![\"Photo](\"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_0678-e1779305548587.jpg\")
<\/a>Photo by Karen Salkin.<\/p><\/div>\n
It did<\/em> surprise me a bit that there were sooooo many people who appeared to be fans of the old school Lerner and Lowe musical. I\u2019ve referenced Brigadoon<\/em> in at least a handful of previous columns, (as I sometimes do in life<\/em>,) and I felt like I was the only person who had ever even heard of the show before! And, actually, even though I had seen just about every classic musical by the time I was eight, (mostly in summer productions, and thanks to my very cultured New York parents,) I had seen only the Gene Kelly and Cyd Charisse film<\/em> version of this<\/em> one.<\/p>\n Karen Salkin and Nina Herzog enjoying the photo op on the Pasadena Playhouse patio. Photo by Julia Manis.<\/p><\/div>\n But I guess the Pasadena Playhouse crowd is a classy one because absolutely everyone was into it, as well they should be. I usually feel alone in my love of old musicals; it often seems to me that the Hamilton <\/em>and Hell\u2019s Kitchen<\/em> crowds have sort-of shunned that era of Broadway shows. They are<\/em> dated, but classics still. So everything about Opening Night made me happy, (including getting to finally try Pie \u2019N Burger food, courtesy of their truck, with lovely personnel, on-site at the afterparty!)<\/p>\n For those of you who know nothing about Brigadoon<\/em>, (and prefer that I<\/em> do all the research for you,) the title is the name of a mysterious village in Scotland. And the kicker is that\u2026it appears for just one day every hundred years! (I know.) The logistics of that situation have hurt my brain my entire life, wondering how the inhabitants get food, meds, etc. But I\u2019ve got to let it go because it\u2019s a fictional tale. And, actually, the residents go to sleep after one long day, and when they wake-up, it\u2019s just another day to them. They\u2019re not allowed to interact with the outside world, (think of M. Night Shyamalan\u2019s The<\/em> Village<\/em> a bit,) so they have no concept of a century having passed. (They know that it did<\/em> because of some deal that an elder had made back in the day\u2014my friend Nina and I missed the explanation because the person behind us was heavily coughing on us through that entire monologue, and we didn\u2019t have masks! So our minds were elsewhere right then.) And then two guys from New York happen upon Brigadoon on that one day, and one falls in love with a woman from this village. And most of the action plays out in just that one day!<\/p>\n Betsy Morgan and Max von Essen. Photo by Jeff Lorch, as is the one at the top of this review.<\/p><\/div>\n The fantasy scenario is secondary to the lovely music, though. Brigadoon<\/em> features songs with which many people may be familiar, even without realizing from whence they came, especially Heather on<\/em> the Hill <\/em>and Almost Like Being in Love<\/em>. I can’t believe how many lyrics I still know. So how many times did my parents play that album when I was growing up?<\/p>\n Caring more about dance than any other art, I have to first laud the two fabulous individual dances in the show. The director, Katie Spelman, also did all the excellent choreography. Broadway\u2019s original<\/em> choreographer, the late great Agnes DeMille, (who received a big credit in the program,) would be proud of her.<\/p>\n I was so happy to see Kylie Victoria Edwards\u2019 very balletic \u201clove\u201d number in the first act, (in the middle of the song Come To Me, Bend To Me<\/em>.) It\u2019s beautiful. And then Jessica Lee Keller\u2019s uber-powerful \u201cgrief dance\u201d in Act II is a stunner. Nina was so taken with the latter that I\u2019m sharing\u00a0her<\/em> feelings about it: \u201cOne of the most impactful moments was a dance performed by a character described as being so consumed by grief over the death of her family that she had stopped speaking.Through extraordinary, innovative contemporary ballet\u2014while releasing the most guttural, heartbreaking wail\u2014she expressed what words could not. Tears streamed down my face.\u00a0Grief is so close to the surface, and to see it danced through music was truly spectacular.\u201d\u00a0Yeah, what she<\/em> said. I think most of the audience felt the same way.<\/p>\n Kylie Victoria Edwards and Daniel Yearwood. Photo by Jeff Lorch.<\/p><\/div>\n As to the music, it was lovely to hear all these aforementioned songs, which I\u2019ve been enjoying since I was a little kid, sung so beautifully. And major props to the wonderful musicians, whose full sound was a joy. At the curtain call, the orchestra was revealed to be on the back of the stage, and they received thunderous applause. It was also interesting that at times, musicians playing flute, violin, cello, and some form of drum, were front and center, worked into the happy scenes.<\/p>\n The twenty-two person multi-talented cast did justice to the group numbers. The voice of Max von Essen, the male lead, got to me the most. Since I don\u2019t read my theatre programs before<\/em> the performances, I had not realized that I saw Max in Falsettos<\/em> seven years ago, so I honestly did not expect that gorgeous singing voice to come out of him.<\/p>\n But as far as speaking<\/em> voices go, you will find none better than that of Happy Anderson, the very funny male sidekick. I\u2019ve never heard stage dialogue so clearly before!<\/p>\n Happy Anderson in the center. Photo by Jeff Lorch.<\/p><\/div>\n That brings me to something for which I must give kudos to just about the entire cast\u2014they did convincing Scottish accents, with all but the barmaid being understandable. That\u2019s quite the accomplishment for whoever the dialect coach is. (I couldn\u2019t find a program credit for that helper.)<\/p>\n A nice surprise was six-time Emmy winner for Cagney and Lacey<\/em>, Tyne Daly, as the grown-up who seems to be in charge of the village. (In the original show, the character is the male schoolmaster; I\u2019m not sure exactly what her<\/em> job is in this rendition.) The experience of seeing Tyne\u00a0up there came full circle for me\u2014the only other time I had seen her on stage was when I was a tiny child watching her in a summer stock production! (Yes, I do<\/em> have one of those memories. It serves me well, but it can get lonely at times.)<\/p>\n The Pasadena Playhouse has the perfect size stage for this show, and Jason Sherwood did a superb job with the sets. And I appreciated the very subtle flicker of the over-the-proscenium lanterns from time to time.<\/p>\n Tyne Daly. Photo by Jeff Lorch.<\/p><\/div>\n Early on, before I even knew that this was a new adaptation of Brigadoon<\/em>, I made a note that \u201cthe dialogue must have been heavily rewritten.\u201d As entertaining as the new<\/em> script is, I think I would have preferred to hear the original<\/em> dialogue. Since the nutty story<\/em> stayed intact in this production, I would have liked to know exactly what people considered to be amusing repartee back in the dark ages of the 1940s!<\/p>\n As much as I always roll my eyes at the hard-to-believe love story in Brigadoon<\/em>, I actually know that it is<\/em> possible because\u2026I<\/em> fell in love with Mr. X at first sight, without even meeting<\/em> him! (That came the next night. And, much to his relief, I have never sung<\/em> about my feelings.) I also fell in love with Los Angeles at that same time, and, even as a teenager, knew it would all seem like a dream when I went home in a couple of weeks. (I even told my mother back then that it would feel like Brigadoon!) So I did<\/em> give up my entire New York life, (family, friends, boyfriend, college,) to stay here to Photo by Jeff Lorch.<\/p><\/div>\n You know I appreciate when an entertainment makes me think of something heavier, such as this world-applicable observation that Brigadoon\u2019s timeline reminded me of. So I\u2019m sharing how I came to the conclusion that time is different for each person. The briefest description is this: My friend Alicia was always late. I do mean always<\/em>. On a busy day, we stopped at her house between events to heat-up chicken fingers for her kids, and quickly change outfits. The whole thing felt like it was taking no more than a half hour. But, as we left the house again, I looked at my watch, and it was\u2026four hours later!!! I could not fathom how that happened. Another time, my friend Mitch took me to dinner before a Clippers game. I had never been to that restaurant before, so I had to study the menu, ask questions, (have ya met<\/em> me?,) decide together what we wanted, have my slow self eat it all, get the specially-spiced nuts at the end of the meal, (which I ate, and savored, one at a time.) Then he paid the bill and I went to the ladies room, the whole while feeling terrible that we were going to miss the National Anthem and the start of the game because that entire\u00a0shebang felt like it was taking two or three fabulous hours. But, from walking in to exiting, it turned-out to have been only\u2026forty-five minutes! No lie.<\/p>\n So there\u2019s my proof of the time and space continuum, which is why that hundred-years Brigadoon<\/em> story doesn\u2019t bother me as much as most irrational tales do. It doesn\u2019t matter to the villagers what year<\/em> it is\u2014it just seems like the next day<\/em> to them. How do they even have a calendar? The older people there must have been born before time was even calculated! (All that math is sooo confusing, even to my perfect-math-score-on-the-SATs self!)<\/p>\n Now that I\u2019ve made your heads spin as much as mine, just go see this beautiful musical while the Pasadena Playhouse is offering the incredible opportunity. Just like Brigadoon<\/em> itself, the chance may not present itself for another hundred years!<\/p>\n Brigadoon running through June 14, 2026 BRIGADOON The packed assemblage on Opening Night of the classic musical, Brigadoon, at the Pasadena Playhouse, was the absolutely most appreciative audience ever! It was wonderful to be a tiny part of it. And it was great to see that the crowd wasn\u2019t made-up of only\u00a0people who one might expect to enjoy a show from<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>stalk<\/del> get to know Mr. X, with no knowledge of how to take care of my sheltered self. But, of course, it didn\u2019t all happen in one day<\/em>. (And, although being together for about a hundred years now, when asked how he fell in love with me, Mr. X claims he\u2019ll \u201clet [me] know when it happens.\u201d Can you see why I love the guy?)<\/p>\n<\/a>
\nPasadena Playhouse 39 South El Molino Avenue, Pasadena
\n626-356-7529 www.pasadenaplayhouse.org<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"