By Harrison Held.
Mickle Maher's rhyming scholastic comedyThere Is A Happiness That Morning Is now playing at The Sacred Fools Theater is a very enjoyable production... The talented 3 member cast is terrific featuring Bryan Bellomo as Bernard, Jessica Sherman as Ellen & John Wuchte as the Dean ably directed by Ruth Silveira.
The night before professors Bernard & Ellen are to deliver their lectures the colleagues of 15 years get so excited & inspired reading the poetry of William Blake that they have hot mind blowing earth shattering sex on the college lawn in full view of students & faculty causing a huge scandal in their conservative academic community.
Though the premise is absurd the cast is terrific & playwright Mickle Maher has given them a lot of interesting things to say & they say it all in verse a la William Blake. Bernard & Ellen give their differing views on their shared experience offering a hard look at love, its challenges & its miracles which makes There Is A Happiness That Morning Is really work. The next day at their respective lectures professors Bernard & Ellen must apologize or defend their actions in order to keep their jobs.
Bryan Bellomo & Jessica Sherman really shine as 2 semi square academics who are on the edge & John Wuchte as the bewildered college dean is hilarious. The fast moving comedy in couplets 90 minute play is performed without intermission. Kudos to the entire crew which includes producer Brandon Clark, assistant director
Maggie Marion, associate producer Richard Levinson, stage manager Aaron Francis, lighting designer Matt Richter, costume & scenic designer Martin Morse, scenic painters Glenda Suggs & Thomas Ashworth, fight choreographer Laura Napoli, build crew Joshua Benton, Scot Shamblin & Bart Tangredi & key art by Christopher Komuro for a job well done. Chris Schoen beautiful music arranged & produced by Zachary Bernstein.
Last nite's performance of There Is A Happiness That Morning Is was a "donate what you can performance" with half of the box office going to Get Lit a charitable arts organization that educates teens about classic poetry.
Playing at the Sacred Fools Theatre, 660 N. Heliotrope Dr., extended run thru Mar 6th.
Tickets: http://www.sacredfools.org/onlineboxoffice/
Photographer: Jessica Sherman.