Whether it’s the stage or the small screen, the Fall entertainment season is upon us.
On the stage, I cannot help but once again boast about one of my favorite actors Benny Briseno. Benny and the actors at the Long Beach Shakespeare Company just had their opening of their performance of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing at the Richard Goad Theater. And the reviews are good!
John Farrell at the Long Beach Press-Telegram states the following:
In this production, directed with consummate skill and delicacy by the company’s co-artistic director, Helen Borgers, the play seems to fill every space in the small Richard Goad Theatre. The walls seem to stretch – the atmosphere is so rich, and hardly a word of the scintillating text is lost.
Credit for that must go first of all to the principals. Benny Briseno is superb as the handsome, witty devil-may-care Benedick, a young lord of Padua, full of himself and his supposed philosophy. Briseno has a powerful, clear voice that delivers every line with authenticity.
Every bit his match is Erica Sims as Beatrice, challenging Benedick, caressing every line, taking every chance for verbal combat but never so involved in the fight that she forgets her duty to the rich language of Shakespeare.
Arts blogger, James Scarbrough at What the Butler Saw, states the following:
Even the morning after seeing William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing,” directed by Helen Borgers for the Long Beach Shakespeare Company, the memory of Benny Briseno’s Benedick, a young Lord of Padua love-dueling with Erica Simms’ Beatrice, the niece of Leonato, the governor of Messina, makes me wonder if I was dreaming.
I wish I could go check it out in person, but our North Texas bureau chief will be checking it out soon.
ABC has a new fall comedy that is genuinely American–Modern Family.
Ed O’Neill plays the patriarch with a blended family. His wife, Gloria (played by actriz Sofia Vergara) and her son Manny are the newest thing in his life providing him some sabor, while his daughter and son have some interesting families of their own. Julie Bowen (from Boston Legal) leads her “traditional” family through its own exploits, while her brother and partner (played by Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet) grow their own little family by adopting a gorgeous Vietnamese baby girl. Together, they definitely represent a truly modern family.
