Out & About Nashville
“Aladdin and His Winter Wish” at TPAC in Nashville, TN
By William Shutes
December 20, 2019

If you’ve felt a near-seismic eye rolling ripple through Middle Tennessee, oft accompanied by a low, roaring groan, in the evenings since last weekend, rest assured that the twin phenomena are neither harmful nor long-lasting.  Usually, the mention of rolling eyes and groans in a theatre review would mean that the show on the boards is a real stinker.  Or, as this show would put it, “Sugly” – a portmanteau of Smelly and Ugly.  While there are certainly prettier shows out there, if you’re in the market for bad dad jokes accompanied by a “Ba-dum-CHING!” on the trap set, hie thineself to TPAC’s Polk Theatre with all haste, for Aladdin and His Winter Wish will have you laughing at the utterly absurd, peculiarly English humor that is Panto.

Chances are you don’t have the faintest idea what Panto is.  In short, it’s a fairy tale that has been moderately bastardized.  In fact, it’s a virtual theatrical turducken of star actors, bad jokes, pop songs, a smidgeon of cross dressing, visual gags, and a thin veneer of Christmas spirit all lobbed into a fairy tale picture frame.  What you’re left with this year is a rip-snorting good time with more inside jokes than you can count.

Now, a warning… (in my best Meryl Streep in Death Becomes Her impression, “NOW, a warning?”):  Do not enter the Polk Theatre expecting Disney’s Aladdin.  If you are, you’re going to be disappointed and, folks, it’d be cheaper to pop in the Blu Ray and sing a couple Christmas songs throughout the evening.  Besides, Father Disney does not take kindly to folks stepping on its creative toes.  There will be only a sideways mention that Disney exists and it’s one of the night’s best jokes.

Leading the show as Aladdin is television and stage star Damon J. Gillespie, a veteran of Disney’s Broadway mounting of their Aladdin musical.  As his Princess is Nickelodeon starlet Kira Kosarin, known for her work on The Thundermans.  They’re a sweet couple with evident chemistry.  Not that it’s deeply necessary.  This is a fairytale and the ending is rather a foregone conclusion.

As the Sultan, Home Improvement and Family Feud legend Richard Karn struts his stuff admirably, though he should have a big song and dance number.  There’s more than enough to go around.  As resident baddie, Josh Adamson’s Abanazar is hammier and cheesier than a good croque monsieur.  If you go, please boo him loudly, as befits the panto villain.  He’ll just chew on the scenery and tell a few more really terrible jokes and you’ll thank him for it.

The comic relief comes in the forms of Aladdin’s brother Wishee Washee (a smashing Jonathan Meza), Bruce Vilanch as the Widow Twankey (mother to both Aladdin and Wishee), and Mykal Kilgore’s superb Genie.  Meza’s Wishee keeps the show moving as narrator and sometimes village idiot and his physical comedy game is tip-top.  Vilanch’s Widow Twankey is the traditional Panto Dame, a male star whose female character is exaggerated in about every way possible.  But it’s not the widow’s T&A game that wows as much as the Tease-it-to-Jesus bouffant wig that would make Marge Simpson and the B-52’s a little envious.

But then there’s the Genie and… Geezus Christmas… Mykal Kilgore is a staggering talent.  The man has more pipes than a water plant, kids.  A veteran of Broadway’s The Book of Mormon and Hair as well as NBC’s recent live mounting of Jesus Christ Superstar, Kilgore is the real real.  Seriously, I’ve seen Disney’s Aladdin onstage.  Dear Disney Theatrical and Thomas Schumacher:  CALL HIM.  This man should be your Genie, too.  The voice… my god… I refuse to spoil any of the numbers he throws into the rafters, but they’re all incredible.

The set is simple (and in desperate need of a good steaming to get out the wrinkles), but it’s deeply effective.  Magic Carpet?  You betcha.  The costumes don’t really break any new ground for the majority of the company, but Bruce Vilanch’s Widow Twankey gets some wonderfully weird togs to strut around in.

If you’re expecting Shakespeare, please just don’t.  If you yearn for the melodies of Rodgers and Hammerstein… check your batteries, Alma.  But if you want a groaning good time that will leave you with a goofy smile on your face, Aladdin and His Winter Wish will probably be the perfect holiday kick-off for you.

Aladdin and His Winter Wish continues through Sunday, December 22 at TPAC’s Polk Theatre.  Tickets are available at TPAC’s website and box office.

The post Bruce Vilanch in Aladdin and His Winter Wish first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Out & About Nashville
Profile: Actor and Comedian Bruce Vilanch
By William Shutes
December 13, 2019

If Barbra Streisand will always own the title Funny Girl from her star-making turn in the musical of the same name, Bruce Vilanch is and has been Hollywood’s Funny Guy for decades.  Known behind the scenes for a razor wit and in front of the camera as the ham sidekick to Whoopi Goldberg’s center square in the late-90s reboot of the game show, Hollywood Squares, Vilanch is making a star turn in the 2019 TPAC presentation of the Lythgoe Family Panto, Aladdin and His Winter Wish.  Vilanch spoke with me last month as he prepared to head to Nashville for this Christmas spectacular.

Will:  So first of all, you’ve pretty much been the go-to guy for decades when a celebrity needs Grade-A material to get the audience roaring with laughter. You’ve won Emmy Awards for your quick wit.  I watched a video while I was doing my preparation when you talk about the Academy Awards with Billy Crystal, and basically rewriting the script as the show went on so that you could just keep it fresh and keep it topical.  Did funny come to you naturally or is it something that evolved and that you grew into?

Vilanch:  It’s an interesting proposition.  I mean, I guess it came to me naturally.  I was sort of surrounded, also, by people who were funny and had my mother’s family in particular who were really funny.  But I think that when you’re fat, ungainly, unathletic, and a kid you have to work up some defenses.  And I discovered I could use humor as a way to, as Whoopi (Goldberg) says, it gives you a chance to run.  It disarmed them, and so I used that a lot when I was a kid.  And I don’t know where that came from. You know I spent a lot of time making faces in the mirror and all that and my mother was very theatrical so I had that to look up to.

And so I suppose it’s just one of those things we don’t know that we have it’s like some people have math.  I still don’t have math.  I think it’s one of those indefinable chemical things that happened in the brain that we think we know but we really don’t.

Will:  It’s interesting when you talk to, you know, so many different drag queens and comedians who really do identify that you know, it was being an other. That really sort of put them on to that pathway.

Vilanch:  Sometimes that is translated to “Did you have an unhappy childhood?”  So you had a life of the mind that wasn’t unhappy, but I did have a life of the mind because I wasn’t interested in conventional stuff, A lot of people who fold into conventional form don’t have to think about any of that. And, and we do. 

I was on The View once Joy Behar said, “Well, I had a very happy childhood and I turned out alright.”  I’m not gonna fight that.  When you feel you’re not a conventional person, you have to find other ways.  And I think they are found for you naturally if you pay attention to them, for sure.

Will:  Christmas pantomime is really sort of a peculiarly English form of entertainment and Nashville’s developed a love for it.  Last year, they did a presentation of a Peter Pan panto that was very well received.  In Aladdin and His Winter Wish, you’re playing the Widow Twanky who, in the past, has been played by other huge names like Sir Ian McKellen and John Inman from Are You Being Served?  Have you ever had any experience with panto before?

Vilanch:  We did Aladdin and His Winter Wish at the Pasadena Playhouse three or four years ago.  We had a blast.  It was a great success and we had a lot of fun.  The Lythgoes on doing this all over the country now I mean, they’re in Salt Lake City and they’re down in Laguna.  So this is in the new great tradition, but I mean the big names have done them on stage in London because it is it’s it’s one of those English Christmas things.  It’s a chance for very serious actors to carry on and camp it up.  So it’s like taking a vacation from seeing was “real” theater that is very heavy minded and serious and just letting everybody kind of take a romp.  We take these fairy tales, stuff them with pop songs, and everybody just gets to ham it up like crazy.  It’s really family entertainment,

Will:  You’re truly one of the biggest showbiz mavens that we have.  You’ve written for everybody from Bette Midler to The Brady Bunch.  You’ve been a Hollywood Square And you’ve even stepped into Edna Turnblad’s shoes in Hairspray.  Across your very storied career, do you have one or two achievements of which you find yourself most proud?

Vilanch:  Well, I did 25 Oscar shows and so I guess I’m proud of that.  We won two Emmys in that crop, which is a fabulous roller coaster ride to be on.  And Hairspray, of course, is high up there and being on Hollywood Squares for six years, to the left of Whoopi, if that’s possible. And after 20 years in Hollywood suddenly becoming a famous person has actually been the strangest thing of all.

I point to those like career highs, but I’m proud that I’ve used whatever talent and fame that I’ve got to promote things I’m interested in for the betterment of mankind.  To get civil rights for gay people, promote Jewish causes, and the things that I’m interested in within the communities I’m a part of to try and make the world better for them.

Will:  The Hollywood Reporter – I love this – has referred to you as La La land’s unofficial gay mascot.  Has the nature of being out and proud of being out in Hollywood changed much in the last decade or is it still a lot of the same old story of stars having to hide just inside the closet to keep their careers?

Vilanch:  Well, I don’t think that happens outside of the acting discipline.  The rest of the world is out.  The executives… I think even below the line in the guilds, which have traditionally been bastions of longshoremen kind of On the Waterfront sort of thinking, I think those have opened up, too.  And they’ve opened up to women, which is even bigger than just gay people because there are more women than there are gay people.

But the last thing to fall is the acting thing and that’s basically because we’re selling illusion and the question that everybody asks when they cast somebody is, “Can he kiss the girl?  Will the audience buy him if he kisses the girl?”  And so there’s this raging debate about straight actors should only play straight parts and gay actors should only play gay parts and all of this middle of all these are transgender people saying, “Well, what about us?”

So it’s gotten very confused, but I think that will be the last thing to go.  And I think that won’t happen until you have a number of big deal athletes in major league sports who are out and proud.  And our stars… that’s going to be tough to do.  That will always be tough to do because, you know, this is the last bastion of macho.  And macho has to change.  Macho has to change to admit that there are other kinds of personalities besides macho ones.

Will:  That’s something that Nashville faces.  You have stars that had great careers and then came out, and suddenly they became pariahs.  Of course, you’ve got rumors that swirl about some stars and if they ever are able to come out.

Vilanch:  I did a benefit with Ty Herndon a few weeks ago.  We were talking about that.  At this benefit, he came out and sang his big hit “What Mattered Most.”  And then he said, “Now I’m going to sing it the way I wrote it: with the proper pronouns.  He went and sang it over again.  Of course, it was a knockout for that crowd.  He was illustrating his struggle. 

It’s all part of the whole macho culture, the old good old boy syndrome.  But what’s interesting now is that the Me Too movement has come along and it has just shown such a bright light on that whole idea of what is acceptable, what is “good old boy behavior,” what is macho, when you cross the line, and white privilege and male privilege and all of that stuff.  It’s all now under a microscope, a legal microscope, among others.  So this is this is the beginning of change, I think.

Will:  I ask this final question of a lot of people who’ve had really interesting, exemplary careers with plenty to reflect back on. What would you want to tell your younger self if you could?

Vilanch:  I think I would, I would probably say, “Don’t be so hard on yourself.  You got it, run with it.”  Self-doubt is always there, whether you like it or not, but to make it the theme of your life is crippling.  And I found that to be the case. Not that often, obviously, but occasionally.

If I had to tell myself, I’d probably also say less pizza.  That would really be what that would be the first thing I would say is less pizza.

The run of “Aladdin and His Winter Wish” continues at TPAC’s Johnson Theatre until December 22nd.  Tickets are available at TPAC.org and at the box office.

Click HERE for more by Will Shutes.

Bruce Vilanch

Aladdin And His Winter Wish

DATE: December 12-22, 2019
LOCATION: James K. Polk Theater
STARTING AT: $40

KNOW BEFORE YOU GO

Valet parking is not available during weekday matinee performances.

“Magic for the holidays, a fun family ride!”, raves the Los Angeles Times. The age-old fairytale of Aladdin is given a modern twist with pop music, from “Treasure” by Bruno Mars to Ray Charles’ “You Don’t Know Me”, magic, and comedy.

Helped by the magical Genie, Aladdin meets and falls in love with the Princess and later has to save her from the clutches of the evil magician Abanazar. With his hopeless brother Wishee Washee alongside him, will Aladdin defeat the evil magician and make all of his dreams come true?
From the producers of last year’s hit Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, Aladdin and His Winter Wish is the perfect family show all ages will wish to see this holiday season!

Featured Celebrity Cast:
Kira Kosarin as the Princess (Nickelodeon’s The Thundermans)
Bruce Vilanch as Widow Twanky (Hollywood Squares)
Damon J. Gillespie as Aladdin 
(Broadway’s Newsies, NBC’s Rise)
Richard Karn as the Sultan(Home Improvement)
Josh Adamson as Abanaazar (ABC Family’s First Landing)
Jonathan Meza as Wishee Washee(Nickelodeon’s The Jumpitz)
Mykal Kilgore as Genie (NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live)

The post Comedian Bruce Vilanch Currently Stars in "Aladdin And His Winter Wish" In Nashville's TPAC Center, December 12-22, 2019 first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

TPAC & Lythgoe Family Give Kids Panto present Aladdin and His Winter Wish

“Magic for the holidays, a fun family ride!”, raves the Los Angeles Times. The age-old fairytale of Aladdin is given a modern twist with pop music, from “Treasure” by Bruno Mars to Ray Charles’ “You Don’t Know Me”, magic, and comedy.

Helped by the magical Genie, Aladdin meets and falls in love with the Princess and later has to save her from the clutches of the evil magician Abanazar. With his hopeless brother Wishee Washee alongside him, will Aladdin defeat the evil magician and make all of his dreams come true?

From the producers of last year’s hit Peter Pan and Tinker Bell, Aladdin and His Winter Wish is the perfect family show all ages will wish to see this holiday season!

Featured Celebrity Cast:

Kira Kosarin as the Princess (Nickelodeon’s The Thundermans)

Bruce Vilanch as Widow Twanky (Hollywood Squares)

Damon J. Gillespie as Aladdin (Broadway’s Newsies, NBC’s Rise)

Richard Karn as the Sultan(Home Improvement)

Josh Adamson as Abanaazar (ABC Family’s First Landing)

Jonathan Meza as Wishee Washee(Nickelodeon’s The Jumpitz)

Mykal Kilgore as Genie (NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live)

DATES: December 12-22, 2019

LOCATION: James K. Polk Theate

TICKETS STARTING AT: $40

Located in the James K. Polk Cultural Center, TPAC occupies an entire city block between 5th and 6th Avenues and Deaderick and Union Streets. Performance venues include Andrew Jackson Hall (2,472 seats), James K. Polk Theater (1,075), Andrew Johnson Theater (256), and the War Memorial Auditorium (1,661), a historic concert hall located across 6th Avenue from the Center.

The post Yee Haw! Bruce Vilanch Heading To Nashville To Star In The Family Production Of ‘Aladdin and His Winter Wish’ first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

Playbill
Bruce Vilanch and Kira Kosarin Will Star in Aladdin and His Winter Wish
BY ANDREW GANS
AUG 19, 2019

The Tennessee Performing Arts Center and Lythgoe Family Give Kids Panto will present the family-friendly Aladdin and His Winter Wish December 12–22 in TPAC’s Polk Theater.

Recording artist Kira Kosarin, who starred as Phoebe in Nickelodeon’s The Thundermans, will take on the role of the Princess, while Emmy-winning writer and actor Bruce Vilanch (Hollywood Squares, Hairspray) will play Widow Twanky. Additional casting will be announced at a later date.

The production, which blends fairy tales, comedy, the holidays, dancing, contemporary songs, and local and regional references, concerns Aladdin, who, helped by the magical Genie, meets and falls in love with the Princess and later saves her from the clutches of the evil magician Abanazar.

Ernie Nolan, the executive artistic director at the Nashville Children’s Theater, will direct.

“We are so excited to be returning to Nashville and partnering with TPAC in bringing families and young audiences to the theatre,” Kris Lythgoe, CEO of Lythgoe Family Panto, said in a statement. “Aladdin and His Winter Wish is a magical, interactive show that audiences will enjoy as they sing-along and dance in the aisles.”

Tickets will go on sale in the fall. Visit TPAC.org.

The post Bruce Vilanch and Kira Kosarin Will Star in Aladdin and His Winter Wish first appeared on We Got Bruce!.

“A Sign of the Times” has some real star power associated with its world premiere production Friday, July 29, through Sept. 4 at Goodspeed Musicals‘ Norma Terris Theatre, 33 N. Main St., Chester.

The show, subtitled “A New ’60s Musical,” is written by Bruce Vilanch, the comedy writer known for punching up Academy Awards monologues, appearing on “Hollywood Squares,” and starring in the first national tour of “Hairspray.”

“A Sign of the Times” is directed by Gabriel Barre, who helmed the Goodspeed and Broadway productions of “Amazing Grace.” It’s choreographed by JoAnn M. Hunter, currently represented on Broadway with “School of Rock” and “Disaster.” The cast features Ephie Aardema, Nick Bailey, Bryan Fenkart, Robert Lenzi and Crystal Lucas-Perry, all of whom have cool New York and regional theater credits. Most of the members of the supporting ensemble have been in national tours of Broadway hits; Lauren Nicole Chapman, to name one, played Lauren in “Kinky Boots” at The Bushnell last year.

But the real motivating force for “A Sign of the Times” appears to be the creative team’s access to a cache of pop hits by Petula Clark, including “Call Me,” “I Know a Place,” “Downtown,” “The In Crowd,” “Color My World” (not the Chicago one), “Don’t Sleep in the Subway,” and, naturally, “A Sign of the Times.” The show also features hits associated with Dusty Springfield, Elvis Presley, Janis Ian, Lesley Gore and others.

Performances are Wednesday at 2 and 7:30 p.m., Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Friday at 8 p.m., Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 and 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $59, with special $25 deals for patrons aged “40 and Under” and $15 student rush seats. 860-873-8668, goodspeed.org.

The post ‘A Sign Of The Times’ world premiere production Friday, July 29, through Sept. 4 at Goodspeed Musicals’ Norma Terris Theatre first appeared on We Got Bruce!.