Conejo Players’ Bert ‘n’ Eddie’ a fun look at vaudevillians’ life

“Bert ‘n’ Eddie”
CONEJO PLAYERS THEATRE

With two major entertainment stars of a century ago and a rich field of supporting players, Dick DeBenedictis has pieced together an intriguing new musical, “Bert ‘n’ Eddie,” now on stage at the Conejo Players Theatre in Thousand Oaks.

The title refers to the remarkable Bert Williams, who rose to fame as a black entertainer with a unique sense of humor and an ability to fashion songs and skits that have endured in the annals of American theater history, and Eddie Cantor, the singing-dancing dynamo whose fame was fueled by films and TV long after the period around which the show is centered.

Cheridah Best, most recently seen locally in the pivotal role of Mrs. Muller in Santa Paula Theater Center’s “Doubt,” again brings strength and spunk to the stage, this time as Williams’ wife, Lottie, who can make even the simplest solo, without the show’s recorded orchestrations and accompaniments, vivid in a quiet, pensive rendition of “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”

-Rita Moran
Writer- Ventura County Starv

Categorised in: Reviews

This post was written by Cheridah Best