Secret Garden TalkBack

Join us at any Secret Garden Family Matinee for an informal chat with cast members after the show. What better way to introduce the young people

in your life to the magic of musical theater!

Ages 21 and younger are half-price for these family matinees:

Tuesday, December 27, 2 pm

Wednesday, December 28, 2 pm

Saturday, December 31, 2 pm

Sophie Thatcher is Mary Lennox in the Light Opera Works production of The Secret Garden, Dec. 26, 2011-Jan.1, 2012, at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. Call (847) 920-5360 or visit www.LightOperaWorks.com

Photo: Rich Foreman

Sophie Thatcher is Mary Lennox in the Light Opera Works production of The Secret Garden, Dec. 26, 2011-Jan.1, 2012, at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. Call (847) 920-5360 or visit www.LightOperaWorks.com

Photo: Rich Foreman

Sophie Thatcher is Mary Lennox in the Light Opera Works production of The Secret Garden, Dec. 26, 2011-Jan.1, 2012, at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. Call (847) 920-5360 or visit www.LightOperaWorks.com

Photo: Rich Foreman

Sophie Thatcher (Mary) and Matthew Schroeder (Colin) in the Light Opera Works production of The Secret Garden, Dec. 26, 2011-Jan.1, 2012, at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. Call (847) 920-5360 or visit www.LightOperaWorks.com

Photo: Rich Foreman

From left: Maggie Portman (Martha), Steve Peebles (Dickon), Matthew Schroeder (Colin), Nick Foster (Archibald) and Sophie Thatcher (Mary) in the Light Opera Works production of The Secret Garden, Dec. 26, 2011-Jan.1, 2012, at Cahn Auditorium in Evanston. Call (847) 920-5360 or visit www.LightOperaWorks.com

Photo: Rich Foreman

Chicago Tribune

December 28, 2011

By Chris Jones

Garden of delights in Evanston

Beautifully sung version of Lucy Simon's work

It has now been 20 years since Lucy Simon's gorgeous score for "The Secret Garden" — which you can hear beautifully sung this week at the Light Opera Works in Evanston — was first heard on Broadway. Simon, the older sister of pop star Carly Simon, wrote a suite of lovely, emotional, accessible numbers, ranging from the earthy hooks of "Wick" to the sweet "Race You to the Top of the Morning" to more complicated pieces like "Lily's Eyes," first sung by Mandy Patinkin. They are a family-friendly pleasure at any time of year.

"The Secret Garden" has never been revived on Broadway. It's overdue. And, sadly, Lucy Simon's music has never been heard on Broadway again (although her new musical version of "Doctor Zhivago" re-emerged this year in Australia, so that may change). But this musical version of the 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett has remained a stalwart favorite of community and educational theaters. The current Light Opera Works production is a rare chance to see the warm show professionally performed with its original Broadway orchestrations, without any musical compromise. And once it finds its feet, Stacey Flaster's holiday-week production is a generally successful endeavor from a dramatic perspective.

Aside from the generally excellent singing from the likes of Nicholas Foster (who makes a heartfelt and aptly self-doubting Archibald Craven) and Brianna Borger (who plays the lost Lily), Flaster's fluid production has several strengths. These include an atypically ambitious Light Opera Works setting from Adam L. Veness that emphasizes the darkness of this story of a spunky young orphan (parentless kids being a perennial mainstay of such tales) who gets sent to a cold Yorkshire house where she discovers a locked-away section of the grounds that holds the key to her finding a family.

It also delivers a kid whose fate one becomes deeply invested in. She's not the star of the show; although Sophie Thatcher is a lovely singer and an exceptionally powerful on-stage presence with huge potential, she might work a little more on showing us a little more of her heart. The star is a young man named Matthew Schroeder, who plays the sickly Colin, and whose spirit and dynamism invests this show with energy and vitality from the moment he shows up in his bed, dying to head off to the garden. Thanks in no small part to Schroeder, the force of whose desire lifts the entire company, the emotional payoff is all we have come to expect from a show about courageous children who show lost adults how to deal with their pasts and embrace their gifts.

The bookwriter, Marsha Norman, penned a book that has real heart and that honors the source material while supporting girl-power more explicitly, although I've always thought that the choice to have the ensemble represent the ghosts of dead people from India (where Mary starts out) as distinct from the warm-blooded people of Yorkshire (where Mary moves) keeps dragging the show into the sepia-toned past a few too many times. It takes a while for Flaster's show to emerge from this ghostly root, but then that's invariably the case with this piece.

Once the show fires up, it's mostly very pleasurable. Granted, it's not a perfect show, nor is it optimally in sync emotionally: Borger's Lily is too cool and disconnected from everyone else, and Maggie Portman's Martha is overly broad and bustling for my tastes, although Portman, belatedly, finds an honest core when she totally nails the eleven-o-clock number, "Hold On."

But I bet your eyes will be moist when Colin and Mary catch glimpses of the garden that will save them, and Steve Peebles' likable Dicken and Jerry M. Miller's rock-solid Ben are very appealing throughout. The various sweeps of movement that Veness' design and Flaster's ambitious staging require had their shudders and lurches on Monday afternoon's opening, but this very well-meaning show surely delivers the most beautiful garden one could expect. There were gasps of pleasure in the audience, especially from the young.

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Chicago Sun-Times

December 27, 2011

By Hedy Weiss

‘Secret Garden’ thrives on very grown-up themes

RECOMMENDED

Although it is based on Frances Hodgson Burnett’s early 20th century novel, long considered a classic of English children’s literature, and it places a 10-year-old orphan girl at the center of its story, “The Secret Garden,” the 1991 Broadway musical by Lucy Simon and Marsha Norman is hardly a show for children.

This is a work that deals with the very adult themes of love and loss, death and grief, the ache of memory, the emotional crippling of children by their damaged parents or guardians, and the differences between Indian and English life during the British Empire. Of course it also is about rebirth — with the garden of the title its crucial metaphor — and that makes a key difference.

Simon’s quasi-operatic score — an ideal fit for the mission of Evanston’s Light Opera Works — is a lush beauty. And in its holiday season production by the company, featuring elegant direction and choreography by Stacey Flaster (one of several women who have emerged in recent years as major musical theater talents in this city), it is being beautifully sung and acted. The show’s complicated, slowly unfolding back story takes a while to fully blossom. And at Monday’s opening performance the large and splendid orchestra (under the direction of Roger L. Bingaman) sometimes made it difficult to hear some of the songs’ dense lyrics. But a better balance was achieved by the second act.

The story begins in India as Mary Lennox (a remarkably sophisticated performance by fifth grader Sophie Thatcher) is left orphaned when her parents succumb to a cholera epidemic. The girl is promptly shipped “home” to England, to be cared for at the death-and-secrets-ridden manor that belongs to her wealthy, hunchbacked Uncle Archibald Craven (a deftly haunted Nicholas Foster) — a man still in deep mourning for his beloved wife, Lily (the golden-voiced Brianna Borger). Lily died a decade earlier in childbirth, leaving behind Colin (an expert turn by young Matthew Schroeder), a frail young son. She also left a glorious rose garden that has since deteriorated.

Mary’s arrival changes many things. The girl herself is helped back to life by a spirited housemaid, Martha (the powerhouse-voiced Maggie Portman); by a crotchety chief gardener, Ben (the spot-on Jerry M. Miller); and by his young assistant, Dickon (the beguiling copper-haired Steve Peebles, who does a lovely job with the English folk-inspired “Winter’s on the Wing” and “Wick”). Mary spurs Colin back to health with her pure prickliness.

Flaster’s staging expertly captures the contrasts in Eastern and Western visions of magic and death. And this is complemented in the design work of Adam L. Veness (who has devised exquisite arborial sets), Darcy Elora Hofer (costumes) and Andrew Meyer (lighting).

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Pioneer Press

December 27, 2011

By Dorothy Andries

Light Opera Works’ ‘Garden’ in full, musical bloom

There’s magic moving in and out of the musical “The Secret Garden,” which opened at Light Opera Works Dec. 26. The 1991 Tony-winning Broadway show by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon, based on the 1911 children’s novel of the same name by Frances Hodgson Burnett, comes with a gripping story and heartwarming songs.

Director Stacey Flaster has assembled a near-perfect cast and the production sparkles with imagination. Ghost-like characters from the past populate this story, traversing the stage, singing to the living and watching them protectively — in a kind of magic realism not usually seen outside of Latin American fiction.

Sophie Thatcher plays 10-year-old Mary Lennox, raised in India by British colonialist parents, who is suddenly orphaned in a 1906 cholera epidemic. The child is dispatched to a gloomy mansion in Yorkshire to live with her Uncle Archibald. He is mourning his wife, who died 10 years ago after the birth of their son Colin.

Young Thatcher has a lovely voice and moves gracefully through Mary’s development from a bereft, bad-tempered child into a happy, loving girl. We cringe at her assumption that the housemaid Martha is supposed to dress her on the first morning in the mansion, but cheer when she unleashes her inner “brat” to foil an attempt to send her to boarding school.

Uncle Archibald is played by Nicholas Foster, and the show really ignites when he takes the stage. His voice is warm and powerful, and he is also an able actor. He tenderly portrays a man still immobilized by the death of his beloved wife, Lily — the sister of Mary’s deceased mother, Rose.

Martha is perfectly portrayed by pretty, peppy Maggie Portman. We last saw her at Light Opera Works in June as the irrepressible Meg Brockie in “Brigadoon.” She sings the show’s inspirational song “Hold On” — a nod to “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” or “You’ll Never Walk Alone” — and makes it more memorable than it really is.

Steve Pebbles is Martha’s brother Dickon, who helps Mary find the garden of the title. His youthful vigor and pleasant manner infuses Mary’s spirit, and you can see her flourish as she cares for the garden, which remains hidden from the audience.

Fans of the book that has enchanted girls for generations will notice that the figure of the doctor tending Lily and Archibald’s supposedly ailing son Colin has been greatly enlarged. He has become Archibald’s brother Neville and William Travis Taylor portrays him carefully, as a man whose motives are questionable, yet who’s not quite a villain either.

The finest song in the show is the duet between the brothers, “Lily’s Eyes,” in which they both are deeply moved by Mary’s resemblance to her Aunt Lily. It is a two-hanky number which reveals that Neville also loved Lily, but she only had eyes for Archibald. Baritone Taylor and tenor Foster made it the best moment in the show and at the opener were rewarded with sustained applause.

The character of 10-year-old Colin Craven does not appear until near the end of the first act, when Mary hears him crying and enters his room to find him bedridden and hidden away. He is played by Matthew Schroeder, who has a sweet boy soprano voice and is at first as ornery as Mary. The cousins square off against each other, but eventually become friends and a maybe-miracle occurs.

Brianna Borger is the much-mourned Lily and she is the first to appear on stage. At the first performance it was difficult to understand the words she was singing. Sometimes she is veiled, sometimes not. She has a beautiful voice, however, and gave touching performances of “Come to my Garden” and the other weeper, “How Could I Ever Know,” in which she grieves what her death has done to her husband.

Chief housekeeper Mrs. Medlock is played by Barbara Clear, who was Mrs. Paroo in Light Opera Works’ “The Music Man,” and Jerry M. Miller, Mr. Lundie in “Brigadoon,” is Ben the groundskeeper, who secretly tended the garden for eight years.

The robin, who helps Mary find the key to the garden, is characterized by the orchestra’s flute player Scott D. Metlika. Music director Roger L. Bingaman conducts the pit orchestra, providing much-appreciated live music.

The remarkable scenic design by Adam L. Veness consists of moveable grates and panels until the final scene, in which the restored garden explodes with lush greenery and a multitude of flowers.

The magical white-clad ghosts wander in and out and pose this question: How far from us are those we love who are now dead? The musical version of “The Secret Garden” does not equivocate — they are not far away at all.

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Chicago Critic

December 26, 2011

By Tom Williams

Beautiful singing of a melodic Lucy Simon score propels The Secret Garden

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

It is wonderful that the management at Light Opera Works keeps producing authentic productions of classic operettas and Broadway musicals using the full orchestrations from the originals with a full 28 piece orchestra. The lush score filled with haunting operetta style ballads and English folk melodies, The Secret Garden is a beautiful heart-warming musical filled with charm and wholesomeness.

Based on the 1911 novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden tells the story of Mary Lennox (Sophie Thatcher), a lonely little girl who is sent to live with her uncle Archibald (Nick Foster) in Yorkshire after being orphaned by a cholera epidemic in India. Still grieving over the loss of his beloved wife Lily who died ten years earlier during childbirth and distraught over the condition of his bedridden son, Archibald casts a dark shadow over the manor until Mary discovers a secret garden that had once belonged to Lily (Brianna Borger). By nursing this garden back to life, Mary somehow restores life to her grieving uncle and his sick son. The mysterious secret in the garden unfolds as the door to happiness for Mary, Colin (Matthew Schroeder) and Archibald.

The eerie tone of this show is set by the haunting “I Heard Someone Crying” and “Come to My Garden.” Director Stacey Flaster has marvelously staged this show with effective use of her powerful singing ensemble and the glowing Brianna Borger’s Lily leading young Mary to discover and nurture the garden. Flaster gives the show a rich texture with the movement of the ensemble as they add a ghost-like feel to the tale.

Fifth Grader Sophie Thatcher, as Mary Lennox, is a actor/sing mature beyond her age. She commands the stage with her feisty manner and her terrific voice. With help from Maggie Portman, as Marta the maid and Steve Peebles’ Dickon, young Sophie Thatcher charms us as she solves the gardens mysteries.

The entire story climaxes in the nicely staged “Come Spirit, Come Charm” that finds Mary, Dickon (with help from the spirits from India and the entire ensemble) as they ‘cure’ Colin from his bedridden condition.

We commiserate with Archie’s torment as he sees his departed wife Lily in Mary. Nick Foster’s Archie and William Travis Taylor’s Dr. Neville sing the powerful duet “Lily’s Eyes.” Taylor demonstrates his singing prowess with “Disappear.” Nick Foster lands the wonderful “Where in the World” and the lovely love song duet with Lily “How Could I Ever Know.” His “A Bit of Earth” is an emotional gem. We see that Archie loves Colin as he sings his bedtime story with “Race You to the Top of the Morning” that was underscored with two cute shadow puppets.

This lovely musical is a compelling and wrenching work that comes alive with Roger L. Bingaman strong orchestra. Powerful singing by Nick Foster, William Travis Taylor, Sophie Thatcher and Brianna Borger make The Secret Garden soar into our hearts. The expert staging by Stacey Flaster works to create just the right tone and atmosphere to create a ghost story. We care for Mary and Colin and we feel Archie’s pain. The lofty operatic feel of Flaster’s production together with the outstanding vocals make Light Opera Work’s The Secret Garden a late Christmas present. Kids eight and up will enjoy this adult friendly sophisticated production. Stacey Flaster once again proves she is a director of note.