A new year is usually a time for renewal, but three local theater companies have used January to look back with revivals — all worth seeing.
Uptown Players’ Broadway Our Way, pictured, isn’t a revival, really, but rather a tradition: The yearly musical revue and fundraiser for the gay theater troupe. And because Uptown has a rep for quality, it atttracts top-notch talent — truly the best voices and savviest dancers in the city. From the colorful opening to the funny-sexy male-on-male duet “You’ve Got Possibilities” (courtesy Chad Peterson and Kevin Moore), to Darius-Anthony Robinson’s trademark sass to Coy Covington’s dragtastic mashup as a Times Square hooker (complete with Noo Yawk accent) to John Campione’s one-two punch of “Suddenly Seymour” (with Angel Velasco) and “Don’t Rain on My Parade,” BOW is predictably wonderful and often hilarious. (Final weekend; UptownPlayers.org.)
Not every great voice is at the Kalita. Some have found their way to Stage West for the probably-final local revival of Avenue Q. The Sesame Street parody (complete with puppets) had a good run at Theatre 3 (almost two years!) but the prodcuction has moved across the Trinity with the original cast and creative team in place, but a bigger venue to share its collection of dick jokes and catchy tunes. It’s the kind of show you can discover something new in each time you see it; this time, it’s the strength and emotional resonance of Megan Kelly Bates’ singing, no where more evident than on the powerhouse ballad “There’s a Fine, Fine Line.” After a staggering 200 performances together, this cast is just as energetic as they were on opening night … and a bit friskier. Just try not to have fun. (Through Feb. 15; StageWest.org.)
A third local cast zeroes out the singing pool at Theatre 3, where On the Eve just opened. When this original musical played, for just a few weeks, in December 2012 at the tiny Margo Jones Theatre in Fair Park, it thrilled the handful of people who saw it (it was my No. 1 show of 2012). T3 snatched up the rights, and now the production is back with most of the same cast (including composers Seth Magill, who plays the heroic Chase Spacegrove, and his wife Shawn Magill, who plays keyboards and sings backup). A rock musical about creativity, time travel, sex and history, On the Eve jolts you out of your seat with the opening number, and keeps you riveted through a dozen quirky songs. Gregory Lush, who plays The Talking Man, has the kind of charisma Alan Cumming evinced in Cabaret — a sleazy, slightly threatening mystery — but the whole cast delivers. The songs could use buttons to end them more definitively, but director Jeffrey Schmidt hs done such a consummate job with the material, you could pick this production up and drop it off at any off-Broadway theater and have the toast of New York. See it now, and one day tell your grand-nephews you were among the first. (Through Feb. 9; Theatre3Dallas.com.)
This article appeared in the Dallas Voice print edition January 24, 2014.