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| Ruthless! |
| I have been lucky to be involved in two critically acclaimed productions of Ruthless! In 2009, I played Lita Encore in the Flower Mound Performing Arts Theatre production. In 2003, I directed an award-winning production of Ruthless! for Uptown Players. |
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'Ruthless! The Musical' (Flower Mound Performing Arts Theatre)
By Mark-Brian Sonna / Pegasus News and The Column Online 10/12/2009 ©2009 What do you get when you mix some of the top talent in the area, place them in one of the best local theatres and give them a proven campy show to do? Theatre Nirvana. Flower Mound Performing Arts Theatre just opened "Ruthless! the Musical" for a very limited two-week run. This deliciously crafted and performed show deserves a much longer run. Stacia Goad-Malone plays Judy Denmark. It requires her to play two different women, a before and after. She inhabits both versions of the character magnificently. Sylvia St. Croix is played by Dennis Canright. Dennis mentions in his program bio that he&39;s got big pumps to fill. Not to worry, Mr. Canright. You fill them and overflow them beautifully. Andi Allen plays nefarious critic Lita Encore with much gusto. You love to hate her. When she finally enters the stage, she really enters the stage. Her presence ups the ante of the entire sordid proceedings. Claire Moore as Miss Thorn and later as Miss Block is a whirlwind of a performer. Louise Lerman and Eve are both played by Lee Jamison Wadley. I was wondering how she would hold up against such fierce talent on stage. She does so and in spades. Alexandra Doke gets to play the evil child Tina Denmark. She captures the sweet/salty and the angelic/demonic requirements for the role. Because of the limited run, I urge you to go see the show. Also, it is a treat to see some of our biggest local "stars" all on stage at the same time. Ruthless People: Flower Mound Performing Arts Theatre has a devilishly good show on its wicked little hands By Mark Lowry / TheaterJones.com 10/13/2009 ©2009 This delicious show has outrageous comedy, so many musical and film references that it could be a drinking game. It's camp, it's kitsch and it's an all-around hoot. Tina (Alexandra Doke) is a talented kid who tries out for the lead role in a Pippi Longstocking musical at her school. Meanwhile, her previously talentless mother, Judy (Stacia Goad-Malone), is uncovering the mysteries about the woman who raised her, a harsh theater critic named Lita Encore (Andi Allen), and another woman who wants to be Tina's talent agent, Sylvia St. Croix. Dennis Canright follows in the size-12 pumps previously worn locally by B.J. Cleveland, Paul Taylor and Coy Covington. Claire Moore does double duty as the Pippi director Myrna Thorne and gossipy journalist Miss Block; and Lee Jamison Wadley hilariously plays the lisping Louis Lerman and a spaz of an assistant. This Ruthless! is anything but toothless. Don't miss it—or else! |
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Killer Combination: Showbiz parody 'Ruthless!' achieves its ambition (Uptown Players)
By Tom Sime / Excerpted from Dallas Morning News 6/15/2003 ©2003 This hilarious spoof musical pays loving tribute to "talent - inherited and unstoppable." Director-choreographer Andi Allen and music director Adam Wright have made sure every note, every gesture, every inflection is delivered with great precision as well as with tongue in cheek. They've assembled a dream cast for this parody. It's the sketch as high art. Stacia Goad-Malone is superb as Judy Denmark, a perky housewife straight out of a '50s fantasy, her daughter Tina, a tap-dancing prodigy with a killer technique, played to perfection by Lana Whittington. When Tina loses the lead in the school play to classmate Louise (Arianna Movassagh), we know Louise isn't long for this world. For Tina's already out-of-control ambition has been fanned to murderous intensity by glamorous talent agent Sylvia St. Croix, deliciously rendered by Coy Covington. Suzi Shankle and Bill Bullard's costumes are a gas. Jenny Thurman is grandly funny as Tina's teacher, Miss Thorn. This Ruthless! is seamless. Satire takes center stage in 'Ruthless!' (Uptown Players) By Perry Stewart / Excerpted from Ft. Worth Star-Telegram 6/17/2003 ©2003 Now comes a new production that pushes the satirical envelope with applaudable results. The smallest and liveliest member of director/choreographer Andi Allen's fine cast is Lana Whittington, who seizes the spotlight. Whittington is the comic spark that launches Ruthless! Mother Judy's transformation keeps it alive in Act II. Stacia Goad-Malone, handles the character's two personalities deftly, reveling in the vocal jokes in composer Marvin Laird's score...The gleeful absurdity is embodied in Sylvia St. Croix. That duty here goes to Coy Covington. Covington, Whittington and Goad-Malone form a winning team. Jenny Thurman marshals vocal nuance and body language to superb effect on Teaching Third Grade. Arianna Movassagh shines in a pair of songs. Amy Stevenson endears herself to actors everywhere as an evil theater critic whose credo is I Hate Musicals. Mary-Margaret Pyeatt has a nice comic turn late in the show as a journalist. Summer camp: Ruthless! sharpens razor wit with excellent cast - We have a winner: From The Bad Seed to Mommie Dearest, Uptown Players' Ruthless! is a fun evening of playing Spot the References By Arnold Wayne Jones / Excerpted from The Dallas Voice 6/20/2003 ©2003 The play is perfect silliness. Director Andi Allen keeps the kitsch factor ratcheted high and each of the actors portrays some variation of a character from the golden age: Covington as Rosalind Russell in Auntie Mame; Goad in the long-suffering Joan Crawford-Nancy Kelly part in the first act, and the glamorous Joan in the second; Jenny Thurman as Suzanne Pleshette or Eve Arden. If the jokes often beg for a rim shot, the cast plays them perfectly. They set the tone for the outlandishness without ever mugging like merciless vaudevillians. The entire cast has a ball with their parts. But no one does a better job than Covington in his deliciously ripe performance. But Ruthless offers everyone with a prime opportunity to shine, and they sparkle like diamonds. |