Kill Bill, Volume 1 - Ginifer King
Describing Show at Barre: For the Record’s unique concept is easy. Performers sing-dance-and-recreate music and scenes from contemporary movies, all while roaming throughout the snugly packed audience at the Vermont restaurant’s bar, using every part of the space as a stage. “It’s a live, 360 degree theatrical concert experience,” says Los Feliz’s Shane Scheel, For the Record’s co-creator, producer and director.
What’s difficult is conveying the show’s immediacy, the performers’ tangible connection with audiences and how the concert manages to keep engaging those audiences with its sheer talent factor.
For over a year, the 40-member company—many from Broadway and ongoing television roles—has cycled through a series of original productions based on well-known film directors’ work.
Beginning with Quentin Tarantino’s films via Tarantino In Concert, the show has brought to life memorable movie moments, such as the “Elephant Love Song” medley from Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge, in the intimate setting.
In June, For the Record will present the music and dynamic scenes from the films of director/screenwriter Paul Thomas Anderson, well regarded for Boogie Nights, a film filled with late 1970s disco faves and early 1980s pop hits. Scheel, along with his collaborator Christopher Lloyd Bratten, select songs after watching the films and listening to a director’s various soundtracks choices.
“We weave our story together through music first,” he said.
For the Record: Paul Thomas Anderson will also have music from Magnolia (many by singer/songwriter Aimee Mann) and There Will Be Blood (original score by Jonny Greenwood).
Also in June, the space will be reconfigured and renamed Rockwell, unifying the Vermont restaurant and bar (once Sarno’s Bakery) and the indoor/outdoor Rockwell which faces the alley parallel to Vermont Avenue. The menu will be revamped too. What will stay the same are the energetic performances and creative song arrangements.
Scheel said he predicts the reconfigured space will add new ways to stage the spirited song-and-dance numbers. There have always been unexpected entrances and exits during the show. Because the performers are using wireless microphones, they travel unencumbered, even outside and up into the tree visible through the bar’s picture window.
Upcoming are new productions featuring music from the films of Martin Scorsese and Tim Burton. And during the holiday season, holiday tunes from John Hughes’ crowd-pleasing films will get the For the Record creative mash-up.
For tickets: www.showatbarre.com/
via Los Feliz Ledger.
