Doug Baird

Do you or don’t you?

A Good Reed Review Review , , , , , , ,

IDID_Irene & JamesBy Ande Jacobson

Can you imagine being married to someone for 50 years? At Tabard’s first I Do! I Do! Saturday matinee, as Leslie and Jerry Lloyd gave the curtain speech, they queried the audience to see how many couples had been married for at least 20, 30, 40, 50, 55, 60, and finally 70 years. It was surprising how many hands shot up, and stayed up through 55. Once they got to 60, only one couple still had their hands up, so the Lloyd’s started counting by one’s. The wife’s hand went down when they got to 70, but the husband’s hand was still up. His confusion was understandable as their 70th anniversary is coming up in June this year. Continue reading →

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“If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans”

A Good Reed Review Review , , , , , , , , , , ,

MGL FamilyBy Ande Jacobson

As she was researching shows for this 13th season, the title Making God Laugh jumped out at Tabard’s executive director, Cathy Spielberger Cassetta. Intrigued, she started corresponding with the playwright, Sean Grennan. As she says in her program notes, she found “merit, wisdom, and folly in it” and decided to add this little yet-to-be-published gem as one of the “Twists” to the season. Grennan describes his play as a “dramedy that takes place in four scenes at a family home, each ten years apart.” First is a Thanksgiving dinner in 1980 and the play continues with one scene per decade until spring of 2010.  Grennan too has a program note and says “all playwrights have to write their Family play.” This is his, and Grennan’s characters are each familiar in some ways. The script is very funny, and he uses several pop-culture references both in musical quotes (e.g., “Jet Song” from West Side Story, “Everything’s Comin’ Up Roses” from Gypsy, Lightfoot’s “If You Could Read My Mind”) along with some period-specific failures (e.g., AMC’s Pacer, Yugo, Enron) to help hammer home the points he’s making. Continue reading →