Thursday 18 April 2013

And Shakespeare Said Let It Be Pink?

"Oh my God, oh my God you guys"... Legally Blonde the musical is playing at Hamilton's Theatre Aquarius! I ventured out in the drizzly evening with my mother and my grandmother. I really wanted to stay dry indoors, wrapped up in my blanket with a tea and my book but I powered through and I am glad I did! It was the best production I have seen at Theatre Aquarius to date, and I've seen quite a few. This (and my "THEATRE" friend Amanda who suggested it) have lead me to this post. Community theater VS. Professional theater in good old Hamont!

Bruiser

Here is where "blonde" Elle Woods decides to go to Harvard Law!

I am lucky enough to have many friends in the theatre community and therefore have been to lots and lots...and lots of performances. I also just plain old love theatre. I was in a couple of plays in high school and I swear to God I still have dreams about it. It was such an amazing experience. The lights, the costumes...sigghhh...

Aquarius usually can be depended upon to put on some great plays, but I've seen a couple that weren't AH-mazing, but usually those were non-musicals and seemed how many would think "community theatre" is. Slow, boring, abstract. Luckily I can honestly say I have yet to encounter a community theatre production in Hamilton that has met any of the stereotypes.

To me there is such a small divide in Hamilton theatre. Everything is pretty top notch, even the low budget shows have been so full of life with talent that it rings through. The last "community" show I saw was Hamilton Theatre Inc's Godspell. I had never seen Godspell but was very intrigued (and scared) by it. I'm not religious by most accounts but I know the bible stories and Jesus Christ Superstar is actually my favourite musical. Still, I was nervous that I would be somewhat out of the loop with this one.

I recognized many performers from other community theatre shows and was blown away by the amount of talent in the room. Small stage, tiny set, home made costumes but overall an incredible production. Although it was about Jesus and his disciples it never got too "God-y". It was fun and had lots of great voices. It was nice to see almost everybody in the cast get some kind of solo and they really worked well with the small space they had.

Jesus is my homeboy...

Wonderful cast of "clowns" aka. disciples!


Other than musicals a couple of my favourite community shows have been Black Box Fire's Pride and Prejudice (HUGE Austen fan right here)  which took place at HTI's space and Black Box Fire`s awesome production of Dracula (also a big vampire fan :P). They were both SO good. Dracula played at The Staircase Theatre and had a very small cast but nothing about it looked cheap. The actors were great and it was a wonderful version of Dracula.

I guess to sum up I would just like to say that there is so much talent in this town that you can't really go wrong when choosing which theatre productions to attend. Just remember more expensive doesn't always mean better. There are great shows for every budget. Even some high school productions (ahem...like Hill Park's 2002 production of OLIVER...) are captivating.

Here is a list of some amazing theatre companies in the Hammer where you could potentially go see some stellar shows:

Theatre Aquarius
Hamilton Place
Hamilton Theatre Inc.
Black Box Fire
Shooting Star Theatrics
Hammer Entertainment
The Players' Guild of Hamilton
Theatre Ancaster


Also Legally Blonde: The Musical is playing at Theatre Aquarius until April 27th, 2013! Click here to go see it!

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