“We have been doing a classical musical in the January/February slot, but it gets dark at 5, it’s winter and cold, and that audience sometimes doesn’t like going out,” director Mark Minnick of Toby’s Dinner Theatre said. “We thought, ‘let’s try a show that’s a little more edgy.’”
Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical (review)
Amid a year of callousness, a message of kindness is joyfully delivered in Toby’s Dinner Theatre’s production of Miracle on 34th Street: The Musical, touchingly directed by Shawn Kettering.
Real life understudy goes on in Toby’s dream production of Dreamgirls (review)
Dreamgirls is Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen’s loose interpretation of the rise of Diana Ross and the Supremes, the challenges they had and the breakthrough of R&B groups to the mainstream, while being controlled by the men who ran the industry.
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at Toby’s (review)
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast may claim to be the “tale as old as time” but it has nothing on Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. As Tim Rice’s accessible lyrics state, this through-sung musical takes place “way, way back many centuries ago, not long after the Bible began,” and comes from us from the […]
Toby Orenstein’s twist to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
Before opening to wide acclaim on Broadway in 1982, and before Donny Osmond began a decade-long run as the title character in film and on stage, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat made a name for itself with staged concerts.
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast at Toby’s Dinner Theatre (review)
Disney’s Beauty and the Beast is as delightful today as ever, and Toby’s Dinner Theatre does it just right. If you are a certain age—somewhere between 30 and 40—Beauty and the Beast is in your bones, for the 1991 animated Disney film was a landmark production built with magic. It made over an ancient French fairy […]
Show Boat at Toby’s Dinner Theatre (review)
The legendary team of Oscar Hammerstein and Jerome Kern created some of the best music ever written for the American stage in Show Boat. And each song gets a stellar rendition by Toby’s cast. Reason enough to grab a ticket.
A Christmas Carol: The Musical, pure gold at Toby’s (review)
“There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.” – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol A Christmas Carol: The Musical is to the Dickensian tale what Spamalot was to Arthurian legend. Perhaps it is smidge or two less slapstick, but it is still a fun, self-aware, frequently delightfully hammy musical romp through […]
Sister Act at Toby’s Dinner Theatre “heavenly” (review)
There’s some serious jiving going on at Toby’s Dinner Theater. No need to dress up too much- just grab your rosary and hymnal, and head out the door to Sister Act. It’s— yes, yes, wait for it- paradise.
Hairspray at Toby’s Dinner Theatre (review)
A summer of fun kicks off with a musical bouncier and brighter than a beach ball—Hairspray, presented in all its teased, sprayed and teen-spirited glory at Toby’s Dinner Theatre of Columbia under the ebullient direction (and 1960s go-go choreography) of Mark Minnick.
Peter Pan at Toby’s Dinner Theatre (review)
You already know what kind of time you’ll have at Toby Dinner Theatre’s Peter Pan. If the show’s of-its-era difficulties portraying Native Americans would bother you, this production will do nothing to address that. Otherwise, if you are a fan of the classic tale of the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, you’ll not be disappointed.
South Pacific at Toby’s Dinner Theatre (review)
A friend of mine judges Asian restaurants solely on their sweet and sour soup: mess that up and not much else that follows will matter. But deliver a soup that evenly balances the sweetness of duck sauce with the sour of rice vinegar, and right away it’s a good sign that the kitchen knows […]