Raves from the Media!
(Click on underlined copy
to see full reviews or click here
for a ready-to-print feature article/press release on the show!)
For
"Keep Young &
Beautiful"
(aka "My Ship Has Sailed")
"A
Potential Cult Phenomenon!...
A dynamite revue…Witty
and discreetly naughty...
A merciless spoof of modern
America's fear
of the aging process" by Laura Ainsworth, whose "Julie Andrews-style
'These
Are the Things That the Taliban Banned,' which made the rounds in 2001,
was one of the cleverest song parodies since the heyday
of Tom Lehrer...Worth the trip from Ft. Worth to Dallas!"
-- Perry Stewart, Ft. Worth Star-Telegram
* * * * *
"Side-Splitting!...One
zinger after another…
will have
you laughing
with recognition!”
-- Park
Cities
People
newspaper
* * * * *
"3-1/2
Stars! Laura Ainsworth
has fashioned a sophisticated
one-woman show, 'My Ship Has Sailed,' about growing older...
Ainsworth's
act is a hybrid, as she is a fine lounge singer with comic flair who
delivers
her songs in a beautiful, sultry voice with superb breath
control.
She tells the audience, 'If Weird Al Yankovic and Julie Andrews had a
child,
it would be me.'"
-- Rita Faye Smith, TotalTheater.com
* * * * *
"A
vivid
personality
with
a
wonderful stage
presence...
Miss Ainsworth is a quite accomplished
singer-comedienne. She wrings maximum doses of humor out of every
last wonderful lyric that she has written.
She channels a Busby Berkeley Chorus Girl in 'Keep Young and
Beautiful,' Madonna in her own version of 'Frozen,' and sings
double-time and then quadruple-time in 'These Are The Very Promise of a
Youth That is Ephemeral.' The ending was a powerful rendition of
'Everybody Says Don’t' which brought the house down."
--
Joseph
Melnicoff,
BroadwayWorld.com
* * * * *
“If all goes well, ‘My Ship Has Sailed’ will...graduate
to a bigger
venue, then be booked at corporate events, then dazzle them on ‘Oprah,’
then take the nation by storm, fixing our misconceptions all along
the way.”
--
Michael
Precker, Dallas Morning News
("Aging:
A
Laughing
Matter," Sunday Texas Living Section)
* * * * *
"...The ship that has sailed succeeds both as brittle
comedy and
as a thoughtful look at 'a world obsessed with extreme youth.' The show
will only get better as it ages."
-- Robert Ross, Dallas Voice
* * * * *
"Laura Ainsworth pulled out all the
stops
at the Dallas Comedy Festival with a satirical, show-stopping excerpt
from her
one-woman show, My Ship Has Sailed. Accompanied
on
keyboard
by
Brian Piper, Laura
explored the expectations
of society in high-energy song interlaced with commentary…The
performance was impressive."
--
ComedyCritic.com
* * * * *
"Charming...Both funny and unsettling...She's on to
something."
-- Tom Sime, Dallas Morning News
* * * * *
“Marvelous! Delightful!…Laura Ainsworth’s voice
is beautiful!…Just
the kind of wonderful music and social satire that we should all be
supporting...”
-- Hermann Bockelmann, host, KAAM's Europe Today
* * * * *
"Getting ready for a girl's night on
the town, the comments change as aging progresses. Early 20s is all
vanity:
'Does this make me look skinnier?' and, 'OK, how's my hair?' Mid-20s
offers
the beginning of age-concern: 'Does this shade look too college? Too
trashy?'
and, 'Can you see my gray hairs from over there?' Late 20s is the time
of imagined flaws: 'Oh my God, I'm getting crow's-feet! Hand me my
wrinkle
cream!' and, 'Is my butt sagging more than yesterday?' And at 30, well,
going by fashion rags and general stereotypes, while men get more
attractive,
women should just end it all at the big 3-0.
Enter Laura Ainsworth with her
one-woman
show My Ship Has Sailed: How to be a Late Bloomer in a World
Obsessed
with Extreme Youth...
Ainsworth
takes
a
whack,
a slap and a right hook at the anti-aging industry and
what
she terms 'the last big culturally-accepted bias: looking over 30.'"
-- Merritt Martin, Dallas Observer, Best
Bet/Day-By-Day Picks
For "Cole Porter:
Elegance &
Decadence"
"Top‑notch entertainers, inspired selection
of songs...
A highly entertaining evening!"
"Miss
Ainsworth is a
fine singer with an outstanding range and genuine wit. She
delighted the audience with her rendition of such comic Porter numbers
as 'Experiment,' 'Tale of the Oyster' and 'The Physician.' Like
any gifted comedienne who sings, she knew how to wring the last laugh
out of every humorous lyric. She slyly emphasized the Porter wit
with a brazen gesture or a coy facial expression....
Although the evening included such Porter standards as
'It’s De-Lovely' and 'You Do Something To Me,' it also (features)
lesser known Porter tunes as well — such as the three comic numbers
mentioned previously. The diversion’s encore was 'Anything Goes'
— however, it was sung with the original
1934
lyric which has references to Eleanor Roosevelt and Evalyn Walsh
McLean. Bravo, Miss Ainsworth, for sharing such little known
treasures with us!...
In
a word, (Michael Gott) is dazzling. He plays the piano in a
masterful fashion. When he plays, the piano is not just a musical
instrument — it is his way of communicating with the audience.
His musical artistry added romance, wit, and sophistication to the
proceedings. Mr. Gott is a superior vocalist as well. His
chilling rendition of 'In the Still of the Night' left the audience
breathless and yearning for more...
With
the acclaim Miss Ainsworth and Mr. Gott received at the end of the
show, it is inevitable that they team again.
It
truly was
magnificent entertainment."
--
Joseph
Melnicoff, BroadwayWorld.com
* * * * *
Cole Porter Show Gets
Cheers From Crowd
Mike Williams, the
president of the Denison Arts Council, stepped to the footlights
following the first encore and asked the audience, “Aren’t you glad you
came?” The answer was a resounding cheer.
For an evening,
the audience in the Rialto - not your old Rialto, mind you, but one
decked out as a nightclub, complete with ushers dressed like the “Call
for Philip Morris” kid and a cigarette girl with a tray full of CDs -
was reminded why the 1930s and ’40s were the Golden Age of American
Music. Laura Ainsworth and Michael Gott brought their show, “Cole
Porter: Elegance and Decadence,” to Denison, and it was an unqualified
hit.
For an hour and 15
minutes, the performers recalled a time when popular music was clever
and witty and romantic and sexy and written for grownups. Cole Porter
may be the only composer who wrote two songs mentioning Oyster Bay, and
if you were in your seat on Friday, you heard both of them. Then there
was Ainsworth’s version of the little-heard number, “The Physician,”
where our heroine bemoans that while her doctor has lavish praise for
her various body parts, he never says he loves her.
Porter wrote a lot
of songs with alternate lyrics, one set for the stage, another for more
general consumption. The show made good use of Porter’s musical
archives to offer something beyond what is simply expected in a Cole
Porter show.
The necessities
are there, of course. You can’t go wrong with “Night and Day,” which
opened the show, or “Anything Goes,” which closed it. And “In the
Still
of the Night,” and “I Get a Kick (Out of You)” and “Let’s Do It” and
“So in Love”...On the other hand, they offered “Love for Sale” and an
unfinished Porter lyric put to music by Anne Hampton Callaway, called
“I Gaze in Your Eyes.”
Ainsworth is a
singer and comedienne whose solo shows have earned high praise from
critics and audiences in Dallas and its environs for several
years...She and husband Pat Reeder are moving their efforts to Las
Vegas...but one suspects she would be welcomed back on the Red (River)
any time.
Michael
Gott..doesn’t so much play the piano and sing as he glides from one
song to another with smooth transitions and great execution. And when
the two harmonized, it was even better.
The performance
was the first in what the Arts Council has tagged the “Black and White
Series.” They struck gold the first time out, so when the next offering
is announced, get tickets early or the beguine will begin without
you.
-- Edward
Southerland, Denison
Herald Democrat
