The eternal sibling lament, “Dad likes you best,” runs through “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” like so much spilt milk. It streams into everything and is fancifully squeezed for all its worth by Director Theresa A. Carson and the DAC Applause! company for the 2014 holiday offering.

“Joseph,” a rock musical from the 1970s, opened Friday at the Durango Arts Center with an apparent cast of thousands. It runs one more weekend.

Based on a Biblical story, “Joseph” is a through-sung musical with virtually no dialogue. Led by three narrators (Ana Koshevoy, Kiersten Langford and Tilly Leeder), the action moves swiftly. Without a program synopsis, the plot line may be murky, so sit back and enjoy the energy.

Joseph is the second youngest of patriarch Jacob’s 12 sons. Played by the engaging Landon Newton, the one adult in the company, Joseph garners a fancy dreamcoat due to his status as “favored son.” He also gains the enmity of his brothers. They consider killing daddy’s boy but instead sell him into Egyptian slavery where he’s treated harshly and imprisoned.

Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams gets him an audience with the pharaoh. From there, a sharp rise to political power follows. Meanwhile, his birth family languishes through drought, famine and other disasters.

The musical is clearly a spoof with several odd, embedded parodies. For “One More Angel in Heaven,” the brothers donned cowboy hats and faked country-western sadness. In “Those Canaan Days,” they wore berets and moaned through a French lament. For “Benjamin Calypso,” the brothers tied on grass skirts, danced and begged Joseph for mercy. Crying crocodile tears, the guys milked each parody to its phony bone. And the audience got it, especially two little brothers near me who howled with laughter.

Credit Carson and her team for assembling a cast continuously on the verge of internal combustion. Opening night, not a cue went missing. Choreographer Shea Costa’s dancers bubbled with pretty good synchronization. A few sound problems surfaced, and tuning problems appeared here and there. But the two-musician power band, pianist Paula Miller and percussionist Mark Rosenberg, kept “Joseph” rock ’n’ rolling along.

[email protected]. Judith Reynolds is a Durango writer, art historian and arts journalist.

More youthful musical talent found in SJS Youth Orchestra concert

The reorganized youth orchestras under the umbrella of the San Juan Symphony gave a fine winter concert a week ago. It’s always a pleasure to hear young musicians, as they represent the future.
I get a charge out of beginning musicians simply tuning up. When they agree on a pitch, they have found common ground. It seems so rare these days, and that’s where it all begins – tuning The SJS Youth Orchestras also honor the protocols of a professional symphony: formal dress, entrances and exits, the works.
Bill LaShell led the Junior Orchestra, and among the four selections the 10-person ensemble played, Verdi’s “Anvil Chorus” was unexpected. Arranged for beginners, it was spare, but it also featured a professional percussionist, Katrina Hedrick, on, what else, an anvil.
The mid-level group, the Philharmonic, conducted by Lech Usinowicz played four selections including Elgar’s elegiac “Nimrod.” The musicians concluded with faster and brighter works, “Maharaja” and “Palladio.”
Artistic Director Kurt Chrisman conducted the large, 38 players, more experienced Youth Orchestra. They began with Michael Mauldin’s “Dawn at San Juan Mesa,” a beautiful, seven-minute atmospheric work. The orchestra followed with a premiere of Jonathan Peters’ “Rocky Mountain Suite,” a modern-tone poem with five sections that evokes the flora, fauna and majesty of our region.
In addition to a skillful reading of the music, the players sat beneath a screen with spectacular visuals. “Snowstorm” began with details of a frozen landscape. The work concluded with grand photographs of our mountain ranges for “Backbone of the World.”
Chrisman concluded the evening with Schubert’s challenging “Overture to Rosamunde” to demonstrate his young musicians can perform the classics as well as contemporary works.
Judith Reynolds

If you go

“Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” Durango Arts Center, 802 East Second Ave., will continue with three more performances through Saturday. Visit www.durangoarts.org or call 259-2606 for showtimes or to buy tickets.