted a whole year.

Set against this backdrop we have a family where their son, Billy gets into dance and is so good at it that he might just win admission to the Royal School of Ballet. His macho dad isn’t buying it; and probably thinks all danseurs are fags. And the story goes on as Billy hones his skills, family ties get stressed to the limits and it seems there may be no end in sight for anybody.

Liam Redford is incredible as Billy. He handles the ballet steps, jumps, swings, flies, and even tap dances like pro as well. The audience was soooooo taken by his work that I think everyone in the audience wanted to take this young man home with them.

Drew McVety is his Dad, and Bethany Irby is his Mum. Pamela Gold is the ballet teacher, Mrs. Wilkinson, the one who fuels the fire that burns so well. In Act II, young Billy teams up with an older version of himself, played by Luke Badura, and they deliver an awesome version of the dance from Swan Lake. It’s a huge cast and totally Broadway quality.

The music is by Elton John, who might have been emotionally attached the story as he is a Brit, albeit he hangs out here most days. Judy Cole conducted the live orchestra in the pit, and this top-notch show was brought together and directed by Brandt Blocker.

If you are thinking of bringing the kiddies or Ms.Prim, please be advised that working class folks might tend to use an expletive as a universal modifier. The show runs at the new Byers Theatre in Sandy Springs, and it is a really posh venue. More info at CitySpringsTheatre.com

Love & Money
Art Station Theatre
through May 19, 2019

Albert Ramsdell Gurney, Jr., who usually penned his works as A. R. Gurney, created quite a few plays which often dealt with social classes and clashes, and some were set in his home town of Buffalo, NY.

In this one, we meet up with a very wealthy widow in Manhattan. She is Cornelia Cunningham (Janet Metzger) who is busy winding down her life and winding up her affairs of estate, by writing some huge checks to do good in the world. For she knows all too well how the very few of us control the very most of the money. And, considering the state of our current oligarchy, a lot of the dialogue is quite poignant.

She lives in a posh brownstone, and Theresa O’Shea is Agnes, her housekeeper and general do-everything. Things were just a normal day until a young chap named Harvey (Elliott Folds) shows up with a briefcase full of legal documents which he needs to go through with his client. She rejects his presence at first, but then things get a bit weirder when a young man from her home town of Buffalo shows up to introduce himself as her unknown grandson. Brandon Smith comes on as that young Scott Walker. He figures he was named after F. Scott Fitzgerald, who he thinks of as his mentor and maybe alter ego. There is a very obvious class distinction between Cornelia and Scott, but they start to mend fences.

Jessica (Caty Bergmark) is a student at Juilliard, to whom Cornelia has promised a player piano for the school. There is a lot of talk about money, social standings and life in general. Cornelia is at the point in life when she realizes that she used to think that she owned things, until she got to a point where she felt that things owned her; and it was time to slim down.

Directed by Paul Conroy and a superb set by Michael Hidalgo, the show is one that really scores it big-time with the AARP crowd. They understand money, aging, and WASPs in our world.

Comfy seats, free parking and nice goodies. More info at ArtStation.org

The Hero’s Wife
Synchronicity Theatre
through May 5, 2019

This is a World Premiere of Aline Lathrop’s newest play, presented here and at 16th Street Theatre in Chicago.

The play is a one act journey into the living hell of dealing with PTSD. Rachel May directed the two actors in this excruciating trip into the wars that never end. Joe Sykes plays Cameron, a former Navy Seal who is never going to be what he was prior to his deployments.

He is now “retired” albeit you may suspect he had been in some covert ops. And, his behavior makes you diagnose him as with PTSD from the first few minutes. And, while some people may recover from much of the symptoms, there really is no cure for it.

When he is awake, he is in love with his wife, Karyssa, played to the hilt by Rebecca Robles. But, when he is somnolent or fully asleep, he is someplace else and on his guard. He is always overly concerned about being a victim, although it is usually Karyssa, when he strikes at her when awaked, or goes wild in other circumstances.

The fight scenes when they are abed and he goes after her, may make you want to run onstage and hit him with a bat; were you not a patron watching a very difficult scenario play out in front of you.

If you know people with severe post traumatic stress disorder, this may be very difficult for you to sit through. It certainly is not for Ms. Prim or the kiddies. It deals with a terrible problem that too many of us have been dealing with at some point in our lives; and when you’ve been through such terrible situations there is no way you can ever permanently erase the images from your mind.

The actors give it their all, and the show plays through May 5th at their venue in the Invesco Building on Peachtree Street midtown. More info at SynchroTheatre.com

La Traviata
Atlanta Opera
through May 5, 2019

This is one of the world’s most favorite operas. Guiseppi Verdi (or Joe Green in English) was so prolific and he was a crowd pleaser. But, when this one premiered he thought is was going to bomb; but history proved him wrong.

La traviata is a story about a courtesan (Violette, sung by Zuzana Marková) who has left her former calling and fallen in love with a really nice guy from a pretty posh family. Along the way she also just happens to come down with a deadly case of consumption, which killed millions of people in Europe in her day. She looks forward to marrying her Mr. Right (Alfredo, sung by Mario Chang), but when Alfredo’s pompous daddy (Germont, sung by Fabian Veloz) comes on the scene he pressures Violette to give Alfredo up because his daughter is engaged to some up-tight nerd who will not marry her if somebody like Violette is to become his sister-in-law.

It gets a little more involved as Violette succumbs to Germont’s pressures, and later she shows up at a ball back in Paris where Alfredo just happens in. The way she ended the relationship with Alfredo was to brush him off ; and when he sees her in Paris he is really ticked. He owed her some money that she raised for him, and he throws it at her in front of a load of folks in fancy dress and this is considered very insulting to a lady of any position in those days. Violette is mortified. Germont is angered to the max and Alfredo leaves in a huff.

Later, it is learned that Violette is deadly ill and her hours or days are numbered. Germont tells Alfredo what she did for him, and Alfredo rushes to her side. Her doctor, who must have been with the first Parisian HMO does little to help her and as Alfredo finds her, she is at death’s door. Indeed as they embrace the music starts into descending minor chords and you know that ain’t good. She dies in the arms of her one and only true love.

Verdi knew how to grab the audience from the opening notes, and La Traviata is a splendid example of this talent. The principal arias are so easy to recall that if you know Italian you want to sing along to tunes such as Sempre libera. Even if you are not an opera buff, this is a great one as a starter kit. Kind of like Carmen, in that you HAVE TO enjoy it. Great sets, terrific costumes, good choral segments, incredibly smooth score and some terrific voices backed up by a very good cast.

The opera was brought to us with some collaboration with other companies, and with great sets, costumes and choreography and a full orchestra in the pit. It grabs your eyes and ears from note one, and never lets go. The dances of the gypsies and matadors in Act II, are just terrific. And, if some of the tunes sound like their were also in Pirates of Penzance, that’s because Gilbert & Sullivan loved Verdi’s work and they always loved doing parodies of light operas.

Just two final performances at Cobb Energy Center, on May 3 at 8pm and May 5th at 3pm. It is the finale of this season and not to be missed. More info at AtlantaOpera.org