Milo Shapiro

A  GREAT KNIGHT, BUT JUST A GOOD NIGHT When a show comes back time and again, the review question is two-fold:   (1) Is it worth reviving?   and (2)   Does this production offer a reinterpretation such that it warrants another look (or a first time look for a new generation)?     In the case of Cygnet’s Man of…

CAMPY LAUGHS FROM BROAD CHARACTERS Playwright Zsa Zsa Gershick is best known for her GLAAD and NAACP award-winning play Bluebonnet Court, a drama with humorous moments.   With her latest world-premiere at Moxie Theatre, Coming Attractions, she flips the intention, giving us instead a wit-filled comedy with touching moments. Though all-but-one of the characters are fiction,…

POINTS FOR THE RICH MIX IN BROWNIE Five women consider themselves to be friends because their daughters are in the same Girl Scouts troupe.   The bond they share should have been enough to plan and co-lead a weekend camping excursion for the troupe, but challenges along the way reveal different personalities that were belied by…

THE TORTILLA CURTAIN RISES TO BIG APPLAUSE A frequently-used device in plot is to create two or more distinctively different characters and see how they function once they are thrown together (Kiss of the Spider Woman, The Odd Couple), but in Tortilla Curtain, the difference is the effect they have had on each other as…

CORNED BEEF TRASH The Great American Trailer Park Musical has a misleading superlative. The show mirrors A Tuna Christmas and Sordid Lives, in that it takes a humorous look at the goings-on of America’s trashy lower-middle class, yet these other shows are far superior in writing and character development.   The Rep’s solid production can not…

SWEET AND WITTY SPOOF IS A CURE-ALL FOR THE BLUES The playbill cover for Coronado Playhouse’s highly charming production of The Drowsy Chaperone describes it as “A Musical Within A Comedy,” which is partly true: it’s also both a take-off and homage to old-fashioned Broadway musicals (book by Bob Martin and Don McKellar and music…

CYGNET’S GLASS MENAGERIE SPARKLES It is easy to see why Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie was an immediate hit when it debuted in 1944.   In an era of everyone keeping up appearances, hiding any real pains at home, personal struggles could make one feel painfully alone.   Williams gave the masses a chance to sneak a…

THERE’S TALENT SOMEWHERE IN THIS FAMILY With West Side Story lighting up Broadway only blocks from their home, the Candelarias are inspired that Chita Rivera has cracked open the doors of opportunity for Latino performers like siblings Alejandro, Francisco, and Rebecca.   As Tony and Maria sing, “There’s a place for us:somewhere.” The Old Globe’s Somewhere…

UNLIKEABLE CHARACTERS STILL LEAVE A RESONATING MESSAGE In Milk Like Sugar, Kirsten Greenidge’s sharply-written world premiere at La Jolla Playhouse, three African-American, inner-city high school girls, Annie, Margie, and Talisha (aka T), have formed a tight posse in order to survive the harsh realities of tenement life. With absent brothers and uneducated mothers (one of…