Theatre Thursdays: Blood Ties (As Seen on Orphan Black!)

I often come to TV shows late, but then I hit ’em hard. I started the first season of Orphan Black about a week before the second season premiered, and was finished by the day after the premiere, upon which I immediately began the current season. (Okay, not that impressive; it was only ten episodes. Still.) The clone saga quickly drew me in, and Tatiana Maslany’s ability to play a large number of completely different women who just happen to have the same genotype is truly extraordinary.

With all the intrigue, sinister mysteries, both scientific and religious extremists, and death, it’s easy to see how the show can be rather dark overall, so it’s nice to get some nice comedic moments now and then. Of course, being Orphan Black, the humor is usually never “hahaha omg so funny” but more like “lolwut”. A golden example of this has been the Season 2 subplot that involves Alison doing the suburban community musical theatre project. Now, community theatre in general can be used for comedic effect (“actors are so weird LOL”), but when you get jaunty melodies about cleaning up blood splatter, it lands squarely in the middle of Orphan Black’s sardonic, tongue-in-cheek style of humor. It was such a perfect fit that I thought the writers had just written a song or two for story purposes, but no: it turns out they were selections from a very real musical named Blood Ties! Let’s find out more after the jump!

Theatre Thursdays: King Kong, the Ape’s Alive!

Hi there! PolyglotPisces here, and I’m overjoyed to be writing my very first post for Lady Geek Girl and Friends. I would like to take this time to introduce the theatre-loving world to a spectacle that somehow has evaded my notice until recently, despite opening months ago. And should this article strike your interest, make haste: the show closes in less than two weeks. Drum roll, please.

Ladies and gents, the World’s Eighth Wonder!
Now on stage in the great Down Under!

(See how that rhymed? That was fun.)

Yes, true believers and unbelievers, that’s right: King Kong Live on Stage. I don’t know about you, but I have definitely felt the void in my own life from the lack of gigantic animatronic apes on the musical theatre stage. Luckily, other people out there have felt it too, and they did not stop until they did something about it. The creative forces behind this musical include: music by Marius de Vries, lyrics by Michael Mitnick and Craig Lucas, and book by Craig Lucas, and also some additional music from contemporary musicians. After five years of pre-production work, King Kong opened in the Regent Theatre in Melbourne, Australia on June 15, 2013, with Carla Pavlovic as producer, Daniel Kramer as director and John O’Connell as choreographer.

The show is an adaptation of the 1933 film King Kong, directed and produced by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack, and written by James Ashmore Creelman and Ruth Rose. (Who knew that one of the most iconic films of all time was co-written by a woman? Especially in 1933! #girlpower #readwomen2014.)