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Bells Are Ringing

September 17–20

Jennifer Gilbert as Susanswerphone operator Ella Peterson. • Photo by David de Hoyos.
Jennifer Gilbert as Susanswerphone operator Ella Peterson. • Photo by David de Hoyos.

Eons before smart phones, millennia before email, centuries before sexting, there were actual people who would answer a person’s phone, take real-time messages, and relay all info to their clients, who would call in and ask, Any messages for me? Meet Ella, one of the drudges at Susanswerphone, who loves the anonymity of her job, taking on the personae of the person she thinks is at the other end of the line. In this Betty Comden, Adoph Green, and Jule Styne classic from 1956, originally directed by Jerome Robbins and co-choreographed with Bob Fosse, there’s no sweeter sound than “Hello.” Listen and relax into standards “The Party’s Over” and “Just in Time.” INFO: Bayou City Concert Musicals • Heinen Theatre • 3517 Austin • 713.465.6484 • bayoucityconcertmusicals.org—D.L. Groover

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D.L. Groover

D.L. Groover writes on the arts for the Houston Press, OutSmart magazine, Arts & Culture, and Dance Source Houston. He has received two national awards for his theater criticism from the Association of Alternative Newsmedia (AAN), and has previously won three statewide Lone Star Press awards for the same. He is co-author of the irreverent appreciation Skeletons from the Opera Closet (St. Martin’s Press), now in its fourth printing.
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