To See ELF the Musical at Drury Lane

 On SUNDAY the 27th of the 11th month of the year I went to see ELF THE MUSICAL at the Drury Lane theater with my mom, her partner, and my sister. Lynn Kurdziel Formato directed and choreographed this play. Buddy the Elf was played by Ben Dow who is a VERY VERY good at portraying Buddy. He was probably the BEST actor in the show. He was AMAZING!

If you don’t know the plot of the original 2003 movie, Buddy, (played by Ben Dow) crawls into Santa's (played by A.D. Weaver) bag one night and accidentally brings him back to the north pole, where the elves raise him as one of their own. When he is old enough to know better, he finally finds out he is a human and travels to New York to meet his human family (played by Sean Fortunado, Melody A Betts, and Gabriel Solis). Elves make toys at the North Pole, but you never know what kind of mischief or magic could happen in the busy city of NYC. Buddy learns how to make it snow in his dad’s office, makes Macy's a wonderland, falls in love with the Macys worker Jovie, (Lydia Burke), and has some really crappy souvlaki. In ELF THE MUSICAL, Buddy will face fruit spray and non-believers but he will never stop smiling because smiling’s his FAVORITE!

  Drury Lanes' musical adaptation added some pretty funny bits, like Santa watching NFL or Buddy saying he’s like Annie. But, I will say that they left out SO many essential parts from the movie, like the part where he goes in the women's locker room or when he goes around new york doing silly things, and PLUS, they had a big screen, so they had so much potential. They could've made the awesome snowball fight scene! They could've had buddy decorate the Gimbels, or, in this case, Macy's! The screen could have made SO many instant scene changes. Plus they left out the great part at the end where they’re trying to put the engine on while being chased by the guys on horses, bUt I dOnT sEe WhY tHaT wOuLd Be ChAlLeNgInG iN aNy WaY!!1!!1 (by the way that's called sarcasm. 😅) I thought the acting was GREAT. Each actor portrayed the character in the movie PERFECTLY and they had such great acting skills. They made it seem like it was all real and not just a play but also real life (which I guess doesn't make much sense because it IS real life but it's all acting is what I meant.). I thought the lighting was pretty OK, but it could've been better. I did like it a lot in the scenes where the characters were on the right or left sides of the stage and the light was fully everywhere, which let you look at the set more, instead of all focus being on the characters. The lighting was done by Lindsey Lyddan and Anthony Churchill. The costumes were PERFECT. So shoutout to among us Rachel Boylan and Emily Young! The music was decent, not bad at all but not THE GREATEST. I thought the songs could have used a bit of work, but some of the songs were just in general REALLY NICE. So good job to Carey Deadman, Ray Nardelli^, Matthew Skylar, and Chad Beguelin. Like I said before, they had a projector, so there wasn’t AS much of a need for a set on stage, but I kinda feel like it would've been better iF there were more on stage, because there were a lot of moments that I feel could've been better if there was more set ON STAGE. But I also think the projector was nice because it added a cartoony feel to the play, kind of like how there was a cartoony feel in the movie. 

I think this play was a 7 out of 10 elf hats, because, you know, elves? I recommend this play to people who like ELF (the movie) if they really want to see this. Because the tickets are kinda overpriced. 100 dollars a ticket? I think ELF THE MUSICAL had great potential but just wasn’t good enough to make me love it.  So yeah bye, GUNNAR

to see Mary Poppins at the Mercury Theatre

On Saturday afternoon I went to see Mary Poppins, directed by L. Walter Stearns at the Mercury Theatre.  I went with Mommy and Auntie Kerry.  The play is about Mary Poppins (played by Nicole Armold) who is a magical nanny that comes to take care of Michael and Jane when their other nanny goes away.

Michael (played by Casey Lyons) and Jane (played by Sage Harper) are two kids who want to spend time with their daddy but their daddy, George Banks (played by Kevin McKillip) is too busy working at the bank.  Bert (played by Matt Crowle) is also magical like Mary Poppins because he draws pictures that he can jump into by snapping his finger he also sings a lot and tap dances on roof tops, he's really good at that.  I was really impressed with Jane and Michael, I thought they made strong characters in their acting.

I really loved the set designed by Adam Veness because you could see the outside and the inside of the house. The outside was a painted curtain and the inside had a lot of different rooms that could change for different scenes. I loved the attic nursery because when they turned it around you could see Bert on the top of the roof.

The costumes designed by Rachel Boylan were very colorful and magical. During the song Jolly Holiday some of the black skirts maybe had some strings on them that when you pulled them you could see a more colorful skirt underneath. And I liked the dress worn by Mrs. Corry who sings Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious because it had lots of colors and lots of letters. I also really like Mary Poppins' costumes because she looked just like the Mary Poppins from the movie. Another costume part I thought was cool was when chimneys turned out to be people wearing chimneys for hats, there was even smoke coming out.

The show is really cool because it was full of magic and Mary Poppins was able to make things fly and even she could fly! My favorite part was when Michael and Jane were making icing for the cake and the Butler (played by Timothy Eidman) thought it wasn't icing he backed away and bumped into cabinets and made all the dishes crash and then he fell down and fell asleep, that was the silliest part it made me laugh so much. And my other favorite part was when George Banks was at the bank and he was thinking about how to say something and then he sang "it's Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" because he was being so silly and he finally decided to play like his kids.

I think the lessons to learn were for Michael and Jane to listen to their nanny and to learn new things and George Banks learned how to play with his children more.

I really think all of my friends especially Jo and Matilda and Sofia and Olivia and Mia and everyone in the whole wide world should see this show because then everyone can learn to be kind and listen to each other! Also they should see it because it is so fun!

I would give this play 9,900 points because it's the best play I ever saw!!

Love,
Gunnar

www.mercurytheatrechicago.com 

to see "THE WIZ" at Emerald City Theatre

On Saturday I went to "The Wiz" at Emerald City Theatre. The play was directed by Jamal Howard. I went with Daddy, Grandma and my friend Walter.

    The play was about a girl named, Dorothy, played by Isis Elizabeth,  who was in a tornado. The tornado took her to Oz. She met some friends. She met the Scarecrow, played by Leon Evans, the Tinman, played by Jar’Davion Brown, and Cowardly Lion, played by Miguel Long. They helped her see “the Wiz” who would help her get back to Kansas. The Scarecrow wanted brains, the Tinman wanted a heart, and the Lion wanted courage. The Wiz said he would grant their wishes if they killed the wicked witch Evilene. They killed her by pouring water on her. They went back to the Emerald City and the Wiz gave the Scarecrow a diploma, the Tinman got a heart and the Lion got a medal of courage, but Dorothy didn’t get back to Kansas.  The good witch told Dorothy she could use her magic silver shoes and she got back to Kansas.

    The set design by Michael Lewis had a door, clothespins, flowers and a giant block that became lots of things. Some of the costumes were sparkly. When the Tinman was wearing his costume, it really looked like a tin man and it was sparkly. The lions costume looked like a lion. They all wore green glasses in the Emerald City and green costumes. The costumes were designed by Kate Kamphausen.

    There were lots of great songs. I liked “Ease on Down the Road” the best. The actors had great voices and were good dancers.

    My favorite part was the gatekeeper of the Emerald City,  played by Frankie Leo Bennett.  I liked how he was being so sneaky.

    Everybody in the whole wide world should see this show because I think they would like it.

    I would give this play 100 points. It was Awesome!

To Dragons Love Tacos at Emerald City Theatre

10 POINTS!!!

Today I went with Mommy, Daddy, Margot, Auntie Kerry, Uncle Zach, Wesley, Jordan and Jo to see a play called "Dragons Love Tacos" at Emerald City Theatre, Co-directed with Chicago Repertory Ballet (there was lots of dancing) Adapted by Ernie Nolan, and directed by Morgan Ashley Madison. We went there with everybody because it was my birthday party, because I turned 5 years old on Sunday! I wanted to see this play because I have the book by Adam Rubin and Illustrated by Daniel Salmieri and I really like it.

When I walked in the theatre I saw a little house. The roof was red it was made out of bricks. The curtain behind the house was purple. The curtains covering the windows were blue. The bench was red. The chimney was red. There was a big tv in the middle that was black. There was a fence next to the house that was brown. And under a window there were pink flowers in a box.

The play didn't start the way I expected. When it started the boy (Liam Dahlborn) and his dog (Erik Streibig) were doing homework. And then the boys mom left and they were sad, they tried to play fetch but then there was lightening so it was raining so they couldn't go outside. They came back inside to play fetch. They did that for a while but they got bored so they watched tv. They watched silly things like when the man was trying to kiss the girl she was like "no! no!" But then a man (Andrew Goetten) was on tv and he was telling them about dragons and then suddenly he came out of the tv to tell them all about what dragons could do.

And the dragons came to the house by coming out of the hallway. There were four dragons, the Red Dragon (Christina Chen), the Yellow Dragon (Lucy Zukaitis), the Blue Dragon (Jon Martinez) and the White Dragon (Michelle Reid). The Dragons don't know how to talk but they did know how to dance and they did a LLLLLLL-AAAAAHHHHHHT (a lot) of dancing! The Red dragon was my favorite because Red is my favorite color, she had little wings. The yellow dragon had a tail and no wings, the blue dragon had claws and the white dragon had spikes. When the tacos came out they had a taco party, because dragons like parties and they like tacos.

My favorite part was when they were breathing fire and the white dragon took off a piece of the house! The one part I didn't like was the Thunder because it was too loud.

I liked the show a lot, 10 points. My friends like this show. I think Jaspar should see this show because he never saw it before. Girls and Boys who like dancing would like this show because there is lots of dancing.

The END.  

Love, Gunnar.