The College
Conservatory of Music at the University of Cincinnati held a preview
performance of the play Coram Boy on October 26, in the Patricia Corbett
Theater. The play was directed by
Richard E. Hess and was adapted from a novel of the same name written by Jamila
Gavin.
The first half of
the play focuses on a young Alexander Ashbrook played by Ty Olwin, and Thomas
Ledbury played by John Patrick Maddock and their time growing up in 18th
century Britain. Alex, who has grown up wealthy, becomes friends with Thomas, a
poor orphan. The two bond over their love of music until his father bans it. Maddock
and Olwin worked very well together and had the audience constantly laughing.
Alex also forms a relationship with a girl named Melissa Milcote, played by
Callie Schuttera. Their
relationship was forced at first but slowly it was shown that they were truly
in love. This was displayed by Olwin and Schuttera’s fantastic on-stage
chemistry. The play takes a dark turn when Otis Gardiner, a “Coram Man” known
for taking advantage of desperate mothers is introduced. Sophomore Claron
Hayden stole the show with his dark performance of the evil Otis Gardiner. Mrs.
Lynch, played by Bennett Bradley, and Otis were amazing villains and worked
great together on stage. The love-hate relationship between the two was very
believable and intriguing. Later in the play Mellissa gets pregnant by Alex and
has the baby. The baby survives and is taken in by Meshak Gardiner, played by
William Brown, who acts as the baby’s guardian. The second part of the play
focuses on a boy named Aaron, played by John Garrett Walters, the child of Alex
and Melissa, who was thought to be dead at birth and a boy named Toby, played
by Shaun S. Sutton, a child saved from an African slave ship.
The show consisted
entirely of CCM students and child actors. The student actors ranged from
sophomores to seniors and many of the college students that were meant to play
children were very believable. Since Coram Boy was set in England it took a
while to adjust to the British accents of the American cast. A lot of people
were used as props such as water, trees, and as a carriage. The stage and props where very simple,
but the acting carried the performance. The lighting was amazing and set the
mood perfectly and allowed the audience to focus on what was important. The
ship scene, were Meshak dies, was visually stunning. This came as a surprise
due to the small stage they had to work with. The rotating floor was very
unique, and according to the director, Richard E. Hess “They did not originally rehearse with
it. It was introduced only a few weeks ago.” All the actors worked well
together and their movement on stage was very fluid and believable. However, in
some scenes there were too many people on stage since the stage was t small, so
it was hard to see the some important parts of the story. An example of this is
the ballroom scene where the dancing was awkward and cluttered due to the
amount of actor on stage. The acting in the second half of the play was
breathtaking and companied with the choir, it set the mood of the play perfectly.
Despite the play being dark, it surprisingly ends on a happy note. The father
and Aaron were reunited at the end and Toby was allowed to live with the
Ashbrooks. The show ended with everyone singing Handel’s famous song “Messiah”.
CCM’s Coram Boy
was a delightful performance, and its dark mood made it a great play to seen
during Halloween weekend.
MIA released her single "Bad Girls" from her new album on January 31. On first listen the song was classic MIA. It sounds very similar to many of her songs on her sophomore album Kala such as "Bamboo Banga" and "20 Dollar". The catchy chants of "My chain hits my chest when its bangin' on the dashboard" and "Live fast, die young"are incredibly addicting and make the song a strong first single for the currently untitled album. Now it is just a matter of waiting for the album release in the summer of 2012 to hear the rest. The video for this song will be released on February 3.
