Skip to main content

On with the Show


  




Last Saturday evening found me making my way via GPS to Marriotts Ridge High School to see Howard County Summer Theater’s production of  Hello, Dolly! My journey provided a needed reminder that there are parts of Howard County I rarely visit and that, frankly, feel like the middle of nowhere to me, especially after dark.  I certainly could do a better job at exploring the unfamiliar. 

This year marks Howard County Summer Theater’s 47th season as a summer theater group in the Columbia/HoCo community.I have been to see their shows exactly twice: both times to see friend Dave Bittner in a leading role. This time he’s playing Horace Vandergelder in the musical adaptation of Thornton Wilder’s The Matchmaker. I’m a big fan of Wilder’s original play and tend to think it didn’t need a musical version. But clearly Hello, Dolly!  has been making its way in the world successfully for quite some time without benefit of my opinion.

If you like musical theater and have a soft spot in your heart for amateur productions you shouldn’t miss this opportunity to see everything that community theater does best. Tickets are 22 dollars for adults and 18 dollars for children and seniors over 60. Visit the Howard County Summer Theater website to learn more and to buy tickets for this weekends three performances: 6/30, 6/31, and 7/1. 

Vying with the delicious, over-the-top nature of the evening’s entertainment is the fact that proceeds from all shows benefit two local nonprofits: Grassroots and Prepare for Success. If you’re feeling particularly generous there’s a big glass jar on the ticket table where you can throw in some extra cash to support these two excellent initiatives.

I’m going to pause here to make a pitch for Prepare for Success. I’ve written about them before. When I received a letter from Susan and Roy Appletree last week, reminding me that this year’s campaign was about to begin, I smiled. For one thing, I already had a ticket to Hello, Dolly! which would help support their mission and two, they clearly know I’m a sucker for a pitch letter with an additional handwritten message. 



Its mission is simple. Prepare for Success works to provide school supplies, including backpacks, to students whose families don’t have the resources to purchase them. Their goal is to remove that obstacle to learning and to help start each of their school years on a positive note. 

So, if you already love musical theatre, this is a win/win situation for you. Buy a ticket, see the show, support area nonprofits. If for some reason you are allergic to musicals (I’m not judging you!) feel free to click on over and give to the initiatives themselves:
If you’re all in when it comes to musicals, you might enjoy this episode of the Razzle Dazzle podcast on Dragon Digital Radio from HCC “Catching up with Summer Theater and Lake Front Live” on Podbean. 
https://www.podbean.com/ei/pb-jxuht-143be41

One last thought:

“Hello, Dolly’s” most prominent theme: the effects of living in wealth vs. poverty, is conveyed most clearly through the protagonist, Dolly Levi’s pursuit of marriage. A quest motivated not by love, but by money. Make no mistake though, Dolly Levi is no gold digger. She’s extremely skilled, ambitious, and generous. Such assets, however, were marked as valueless for women in this era. Dolly’s experience in living hand-to-mouth motivates her to seek out a wealthy husband to increase the standard of her life, and the life of anyone in need.

This lovable, multi-faceted character’s perspective on wealth is the obvious intended take away of this musical: “Money, pardon the expression, is like manure,” says Dolly, quoting her late husband Ephraim. “It’s not worth a thing unless it’s spread around, encouraging young things to grow.”- - Halimah Budeir, VOX ATL

Village Green/Town² Comments







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents.  When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...
1 comment
Read more

F ³: We Are Not Entitled

  A college student went missing. His family and friends were distraught. The community was encouraged to be on the lookout and spread the word.  Days passed.  They must have been agonizing days for those who cared about the missing student. Thoughts that foul play had been involved cannot have been far from their thoughts.  Then, at last, the student was found. Alive. The news was shared with the public.  So. Much. Relief. A family had been reunited with their child. Even though we know that life is complicated, I think it is okay to accept this as a happy ending and leave it at that.  But the world of social media says no. For every expression of joy at the news came questions and even judgement. It became clear to me that some folks felt entitled to an explanation. They wanted the backstory. It’s as though they felt that, by enlisting the help of the public on social media, the authorities now owed them all the details. Television dramas often weave curr...
2 comments
Read more

Separate and Unequal

  Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in  broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not.  It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...
1 comment
Read more