Milo Shapiro

A CAPITOL IDEA FOR A PLAY Nina Kissinger finds laughs, humanity, and uncomfortable questions in the people trying to keep government working from behind the scenes At Moxie Theatre, Nina Kissinger’s dramedy, This Is Government, opens with three congressional staffers who find themselves navigating the peculiar realities of working on Capitol Hill. Kaz (Kailey Madoka Agpaoa),…

WELL ABOVE PAAR FOR THE COURSE David Corlew gives a gripping performance as Oscar Levant in this darkly funny and increasingly tense backstage drama To put it mildly, Oscar Levant, the brilliant mid-century pianist known equally for his Oscar Wilde-like wit (“I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin”), wasn’t a happy-go-lucky kind of…

PREDICTABLE NEVER SOUNDED SO GOOD Terrific music, performances, and sheer good feeling make this familiar story hard to resist Sometimes a show really tears at your psyche, makes you question your beliefs, or exposes you to a new level of consciousness. This isn’t that show. Instead, this world-premiere musical will make you feel good almost…

YOU WILL BE WON OVER Cygnet delivers a moving, beautifully acted production with terrific voices Hooray for misunderstandings! Where would theatre be without them? And in Cygnet Theatre’s excellent production of Dear Evan Hansen, some serious misunderstandings rule. The specifics of high school senior Evan Hansen’s (Aiden Meyndert) personality quirkiness are not spelled out in…

A DEVILISHLY GOOD TIME WITH THE NOT-SO-ANGELIC Paul Slade Smith’s delightful farce earns hearty laughs from a terrific cast Playwright and actor Paul Slade Smith is on a winning streak. Besides starring in North Coast Rep’s Scapin earlier this year, all three of his plays have been produced by the combination of NCR and Scripps…

HOME SWEET HOME-ICIDE Joseph Kesselring’s dark comedy classic still delivers its lethal dose of laughs Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace, now revived by Coronado Playhouse, was a sensation when it opened on Broadway in 1941, running for more than 1,400 performances. Eighty-five years later, done as a period piece, most of the humor holds…

FARCE MAJEURE This inventive adaptation trades reverence for revelry, with hilarious results Not everything ages well: milk, dress codes, and comedies are among the many things that are often better when they first appear. Just this week, in fact, I watched a couple of episodes of The Jeffersons and cringed—not just at comments by the…

READY, SET, SPONGE! A colorful musical that’s tailor-made for kids and SpongeBob devotees SpongeBob SquarePants debuted on Nickelodeon in 1999 and was a quick success, becoming a must-watch for kids and many college students. The animated series became a multibillion-dollar global hit, yielding spin-offs, movies, and this musical adaptation now on at Cygnet Theatre titled,…

SPEAK SOFTLY AND CARRY A BIG SONG Megan Carmitchel delivers a knockout performance in Backyard Renaissance’s latest gem During a recent move, I handed down dozens of DVDs. One I couldn’t part with was 1998’s Little Voice, featuring Brenda Blethyn’s exquisite performance. So, imagine my excitement—and trepidation given my esteem of the film—when I learned…

WHAT A PIECE OF WORK IS HOMBRE Tony Meneses explores the hidden costs of masculinity with humor, compassion, and insight For centuries, women and gay men have fought to carve out power in a world largely shaped by straight men, within systems built by and for them. But straight men often wrestle with a different…

THE WOMEN LEFT OFFSTAGE Lauren Gunderson reclaims Shakespeare’s sidelined women in a sharp, emotionally intelligent companion piece to Hamlet The women in Hamlet exist largely to reflect Hamlet’s choices and actions. They are little more than props to propel the plot, with no backstory or motivation. Playwright Lauren M. Gunderson clearly feels frustration at this…

HOW TO SUCCEED IN PRODUCING A MUSICAL Offices tend not to be much fun, which is why they are ripe for exploring undertones of emotion and comedy in scripts like Office Space, Working Girl, 9 to 5, and NBC’s The Office. Throw in some music (okay, a LOT of music) and dynamic choreography and you’ve got a…

HOPE WITH CALLOUSED HANDS: A QUIET MASTERPIECE REVISITED John Steinbeck’s play Of Mice and Men came quickly after the success of his novella by the same name. In fact, the play opened on Broadway in 1937 while the book was still on best sellers lists. In each telling, Steinbeck draws upon his own teenage experiences…

WHEN THE DEAD STILL RUN THE ROOM Grief, memory, and the long shadow of unfinished business In this play of four characters, a fifth looms large, though never seen: the titular Louisa, late wife to Steven (James Sutorius), mother to Celia (Faline England), and grandmother to Lucy (Caroline Renee). She’s been dead for nearly forty…

A NEIGHBORLY NICE LADY— WITH BUZZ ALDRIN IN HER HEAD Susan Clausen shines in Ian August’s funny, surreal one-woman ride Reading the press blurb about Donna Orbits the Moon left me scratching my head, wondering what it was actually about. Having seen it now, I get why. Some shows are hard to describe well. That…