Among other things, the actors in “Harriet the Spy” become scientific experiments and living machines.by Will Gottlieb
Coastal Journal staff

BRUNSWICK— Harriet, a nice, normal kid with nice, normal parents and plenty of nice, normal friends, has an interesting, not-normal hobby: Spying. She spies on the kids and grownups in her community, and records her perceptive if somewhat acerbic observations in a notebook – which falls into the wrong hands one day, and causes her to become an outcast in her community.

Or anyway, that's the plot of "Harriet the Spy," which was performed over the weekend by The Young People's Theater Group at the Theater Project in Brunswick. The real story here is that the Theater Project cooked up this entire dramatic experience in just two short weeks, and still managed to make it sing, as we say in show biz. The Young People's Theater Group is a program designed for elementary- and middle-school actors, that guides the students through the process of collaborating on a production, assigning and accepting roles, and producing a given work within a very limited time frame – and doing all of the above very well.

Dorothy (played LaQuet Sharnell, standing, center) gets the word from the Munchkins in the Maine State Music Theater’s production of “The Wiz.” by Will Gottlieb
Coastal Journal staff

BRUNSWICK — The thing to remember about the Maine State Music Theater's production of "The Wiz," is that it's based on the 1978 movie "The Wiz," which was based on the 1974 Broadway musical "The Wiz: The Super Soul Musical," which was based on the 1939 film "The Wizard of Oz," which was based on a children's novel published in 1900, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum.

In other words, this is an old story that has been brought into the present through the magic of the theater. It carries the hallmarks of all of the traditions it has encountered along the way, i.e. Broadway and Hollywood and African American and English and American literary traditions – and yet all of these versions genuinely honor their antecedent traditions, including Baum's novel, which starts out with the words, "Folk lore, legends, myths and fairy tales have followed childhood through the ages, for every healthy youngster has a wholesome and instinctive love for fantastic stories...Having this thought in mind, the story of 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was written solely to pleasure children of today. It aspires to being a modernized fairy tale, in which the wonderment and joy are retained and the heart-aches and nightmares are left out."

by Kurt Frost
Special to the Coastal Journal

BATH — The following DVDs are now available at River Bottom Video in Bath, located at 221 Water St., next to the rear entrance for Reny's.

"Priest" (dir: Scott Stewart) Here's a comic-book adaptation that should have stayed in the vault. I haven't even seen it...but I can predict no one will enjoy this movie. If I learned anything from "Legion" it's not to trust the trailer, which generally shows you everything you want to see within the confines of itself. Just rent some other crappy sci-fi horror like "Van Helsing" or something.

"Something Borrowed" (dir: Luke Greenfield) Attention rom-com (i.e. Romantic Comedy) lovers! Well received by the Internet, this film stars the likes of Kate Hudson and John Krasinksi. I wonder why there aren't picketers standing outside of the theater protesting the falsified image of love and marriage. You shoot a gun in a flick and suddenly it's the reason the kids are in trouble these days...you pump endless rom-com after another out and are left wondering why our world is completely over populated and ridden with people hating each other after one failed marriage at a time.