Images from Groucho

Groucho: A Live in Revue closed on Saturday, March 23. It was a pleasure to be there.

photos via John Westervelt

Groucho

photo via John Westervelt

It's been a wild ride over the last month-and-a-half. In the last two weeks of Beyond Therapy at Bay Theatre in Annapolis, MD, I also rehearsed Groucho at Wayside Theatre in Middletown, VA, over a hundred miles away. Beyond Therapy closed on March 20th, and Groucho opened on the 27th, only a week later.

Groucho really got positive reviews in the Northern Virginia Daily, and particularly in the Winchester Star:
     "Peter Boyer is the perfect Groucho Marx." -- FC Lowe

And then another from the Warren County Report (p. 8):
     "Peter Boyer . . . IS Groucho." -- Malcolm Barr

And then there was an interview on "Talk of the Town with Barry Lee" on Winchester's ABC station. A very fun interview, with host Barry Lee, director Warner Crocker, and me in character as Groucho. The interview is the first 7 minutes of the program, and I hope you'll give it a look, HERE.

And I've received so many compliments from folks involved with the show and folks who've seen the show that I'm quite simply stunned by it all. And I have the great fortune to be working with a bunch of generous and talented folks.

We close on Saturday, April 23rd, and if I hope you'll see it if you have the chance. For more info and tix, go to Wayside Theatre's website. And if you'd like to see some of John Westervelt's excellent pictures from the show, go HERE.

photo via John Westervelt

Work, Work, Work

I'm preparing to start rehearsals for GROUCHO at Wayside Theatre. This preparation is difficult, painful, stressful, tedious, involving such things as placing Marx Bros. DVD's into the DVD player and . . . watching them. Shortly after this post, I shall grit my teeth and watch The Cocoanuts. Wish me luck.

I also have to learn a few songs, like "Titwillow" and "Lydia the Tattooed Lady." Fortunately, in my youth I saw these two songs performed by the Muppets (I assure you I watched The Muppet Show merely to prepare myself for days like this).

Attack of the Killer Leaping Groucho Bartlett

About the Killer Whale . . .
Last night I dreamed that a killer whale escaped an aquarium. A dramatic leap (over my head), a slide down a grassy slope and into the sea. A visually spectacular dream, sorry you missed it.

About Groucho . . .
I'll be playing Groucho in Groucho @ Wayside Theatre from March 26 - April 23. Rehearsals overlap the current show I'm performing in (Beyond Therapy @ Bay Theatre) by two weeks, and the theatres are over 100 miles apart, so I'll be in for a few interesting commutes.

About That Guy On The Right . . .
Way in the future, I'll be playing Josiah Bartlett in the musical 1776 @ Ford's Theatre. That'll run March 14 - May 19 -- in 2012.

Another Review

Another review has come out for Beyond Therapy at Bay Theatre. The writing is interesting . . . . reviewer Gerald Fischman of The Capital looks not only at how the play comes across today but also how it'll come across (or not) in a generation or two:

"It's Durang's bounciest and most accessible play, but it has also started to date . . . . Today's theater audience - mostly an older crowd - can cope with this. But in a few more decades, the play will not just be unperformable but will have to be footnoted as heavily as one of Shakespeare's comic scenes."

But he's generally favorable, saying some rather nice things about the cast. Here's my bit:

"Boyer injects enough intelligence and poise into Bob to compensate for the fact that the man usually acts like a baby."

Chewing the Scenery Again

I'm currently performing in Beyond Therapy at Bay Theatre. I play Bob, Bruce's gay lover. Some reviews just came out for the show, and here's a few tasty bits --

"Adding to the hilarity [is] Bruce’s jealous live-in lover Bob (Peter Boyer)" . . . . " Boyer is a master of facial expressions and mannerisms: petulant, bitchy, insecure, manipulative. He is brilliant in the Act I finale." -- Bay Weekly (writer not listed)

"Beyond Therapy is Christopher Durang’s best play, and in Annapolis, the Bay Theatre Company is showing us why" . . . . "These actors . . . play these characters beautifully." -- Tim Treanor, DC Theatre Scene
　
"Bay Theatre's current production of Christopher Durang's 1981 comedy Beyond Therapy is consistently beyond funny, often bordering on hysterical" . . . . "Peter Boyer, another Bay favorite, returns as Bob, investing his character with frustration, hurt and a strong will to survive, all with delightful comic undertones." -- Mary Johnson,The Baltimore Sun

This little show runs through March 20.