'Buddy, the Buddy Holly Story'

Elizabeth Youngman-Westphal

Special to the Village News

Buddy is back!

Rock ‘n Roll at its best! A screaming success. Now playing at the New Village Arts theatre in Carlsbad, just minutes away is one of this year's most engaging shows.

"Buddy, the Buddy Holly Story" features the same outstanding cast of the previous production downtown by the Intrepid Theatre troupe, except for the drummer, replaced by Jarrod Alexander, everyone else is the same. Although better. They own their characters after so many performances. Paul Swenson Eddy is still Buddy and plays a convincing role.

This time around others step up. So get ready to jump and shout when Benjamin Roy as Tyrone Jones takes over the stage at the Apollo Theatre. Roy rips up the boards.

As does Miss Eboni Muse (Marlena Madson). The woman has pipes, personality and presence! She owns her space – bought and paid for!

Not to be discounted is the Big Bopper played convincingly by Manny Fernandes. He makes your toes tap and puts a giggle in your wiggle. He is crazy good!

And then comes Ritchie Valens (Shaun Tuazon). Move over when he takes the stage. He takes no prisoners. It would be easy to think this was the Ritchie Valens show except he only comes on in the last act.

Directed by Christy Yael-Cox, she has worked brilliantly with this cast to restage the show for the venue without it suffering from the loss of space. Good job to everyone from the set, video projection and perfect sound. Although the hearing headsets were not connected into the sound system, the theatre is small enough it didn’t matter in this case.

Grab a chance to see "Buddy, the Buddy Holly Story" with added shows on Sunday, Aug. 13 and Sunday, Aug. 20 at 7 p.m. To snag tickets, call (760) 433-3245 or visit www.newvillargearts.org. 2787 State Street, Carlsbad. Street parking.