Rick Johnson and Lilli Ann Linford-Foreman will sing the duet “A Little Priest” from the musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street” in Obsidian Opera Company’s “April Follies,” a fundraising show mixing opera, musical theater and dance.
Anthony Dimaano / The Bulletin
Song and dance in spring
Obsidian Opera to share an eclectic array of performances at Tower Theatre
By David Jasper / The Bulletin
Published: April 11. 2008 4:00AM PSTIt’s official. Spring has arrived.
Well, it’s arrived somewhere. Fortunately, it won’t matter this weekend if the temperature drops or the sun pulls one of its heartbreaking April disappearing acts.
Inside the Tower Theatre it will be spring fever with Obsidian Opera Company’s “April Follies: A Spring Bouquet of Song & Dance,” a program of arias and duets, ballet and tap, performed by an array of local talent and perfect for the season’s short attention spans.
The phrase “something for everyone” is a cliche, true enough, but when a show offers songs from opera and musical theater, a barbershop quartet and an Elvis tap medley by dancers from Gotta Dance studio, “something for everyone” starts to seem like the only appropriate wording.
Directed by Lilli Ann Linford-Foreman, “April Follies” opens with the harmonious sound of Bond Street Boys (comprising Marshall Herron, Steve Osterkamp, Richard Frazier and Ken McCormic), singing “Turn the Radio On.”
Thereafter, the Ubiquitous Dance Company gives a feast for the eyes in a dance called “Rods and Cones.”
Rick Johnson will sing “On the Street Where You Live,” from “My Fair Lady,” followed by Bond Street Boys and Melissa Bagwell collaborating on “Lida Rose” from “The Music Man.”
Kelli Kirkman and Kristin Guy will sing the duet from “Cosi fan Tutti.”
And that’s just the first half of Part One. Other things you’ll see in the show include:
*Sherie Neff singing “So in Love” from “Kiss Me Kate.”
* Bond Street Boys singing “Hello Mary Lou.”
•Monica Torrey singing an aria from “Faust.”
* The Children’s Musical Theatre Group singing “Human Again” from “Beauty and the Beast.”
At a rehearsal two weeks ago, Linford-Foreman met with some of the performers to work on staging the show.
She’s a busy woman. In addition to directing and preparing her own material for “April Follies,” she’s also rehearsing nightly for the Cascades Theatrical Company musical “Urinetown” in May.
“There’s a lot going on,” she acknowledges. Fortunately, with the low-key production of “April Follies,” “the idea is that most of the people have things prepared on their own, and so they’re pretty much working on their own on their pieces,” she said.
Linford-Foreman will perform “A Little Priest,” a duet from the cutthroat musical “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street,” with Rick Johnson.
“It’s like an old-time vaudeville show,” she adds. “It’s song and dance. We’ve got opera, we’ve got musical theater, we’ve got ballet and tap and barbershop, just all kinds of stuff.”
David Jasper can be reached at 383-0349 or djasper@bendbulletin.com.
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