Sunday, August 23, 2009

NY Fringe Festival Review: Camp Super Friend

Camp is for Super Heroes, but Lessons are for Everyone

Presented by: Taproot Theatre Company
Writer: Bethany Wallace
Director: Josiah Wallace

Summary:
Super Hero Marvel (Solomon Davis) can speed read and retain information, but doesn’t know how to make friends when his father (Peter Nolte) drops him off at Camp Super Friend, where heroes with various powers are put through a course by Cosma (Laura Bannister) who challenges them to work as a team. Jet (also Nolte), who can move so quick you can’t see him and who has a plane on his shirt, is also a super bully who appears to have a lot of friends. Marvel decides to follow his example, but soon finds it doesn’t win him any friends.

A subplot involves a scheme by Professor Nemesis (also Bannister) and her henchwoman Una (Adrienne Littleton) to steal the heroes’ super powers. To thwart it, Jet, Marvel and the other campers have to join together (the cast is rounded out by Charissa Huff, playing some sort of bug super hero).

Highlights:
• A cute show for little kids which entertains as well as teaches important lessons about how to make friends and treat others. The kids in the audience often participated when prompted by responding verbally with lessons that had been taught earlier in the show. They got it.
• Adult audience members were laughing, probably more than the kids, at the silly, over-the-top humor. One scene involving the collection of chipmunk saliva caused me to laugh out long and hard. Very funny and well executed.
• All of the cast members sans Davis play multiple parts and do a good job of making some lightning-quick costume changes behind a colorful backdrop depicting cartoon scenes from camp life.
• The audience at the Saturday 2:15 performance deserves super hero awards. Never have I seen a more attentive and well-behaved audience of kids.

Lowlights:
•The bug hero is underdeveloped. Not sure what her powers were, exactly.

Christians might also like to know:
•Taproot Theatre Company was founded in 1976 by six college graduates from Seattle Pacific University. From its beginnings as a touring group, the company has become one of Seattle's largest mid-size theatre companies serving more than 150,000 people annually throughout the Pacific Northwest with a full Mainstage season, touring programs and Acting Studio. Taproot Theatre exists to create theatre that explores the beauty and questions of life while providing hope to our search for meaning. Visit them at http://www.blogger.com/www.taproottheatre.org.
Fringe Tassels Awarded: 3

VENUE #14: The Cherry Lane Theatre
Run has ended

--Lauren Yarger

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Our reviews are professional reviews written without a religious bias. At the end of them, you can find a listing of language, content or theological issues that Christians might want to know about when deciding which shows to see.

** Mature indicates that the show has posted an advisory because of content. Usually this means I would recommend no one under the age of 16 attend.

Theater Critic Lauren Yarger

Theater Critic Lauren Yarger

My Bio

Lauren Yarger has written, directed and produced numerous shows and special events for both secular and Christian audiences. She co-wrote a Christian musical version of “A Christmas Carol” which played to sold-out audiences of over 3,000 in Vermont and was awarded the Vermont Bessie (theater and film awards) for “People’s Choice for Theatre.” She also has written two other dinner theaters, sketches for church services and devotions for Christian artists. Her play concept, "From Reel to Real: The Jennifer O'Neill Story" was presented as part of the League of professional Theatre Women's Julia's reading Room Series in New York. Shifting from reviewing to producing, Yarger owns Gracewell Productions, which produced the Table Reading Series at the Palace Theater in Waterbury, CT. She trained for three years in the Broadway League’s Producer Development Program, completed the Commercial Theater Institute's Producing Intensive and other training and produced a one-woman musical about Mary Magdalene that toured nationally and closed with an off-Broadway run. She was a Fellow at the National Critics Institute at the O'Neill Theater Center in Waterford, CT. She wrote reviews of Broadway and Off-Broadway theater (the only ones you can find in the US with an added Christian perspective) at http://reflectionsinthelight.blogspot.com/.

She is editor of The Connecticut Arts Connection (http://ctarts.blogspot.com), an award-winning website featuring theater and arts news for the state. She was a contributing editor for BroadwayWorld.com. She previously served as theater reviewer for the Manchester Journal-Inquirer, Connecticut theater editor for CurtainUp.com and as Connecticut and New York reviewer for American Theater Web.

She is a Co-Founder of the Connecticut Chapter of the League of Professional Theatre Women. She is a former vice president and voting member of The Drama Desk.

She is a freelance writer and playwright (member Dramatists Guild of America). She is a member if the The Outer Critics Circle (producer of the annual awards ceremony) and a member of The League of Professional Theatre Women, serving as Co-Founder of the Connecticut Chapter. Yarger was a book reviewer for Publishers Weekly A former newspaper editor and graduate of the University of Missouri’s School of Journalism, Yarger also worked in arts management for the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts, the Hartford Symphony Orchestra and served for nine years as the Executive Director of Masterwork Productions, Inc. She lives with her husband in West Granby, CT. They have two adult children.

Copyright

All material is copyright 2008- 2022 by Lauren Yarger. Reviews and articles may not be reprinted without permission. Contact reflectionsinthelight@gmail.com

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Key to Content Notes:

God's name taken in vain -- means God or Jesus is used in dialogue without speaking directly to or about them.

Language -- means some curse words are used. "Minor" usually means the words are not too strong or that it only occurs once or twice throughout the show.

Strong Language -- means some of the more heavy duty curse words are used.

Nudity -- means a man or woman's backside, a man's lower front or a woman's front are revealed.

Scantily clad -- means actors' private areas are technically covered, but I can see a lot of them.

Sexual Language -- means the dialogue contains sexually explicit language but there's no action.

Sexual Activity -- means a man and woman are performing sexual acts.

Adultery -- Means a married man or woman is involved sexually with someone besides their spouse. If this is depicted with sexual acts on stage, the list would include "sexual activity" as well.

Sex Outside of Marriage -- means a man and woman are involved sexually without being married. If this is depicted sexually on stage, the list would include "sexual activity" as well.

Homosexuality -- means this is in the show, but not physically depicted.

Homosexual activity -- means two persons of the same sex are embracing/kissing. If they do more than that, the list would include "sexual activity" as well.

Cross Dresser -- Means someone is dressing as the opposite sex. If they do more than that on stage the listing would include the corresponding "sexual activity" and/or "homosexual activity" as well.

Cross Gender -- A man is playing a female part or a woman is playing a man's part.

Suggestive Dancing -- means dancing contains sexually suggestive moves.

Derogatory (category added Fall 2012) Language or circumstances where women or people of a certain race are referred to or treated in a negative and demeaning manner.

Other content matters such as torture, suicide, or rape will be noted, with details revealed only as necessary in the review itself.

The term "throughout" added to any of the above means it happens many times throughout the show.

Reviewing Policy

I receive free seats to Broadway and Off-Broadway shows made available to all voting members of the Outer Critics Circle. Journalistically, I provide an unbiased review and am under no obligation to make positive statements. Sometimes shows do not make tickets available to reviewers. If these are shows my readers want to know about I will purchase a ticket. If a personal friend is involved in a production, I'll let you know, but it won't influence a review. If I feel there is a conflict, I won't review their portion of the production.

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