The Midnight Train Crossing

Finally I get around to putting this up, since I realized I hadn't.
Anyway, this is from my adventures in seeing Seussical (four times) in Sioux City, IA as performed by the SCCT. (Sioux City Community Theatre).
I'd originally written this all scrambled, so months later, I'm attempting to sift through my notes and make it coherent.
Megan took me around all over the place, but this is for just the show... But for me the show started with seeing the set...

I thought that the set was pretty spiffy. The stage wasn't all that big, but by having several platforms it increased the size a little bit. While the "jungle" set with the trees stayed on the whole time, it wasn't distracting during the Who scenes.

I loved the Cat in the Hat (Tyler Hudson). Cat is one of the characters that has to be awesome, else it ruins the show for me. He was very animated throughout the whole show and I couldn't help but watch him as he did various and assorted fun little dances.
Some favorites (in no apparent order) were him "playing" the red and white striped pole of a Seussian type tree as a guitar during Biggest Blame Fool , his light up glasses during Havin' a Hunch , his role as the doctor with a really funny, but really bad accent of indeterminate origin, when he gave Horton a larger umbrella during Horton Sits on the Egg , and then proceeded to dump leaves and 'snow' all over him.
His 'recap' of Jojo's death was amusing, even though I liked the Cathy Rigby version with the dolls a little better. On the other hand, Cat imitating Jojo was pretty amusing.

Watching Cat during How To Raise a Child was pretty amusing. The mayor and his wife sing "Who has the directions on how to raise a child? Who has all the answers?"
Up on the platform above them, Cat pulls out two brochure, grins at the audiene and mouths "I do!" before he slides down the bright yellow slide to land right at their feet and shove the brochures in their hands.

Cat acts as the auctioneer while Horton is sold, and on Saturday night I was able to see the people that he pointed to, a pair of teenage ish girls "Sold, to the man with the long sideburns and the greasy moustache... Oh! Sorry madame." The girl he pointed to and the girl she was with burst into giggles.

Cat as Jose was entertaining. Once he had Mayzie's palm tree set up, he spread the towel (red and white of course) and lay down, until she scolded him. And then, with a cheeky grin, he snitched some of her drink during Mayzie's Reprise of How Lucky You Are.

Despite being around Jojo, Cat certainly sided with the Citizens of the Jungle of Nool during the trial scene, singing along with them instead of the Who's, and joining them in not hearing the Whos.
But I guess his loyalties lie with whoever has the music that's more fun to dance to, because he seemed pleased enough when the YOPP finally broke through.

Throughout the show, he didn't just enter or exit the stage, he would kinda giggle and mock-tiptoe off.

One of the other important characters for me is Gertrude McFuzz - the bird with the One-Feathered- Tail. She has to rock her songs, because she sings some of my favorite ones. I wasn't disappointed at all.
I always think that Gertrude should be cute, and this one (Christine Wolf) definitely was. She had the nice sweet voice that Gertrude needs to have. And I loved her tail!
She sounded nice for Notice Me Horton , although I would have liked it better if she would have had more interaction with him, instead of standing on the platform above him.
It's hardly the actress's fault for the blocking, but honestly, if I were Horton, I wouldn't notice Gertrude if she was standing above me whilst I was busy looking down through a patch of clover.

I also didn't think that she was quite loud enough during the trail scene with her objections, but seeing as how she was staying in the cute shy sweet character the whole time I guess it worked. I just like it when Gertrude gets all worked up.

Dressed in an assortment of black leather, the three monkeys were the real stars of the show I think.
At any rate, they were really fun to watch (and not just because of the leather pants - that was just added bonus).
The Wickershams were nicely evil and had nice voices. All three of them also were really athletic, climbing over the set and the ceiling in impressive ways. I noticed the leader of the Wickershams (Tom Miller) hanging on the supports near the ceiling more than once.
It was really impressive near the end of Chasing the Whos because they do everything in slow motion, and I watched Tom slowly pull himself up, hang there for awhile and then slowly drop to the ground.

I've never really paid all that much attention to the Wickershams because falling in love with the baddies is usually Megan's job, but they were just that good that I would watch them. As a result, I enjoyed Monkey Around quite a bit, even though I didn't really agree with all of the choreography.
I don't think that Horton should enter the stage until they go into "Something big is getting nearer," rather then right away like they did it.

In addition to stealing Horton's clover, the Wickershams bring the clover patch on stage, by dumping a large bucket of pink cotton balls on the stage while Cat throws the clover in with them. (Or at least tried to most of the time) The last time was the best, when he not only missed the pile, but missed the stage.
If I had been in front I would've assisted a little, but Vlad rescued the clover and tossed it into the pile.
Vlad is supposed to be the one that drops the clover anyway, so it worked.

The guys take center stage again when the Sour Kangaroo finds Horton in the circus in palm beach and the Wickershams drag Horton back to the jungle to be put on trial.
Here I didn't watch them all the time, because there was a lot to watch, including caboose girl up on the top platform. But when I did watch them, they were bouncing around, hooting and jeering at Horton beautifully.

The honor of having the biggest goof-up also goes to the Wickershams.
They sang a wrong verse the first time I saw the show. So they sang one of the verses twice. It confused me because I wasn't sure if they had changed it or if they had goofed.
Seeing as how backstage during intermission, the lead one seemed very relieved to find out that I didn't record them that night, I figured it was a goof. Still, it was a very impressive goof. But they only did it once, and never again. (I believe they were paranoid.)

The Sour Kangaroo (Suzy Turnquist) was most definitely the loudest character on stage and she was truly awesome.
There are really three "narrators" to the show, the Cat, the Bird Girls and the Sour Kangaroo, and she was excellent at it. Of course I can't forget her assistant Bob, the "young kangaroo in her pouch"
Every time I saw it, she was right on the mark. I loved her costume too, all brown beadwork. Wish I could make stuff like that... Her ears were cool too, creatively made out of hair extensions and wire.

To finish up my list of the "baddies", there was Vlad Valadakoff (Betcha I spell that differently every time!), played by Jonnie Stapleton.
He wore a very very sparkly costume. I loved the way he said his name. I doubt I can describe it here, but it was cute. He did save the clover from spending the rest of the first act sitting in the audience.
After taking the clover from the Wickershams and dropping it into the clover patch, he also comes out riding the bike that takes Mayzie away off from her nest.

Kelly Meyers played Mayzie La Bird, the glamor girl of the jungle of Nool. Apart from being cursed with microphone troubles, she had the perfect manner for Mayize as she strutted about the stage. I especially loved the bit when she was on the nest with her egg. She had the perfect bored dejected expression.
I think she did well on How lucky you are - Mayzie's reprise... when her mike worked that is. And she was very cute when she eagerly darted into the back of Vlad's bike and sped off the stage.

Seussical Page

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