My Ohio Press Reviews
Rapier rivets in Vermont Stage's 'My Ohio,' new musical from Vermont playwright Dana Yeaton
- Reviewed by Brent Hallenbeck
- Reviewed for The Burlington Free Press
- Reviewed on April 22nd, 2010
Can a playwright pick bigger topics to address than those Dana Yeaton is confronting in “My Ohio”? It gets into little issues such as religion, sexuality, human understanding and even abortion — and with humor and song, no less.
The Middlebury playwright’s musical comedy, with music by Middlebury College alumnus Andy Mitton, made its world premiere before a full house April 21 to close out the 10th season Vermont Stage has spent in FlynnSpace — the same venue where the theater company opened with another Yeaton play, his adaptation of Chris Bohjalian’s novel “Midwives.” Yeaton and Vermont Stage enter FlynnSpace with a work that goes against the notion that musical theater must be light and breezy to be entertaining. “My Ohio” is fun and funny and at times decidedly heavy, giving the audience something both to smile at and chew on.
New musical 'Ohio' revels in a clash of cultures
- Reviewed by Jim Lowe
- Reviewed for The Times Argus
- Reviewed on April 23rd, 2010
BURLINGTON - Most musicals seen today are nostalgic, fluff or cynical, but Vermont Stage Company has premiered a new two-character musical comedy that is contemporary, hard hitting and optimistic - and entertaining.
"My Ohio," with book and lyrics by Dana Yeaton and music by Andy Mitton, opened Wednesday at the Flynn Center's intimate FlynnSpace theater, and will run through May 2, moving on to Middlebury's Town Hall Theater May 6-9.
Yeaton's tale takes the boy-meets-girl formula in a different direction. Here, the girl is Bonnie, a kindergarten teacher and born-again Christian who is constantly getting into trouble for preaching to her kids. He is Neil, a new age chiropractor from New York City and new to town - who is also gay.
When the two meet, Bonnie is in shock. Not only is she not comfortable with his modern techniques - "that's not the way Dr. Brock did it" - Neil is everything she is against. The pot-smoking Neil, of course, thinks Bonnie's beliefs are baloney, but he desperately needs patients. Reluctantly, they find an unexpected attraction - one that results in both being forced to face their individual personal demons.
Vermont Playwright Pushes Political Hot Buttons in New Musical
- Reviewed by Erik Esckilsen
- Reviewed for Seven Days
- Reviewed on April 28th, 2010
In the great drama of American electoral politics, every state is a stage - with the "battleground states" looming like Broadway. In the new play by Vermont playwright Dana Yeaton (Mad River Rising, Midwives), small-town Ohio is the setting for an ideological clash of a different sort: a kind of love story conflicted by some of the same hostilities that heat up the campaign trail.
But My Ohio, a Vermont Stage Company production now running at the FlynnSpace, is not a polemical work. It's a musical comedy brimming with the genre's confectionery conventions. That the play manages to strike to the heart of serious matters while staying in a light vein makes it a remarkable theatrical achievement - possibly Yeaton's most ambitious play. It's certainly his riskiest.