Write a review for a play that you attended this semester

The only play I had really seen this was IUP’s Music Theatre Departments Sweet Charity, but I am going to write a review on the last production I seen before that. I went to see Opera Winfrey Presents the Color Purple. I believe I seen this play Sunday June 15, 2008 at 7; 30 pm at Pittsburgh’ Benedum Center. This show ran at the time America Idol’s Fantasia Barrino was kicked of the cast, because she was unable to learn to read the script. It was said she got the role just because of her amazing voice, which is rightfully just. The crowd was so in to it. This story is about African American life in the 1930’s, and the humble beginnings of not being a slave. This play was based off of American author Alice Walker’s novel that won the 1983 Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Two years later it was bought on to the big screen by Steven Spielberg. This film had a lot of notable African American actors and actresses. Here is some that might sound familiar; Danny Glover, Oprah Winfrey, Whoopi Goldberg, and Larry Fishbune.
The music was excellent and the crowd was mainly an all black crowd and it was a Sunday. The cast end up taken it back to Church. This musical was very inspiration to me. I wish the Movie had as much music as the play did, or I would watch the movie more often. The singers sang with incredible range and power to the point that they would have you balling, and rejoicing all in the same song. All of the male vocals where incredibly powerful, and with exceptional range. There was one cat in particular who sang a gospel oriented number and end up hitting some Patti Labelle notes. Almost after every song people would not just applaud but cheer because the singing was so superb. Another aspect of the music that was great was the pit/ orchestra. Not to be bias but my favorite instrumentalist was the drummer. He had several parts that where complicated that the rest of the band did not have to follow him. The drummer was also very flashy and worked real well with his percussionist. I know personally it was always hard to find a good percussionist that the drum set player would actually like to play with. They complimented each other so well that for the longest time they had my eyes off of the show. The piano player was tremendously soulful. The man had to have studied years and years of Jazz and blues. I could also hear the classical training in him, just by the way he used his sustain pedal and the nimbleness of his finger when he would do his runs. Shot out to the composer because the piano part was dead on to the point it wasn’t accompaniment, but more so unison type deal.
Another thing that I enjoyed was that every actor had a memorable stage presence. That is another reason why I like the play better is mainly the fact they were a lot wittier. I know for live performances the director makes everyone ham it up. I stictincly remember the actor who played Sofia, truly stole the show. It was even everything she said. It was the way she interacted when others had the spotlight. I would call her an excellent active background. There was only one thing that I did not enjoy which was the dancing. It didn’t compare to all the other aspects, which made it look worse to me. Other than that, it was a great evening out in the city of Pittsburgh.