Nick's Place

Nicholas Barnard 1903: Wings of Dreams 11/12/00

Wings of Dreams is best described as a production of contrasts. Black vs. white. Broadway caliber music vs. music that is only fit for low budget children's morning shows. Acting expertise vs. technical expertise. Relevant story lines vs. miscellaneous nonsense. Dreams attempted and achieved vs. dreams attempted but never achieved. Many of these contrasts makes Wings of Dreams a strong musical production. A few of these contrasts unfortunately hinder this production, making it lose its chance for becoming a truly moving and effective production.

My role in Wings of Dreams is part of the wardrobe crew, specifically watching and assisting at the dressing rooms. In this role I get to see instant feedback in the form of actors faces and mannerisms. Most actors have begun to think more highly of the production over the week, but there are still musical numbers that they and I see as superfluous and not fitting into the overall story arcs of the Wright Brothers and Paul Laurence Dunbar. We all agree that the song “The Cash” praised by other reviewers is a great song, and may form a basis for the third Dayton musical in the Wright State University Theatre Department trilogy, but this song needed to be left out of this piece.

As a group we, the cast and crew, also believe that the feature that will haunt Mr. McDowell in parody is the choice to end both the first and second acts with the same song. While this is a beautiful song, the first presentation of this song diminishes the finale and in general doesn't move the story forward. At the end of act one, John Henry Maxwell, is going war, the Wrights are engaging in beginning their flight research in honest, and Paul Dunbar's story is on the backburner. Despite these uncertainties and the availability of abundant musical fodder, we get to hear about following you dreams, beating the audience over the head with our message.

Wings of Dreams has potential to be an excellent musical, it lacks nothing, specifically it carries too much, running at two hours forty minutes with a standard fifteen minute intermission. Mr. McDowell needs to cut the superfluous story lines out and focus back on the core stories, specifically the stories of the Wright Brothers and their sister; and Paul Dunbar and his wife. Focusing on the core story will pull the audience back to the emotions of the main characters, and ultimately make this a more effective piece.