School productions deserve spotlight, too

We honored community theaters Thursday, but many of the good memories from the past season belong to a magnet high school, a college and a university. (We separate the two entities because of the budgetary and recruitment advantages of learning institutions.)

Here's a sampling of what was to be learned at school:

They called it "Will's Coffee House," and after costumed servers made audiences happy with beverages and cakes, the Las Vegas Academy of International Studies, Performing and Visual Arts students conjured up a fast-paced, irreverent adaptation of Shakespeare's "As You Like It." The script was more "Borat" than Bard, but the performances were surprisingly genuine and the atmosphere seductive.

Desiree Abeyta, as Bertolt Brecht's mute daughter character in the Nevada Conservatory Theatre's "Mother Courage and Her Children," allowed us to see the horrors of war though her eerie silence.

Nevada Conservatory Theatre's "Private Lives," directed by Michael Lugering, was a funny and at times movingly elegant testament to the messiness of love.

Beefy actor Jon Hennington made Eugene O'Neill's Brutus Jones in the College of Southern Nevada's "The Emperor Jones" a threat that gave tension to the play's entire running time.

Brandon Burk, as Tennessee Williams' gentleman caller character in Nevada Conservatory Theatre's "The Glass Menagerie," captured the bravado and the desperation of a man trying to convince the world he knows what he wants.

Susan Lowe, in the College of Southern Nevada's production of Sam Shepard's "The God of Hell," managed to be the epitome of 1950s political paranoia, as well as an ordinary, loving woman who simply wanted to protect her family.

Glenn Casale's direction of "You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown" for the Nevada Conservatory Theatre brought a freshness to the material that some of us who have seen the show a dozen times didn't think was possible. He was greatly aided by a superb cast and technical designs that kept the action bouncing within the framework of a comic strip.

Director Jon Hennington's insights and theatrical savvy helped make the College of Southern Nevada's production of Arthur Miller's "All My Sons" perhaps the most exciting evening this season on an educational-theater stage. Blessed with an outstanding cast (even in small, demanding roles), Hennington was able to bring out not only the beauty of Miller's language, but the compassion and anger that was driving the need for words.

Anthony Del Valle can be reached at DelValle@aol.com. You can write him c/o Las Vegas Review-Journal, P.O. Box 70, Las Vegas, NV 89125.