Sue Brickey
The Toledo Blade
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Past articles by Sue:
Rock musical 'Next to Normal' takes stage at Croswell
ADRIAN — Next to Normal, the acclaimed rock musical centered on a woman and her family who are struggling to cope with her bipolar disorder, opens Friday at the Croswell Opera House. The contemporary drama opened on Broadway in 2009 and won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, one of the few musicals to be given the drama award. “Next to Normal deals with heavy topics, but like most people, the… → Read More
Actress jazzed to help bring 'Chicago' to Toledo
Chicago: The Musical is bringing “All that Jazz” back to Toledo in performances at the Valentine Theatre on Saturday and Sunday. The original Broadway production, titled Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville, set in the Jazz Age Chicago of the 1920s, opened in 1975, with music by John Kander, lyrics by Fred Ebb, and choreography by Bob Fosse, with a book by Fosse and Ebb. Chicago is based on a 1926 play… → Read More
Marathon Center sets shows for eclectic season
FINDLAY — The Marathon Center for the Performing Arts is adding international and local flavor to its entertainment options in the coming months. “It’s a little eclectic, I think,” executive director Heather J. Clow said of the Marathon Center’s plan for 2018-2019. “We’re trying to do something for everybody, keep it interesting.” Among the attractions will be Michael Feinstein, “the Ambassador… → Read More
Broadway actor returns to roots in Croswell production
She Loves Me, a Broadway musical with a love story that inspired the 1998 film starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan, You’ve Got Mail, and Jimmy Stewart’s 1940 movie The Shop Around the Corner, opens Friday at the Croswell Opera House in Adrian for eight performances. An adaptation of the 1937 play Parfumerie by Hungarian playwright Miklós László, the musical comedy follows Amalia and Georg, who work… → Read More
What's coming to the Valentine Theatre?
Four national tours of Broadway musicals are featured in the Valentine Theatre’s celebration of its 20th season since reopening in 1999. The 2018-19 season also will include the Russian Ballet’s presentation of Cinderella; the Choir of Man, a touring concert with singing, stomping, and dancing, plus an on-stage bar in the style of the Broadway show Once; a performance of the play Love Letters… → Read More
Elaborate theater sets begin with a tiny replica
Setting the stage for a theater production, large or small, starts in miniature. The set designers create drawings and three-dimensional scale models, and the collaborative process of designing the actual set begins. “If you sign a contract for the professional theater, the set designer agrees to provide a whole pack of drafting that dictates how the show is built and a three-dimensional, color… → Read More
Temptations Revue: Valentine Gala channels Motown legends
Get ready: The Valentine Theatre’s annual fund-raising gala goes Motown on Saturday night with “The Temptations Revue,” featuring Barrington “Bo” Henderson, the Temptations’ lead singer from 1998 to 2003. The show will include songs spanning more than a decade of the Temptations hits, including “My Girl,” “Ain’t too Proud to Beg,” “Treat Her Like a Lady,” “The Way You Do the Things You Do,”… → Read More
UT presents Shakespeare's 'Tempest'
Student cast members of 'The Tempest' are, left to right, bottom: Emily E. Meyer, Bryan Harkins, Grace E. Mulinix, Drew Michael Young, and Hannah L. Gerlica, and, middle to top, Michael R. Miller, Becca M. Lustic, and Kurt T. Elfering. Angela Riddel Enlarge William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, presented by the University of Toledo department of theater and film, opens Friday for six performances… → Read More
Unscripted laughs: Improv group takes stage at Valentine Theatre
When the stage is set for Toledo’s professional Improv group Vice Chair, there’s no script; it’s all spontaneous fun and games, fueled by imagination. Improv is live theater with scenes, games, or stories spontaneously created onstage by two or more performers, often in response to audience suggestions. Guest performer Bradley Hall enjoys a fellow performer’s antics at ‘The Monthly.’ ALTA MELGAR… → Read More
Toledo Rep lines up classics, newer works for 2018-19
The Toledo Repertoire Theater’s 2018-19 Main Stage season offers theatergoers much to look forward to. The Rep’s 86th season opens in September with Fun Home, winner of five Tony Awards in 2015. Next, in October, is a play in a different mood: Slasher, a comedy that has fun with all the staples of a horror film. Then comes the Rep’s 32nd anniversary production of the holiday classic A Christmas… → Read More
Tony Award-winning musical 'A Chorus Line' arrives at the Valentine
A Chorus Line, an iconic show that ranks among the best of musical theater, comes to the Valentine Theatre for one performance Sunday. The musical won nine Tony Awards in 1976, including for best musical, best original score, and best book, and the 1976 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and it was among the longest-running in Broadway history. It was conceived, directed, and choreographed by Michael… → Read More
'Les Mis,' 'Finding Neverland' lead Toledo's Broadway lineup
Billy Harrigan Tighe and John Davidson in Finding Neverland. Courtesy of Jeremy Daniel Enlarge A celebrated new production of the Broadway hit Les Miserables and Finding Neverland, a musical that tells the story behind the story of Peter Pan, are among the highlights of the Theater League’s 2018-19 Broadway in Toledo Series presented at the Stranahan Theater. The new Broadway season, with five… → Read More
The hit maker: 'Beautiful' celebrates legendary Carole King
The national tour of the Broadway hit Beautiful: The Carole King Musical comes to the Stranahan Theater for eight performances beginning Tuesday. Sarah Bockel as Carole King in the touring Broadway show 'Beautiful,' which begins a series of 8 shows at the Stranahan Theater in Toledo Tuesday. The musical, which opened in 2014 and is still running on Broadway, follows the early life and climb to… → Read More
Variety of upcoming shows set for area theaters
The ticket to fighting the cold, cold world of Toledo’s winter is in the worlds of imagination in area theaters. Live theater productions can take audiences to the worlds of one of the queens of pop music, a pioneering scientist, a Broadway chorus line, and other exciting places, if just for an evening. Here are some of the shows to be presented in local theaters in January and February.… → Read More
'Mamma Mia!' leads Croswell's Broadway lineup
ADRIAN — Mamma Mia!, the long-running hit Broadway musical based on the songs of the Swedish band ABBA, is one of seven shows in the Croswell Opera House’s 2018 Broadway Season. The Croswell Opera House in Adrian has a big-name lineup of Broadway hits planned for the upcoming season. Jere Righter, the Croswell’s artistic director, had been working to obtain the rights to present the musical. “I… → Read More
Touring 'Cabaret' coming to Valentine
The Valentine Theatre opens the new year on Jan. 2 with a bold, brassy Broadway classic: the Tony Award-winning musical Cabaret. This national tour is based on New York’s Roundabout Theatre Company’s production of Cabaret developed by Sam Mendes and Rob Marshall. The musical, by John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff, first opened on Broadway in 1966. Its memorable score, composed by Kander… → Read More
Toledo theater has nurturing love of the stage since 1933
On April 16, 1933, Fred S. Emmett wrote to six others with a big idea, the creation of a “little theatre” here. The group got together on April 23, and the Toledo Repertoire Company was born. By June 8, 1933, the group was presenting its first production, Henrik Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, and the company’s first full season began Sept. 21 with The Shelf, a 1926 comedy/drama. In 1935, the Rep moved… → Read More
Rep to stage comedy by Toledo playwright
A comedy by Toledo playwright Eric Pfeffinger will have its Midwest premiere at the Toledo Repertoire Theater beginning Friday. In Human Error, set in Sylvania, a mix-up at a fertility clinic forces two couples who would probably never agree on anything, from politics to cultural values, to look for common ground. Pfeffinger received an Ohio Arts Council Award for Individual Excellence in 2016… → Read More
Village Players examine unfaithfulness in 'Betrayal'
Harold Pinter’s 1978 play Betrayal, opening Friday for six performances at the Village Players Theatre, tells the story of Robert and his wife, Emma and his friend, Jerry, and unfaithfulness is at its heart. Robert and Emma are married, Robert and Jerry have been friends for years, and Emma and Jerry are having a clandestine affair. That is a basic description of the storyline of a complicated… → Read More
A capella, beatboxing combine in 'Gobsmacked!'
Arriving from the United Kingdom at the Valentine Theatre on Thursday on its first U.S. tour, Gobsmacked! is not the usual a cappella show. By definition, a cappella singers makes music without instrumental accompaniment. But the six young singers starring in Gobsmacked! have the award-winning beatboxer Ball-Zee onstage with them to provide the accompaniment. He’s a three-time, undefeated U.K.… → Read More