Theatre
In 1987 Isaacs appeared in Conrack, a musical based on Pat Conroy's novel The River Is Wide, at AMAS Repertory Theater. The show is set in 1969 and recounts the adventures of Pat Conroy, a young white teacher who teaches black children on the remote South Carolina island of Yamacraw. Isaacs played Dr. Jackie Brooks, a black representative of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare who becomes romantically involved with Conroy. Stephen Holden in his review of the show for the New York Times said that Isaacs "brings a fine psychological precison to the role of Dr. Jackie Brooks."
In 1988 Isaacs replaced LaTonya Sue Welch, as Effie in Michael Bennett's production of Dreamgirls at An Evening Dinner Theater in Elmsford, New York. Alvin Klein of the New York Times said that "Isaacs is so fine as that replacement that one feels a strange sense of confused priorities."
In 1989 Isaacs played the title role of Kay Jones, a music-hall performer who wears several disguises, in the Goodspeed Opera House revival of the Gershwins' Oh, Kay!. The setting in the revival was moved from Long Island to Harlem and the production was given an all-black cast. Stephen Holden said in his review in the New York Times that "Pamela Isaacs has only to raise an eyebrow to strike sparks. Her brassy comic charisma recalls Patti LuPone as Reno Sweeney in the Lincoln Center Theater production of Anything Goes."
In 1993 Isaacs performed a one-woman show at Center Stage in Baltimore, appearing as Billie Holiday in "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. J. Wynn Rousuck called Isaacs a "spellbinding performer" in the production and added "It's not that she attempts to impersonate . That would probably be futile. Instead, Isaacs acts like Billie Holiday and sings like, well, Isaacs, who is a thrill to hear." "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill" was such a hit that Isaac's run was extended.
In 1995 Isaacs returned to Baltimore's Center Stage to play the leading role in a production of Kurt Weill's Happy End as Salvation Army worker Lilian Holiday. While in Baltimore for the Center Stage productions, Isaacs appeared in one episode of "Homicide: Life on the Street."
Read more about this topic: Pamela Isaacs
Famous quotes containing the word theatre:
“Mankind’s common instinct for reality ... has always held the world to be essentially a theatre for heroism. In heroism, we feel, life’s supreme mystery is hidden. We tolerate no one who has no capacity whatever for it in any direction. On the other hand, no matter what a man’s frailties otherwise may be, if he be willing to risk death, and still more if he suffer it heroically, in the service he has chosen, the fact consecrates him forever.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“Glorious bouquets and storms of applause ... are the trimmings which every artist naturally enjoys. But to move an audience in such a role, to hear in the applause that unmistakable note which breaks through good theatre manners and comes from the heart, is to feel that you have won through to life itself. Such pleasure does not vanish with the fall of the curtain, but becomes part of one’s own life.”
—Dame Alice Markova (b. 1910)
“This visible world is wonderfully to be delighted in, and highly to be esteemed, because it is the theatre of God’s righteous Kingdom.”
—Thomas Traherne (1636–1674)