Stage

Four thoughts about Mondays Dark at Vinyl (November 21)

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Local entertainers perform during a “Mondays Dark” performance.
Courtesy Photo
Jacob Coakley

1. Looking back. This was the final Mondays Dark show at Vinyl. The December show takes place in the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel, and it will bring together all 33 of the charities for which Mondays Dark has raised money in one huge gala event. After that, the show will move to organizer Mark Shunock’s new home, the Space LV. As the last Mondays Dark in this space, though, the show was filled with more than a little nostalgia and lots and lots of thanks. Randall Keith of Showstoppers thanked Shunock for “keeping creativity alive” in Las Vegas.

2. Still unfinished. The night was filled with shout-outs to future shows at the Space LV, including the holiday show by Travis Cloer (Jersey Boys) that opens the new spot December 9. Cloer will be accompanied by the kids from Broadway in the Hood, the charity Mondays Dark raised money for this week. But Cloer kept it real when he joked he was excited to have booked a show in a space that still doesn’t have any bathrooms. Cloer then delivered a knockout performance of “All That Matters” from Finding Neverland.

3. Ladies make ya laugh. The theme for the show was “Broadway Backwards,” and it featured performers singing songs usually assigned to the opposite gender. While Sandra Huntsman kicked things off with the ballad “Corner of the Sky” from Pippin, the rest of the ladies kept it decidedly light, with humorous tracks from Into the Woods (“Agony,” sung by Sandra Huntsman and Gret Manzees), A Year With Frog and Toad (“I’m Coming Out of My Shell,” sung by Rachel Dudt) and even Hamilton—“You’ll Be Back,” sung by the effervescent Amanda Miller, who dedicated her performance to Mike Pence, naturally.

4 . Melodramatic men. The men, on the other hand, couldn’t resist going for the tearjerkers. With the exception of Paul Johnson and Jason Allen singing a saucy “Take Me or Leave Me” from Rent (which is technically a breakup song), the men went for the waterworks. Cloer’s song was about a dying mom, Gary Fowler sang the hit “And I Am Telling You I’m Not Going” from Dreamgirls, and Mark Donovan delivered a bleak version of “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Misérables, which sounded like a cut from Nick Cave’s album of Broadway hits. Shunock wrapped things up with a shaky but heartfelt “She Used to Be Mine” from Waitress. And with that, the Vinyl chapter of Mondays Dark was over.

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