An insult to the entire NIU School of Theatre and Dance is the only way to describe the performance of “A Cinderella Waltz” at the NIU Corner Theatre on Sunday.

While standing in line to get a ticket, one woman was turned away after being told her child was under the age of 12 and could not view the show. The show should have ditched the name Cinderella, because the mom was expecting to see a child-appropriate show.

Then, to open the show, the set design was a painted rock, and a couple of flags. There seemed to be minimal effort put into creating a dazzling set.

Even worse, as the actors took to the stage, the cardinal rule of theater was broken in the first two minutes. Never ever, ever, ever does an actor turn their back on the audience. One actress turned her back on the audience four times. If she had been a comedian, she would have gotten the hook.

The actual play was a monstrous disaster. During the play, an actress started off with a British accent, then went to a country accent, and finally ended in a Midwestern accent. Pick one already! Also, actor Mitchell Beecher, who played Mr. Snow, made the play scary even for adults. His character portrayed a father who kept trying to molest his daughters, and kept screaming about how he could not find his pants. The audience seemed to be disturbed, and a third of the audience left at intermission.

The costumes for the play were highly inappropriate. Carolyn Guido, who played the stepsister Regan, offered the audience a Janet Jackson-esque moment when she came too close to flashing the audience several times in the little material she wore as a shirt.

The entire play was a perversion of what fairy tales should be. There was a sweet moral lesson of creating your own destiny, but the inappropriate jokes were overdone. By intermission, several couples in the audience were making-out instead of watching the play.

The production was disrespectful to the performing arts, and should never have had more than one performance. For anyone who was in the play, the production should never be listed on a resume.

Watching the play was a waste of two hours. “A Cinderella Waltz” was not a respectable dance, and the actors should be ashamed to have been part of the production.

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