Milo Shapiro

WHAT A SHOCK In 1845, German psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann wrote a disturbing but popular children’s book featuring the perils of children who misbehave. A  century and a half later, in 1998, the popular book was  adapted for the stage by Improbable, a London theater company, and The Tiger Lillies,  a cult British musical trio; together, they  brought the stories…

A FIRST  DATE THAT GOES WELL The device of having characters receive advice from a conscience or someone from their past is tried and true in musicals: They’re Playing Our Song‘s Vernon’s gets help from his Greek Chorus “boys”; Grease‘s Frenchy is (beauty)schooled by the Teen Angel; and now,  First Date‘s Aaron and Casey get input, helpful…

IT’S WORTH SINGING ABOUT GETTING OLDER Perhaps the only thing worse than getting older is thinking about it. So when a nascent theater company puts on a show’”a musical no less’”about the  fear and associated feelings regarding  aging (and the odds of becoming what is referred to as a “Geeze”), some theatergoers may understandably be hesitant to…

A LONG RIDE ON THE TWENTIETH CENTURY In today’s world of seeing T-shirts in fancy restaurants, it’s almost difficult to envision that, once upon a time, people would dress to the nines for a 16-hour train ride, being attended to by spiffy stewards, waiters, and chefs. But  that’s exactly what hundreds of New York’s elite did…

I COULD WATCH 9 TO 5 24/7 In 1980, an unlikely film trio, Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, and Dolly Parton, was the center of  9 to 5,  an amusing feminist romp with lovable characters. Years later, Patricia Resnick took the screen play she co-authored and created the book for the stage version, featuring   new music by Parton,…

BAD JEWS MAKES FOR GOOD THEATRE, BUT OY SUCH AGITA There’s an old joke: “What do you get if you put three Jews in the same room?   Four opinions.” In Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews, the joke is elevated to a new level when the three strikingly different people are two brothers, Liam and Jonah, and…

LAMB’S SERVES UP A TASTY DINNER WITH MARLENE There’s an old parlor game of trying to decide:   If you could attend a dinner party and choose any guests you wanted around the table, whom would you select?   For Eric Hanes, who visited Paris from Sweden in 1938, he might well have picked the people who…

GIVE YOURSELF OVER TO ABSOLUTE PLEASURE Those familiar with the movie version of The Rocky Horror Show may be shocked to find that there is no typo in the title of the stage version: Here, there is no “Picture” before “Show.” Before anyone had thoughts of a movie about the gang from Transsexual Transylvania, there…

WHEN IT RAINS, IT SOARS Let’s start with the unavoidable down-side so we can end with the up-side. While Cygnet Theatre’s When the Rain Stops Falling is spectacular,  it is terribly complicated and confusing. It’s challenging enough that the 2008 play  time-jumps  across four generations, sometimes with different actors playing the same character, but  Australian playwright Andrew Bovell  purposely holds…

IT DOESN’T SUCK TO BE AVENUE Q AT CORONADO In the right setting, irreverence is so jovial. Perhaps our era of thought-police and political correctness has made it delicious to pervert that which seems simple and pure solely for the sake of entertainment, but musicals such as The Producers and The Book of Mormon are…

THE GREAT CALL OF CHINA The very nature of adoption can leave a child’”and the adult he or she becomes’”filled with questions: Who were you, Mother?   Why did you make this choice?   Do you regret it?   And perhaps most painful to ponder:   Would you be glad to meet me, if you could?   For Jade McCullough…

TRAGIC FOR HIM BUT GOOD FUN FOR US Hot on the heels of the run of Old Jews Telling Jokes, the Lyceum brings us a very different and more personal look at Jewish humor.   Instead of a non-stop set of jokes, comedian and actor Brad Zimmerman’s one-man show is a well-rounded piece.   Part observational humor,…

WHAT, WOULD IT KILL YOU TO HEAR A JEWISH JOKE, I ASK YOU? A German, a Frenchman, and a Jew are crawling across the desert.   The German says, “Mein Gott!   I’m so hot and thirsty and tired.   I must have a beer!”   The Frenchman says, “Mon Dieu!   I’m so hot and thirsty and tired.   I…

A BLINKING YELLOW FOR RED AT THE REP Is a soup can art?   To Matisse, probably not.   To Warhol, clearly yes.   And to everyone else?   Ah, that’s when we start getting into what art really is.   Playwright John Logan’s Red looks deeply at this question from the perspectives of two very different men in 1958….

A LOT OF YOUTHFUL SPRING BUT LITTLE CHARACTER AWAKENING Given harsh themes including child abuse, rape, homosexuality, and suicide, one can easily see why Frank Wedekind’s original German play Spring Awakening  was initially banned when released; these subjects may be par for the course on the nightly news, but it was pretty hot stuff for Germany…