Milo Shapiro

TALLULAH’S BACK IN TOWN, DAHLING! “Don’t touch my purse!   Touching a woman’s purse is like touching her vagina! Except, I can only put so much in my purse.” Not quite a lady-like quote for 1965, huh? Welcome to the world of screen star Tallulah Bankhead, a stage actress best known for her role in the…

THERE’S SOMETHING GOOD IN ROTTEN So you’re a somewhat-talented duo of playwrights, living in 1595 England, with actors eager to work with you and a benefactor hiring you to produce a play. What could go wrong? Well, there’s this other guy named William Shakespeare in town and not only is he pretty good at it,…

EXTRA! EXTRA! SING ALL ABOUT IT! Wildsong Productions is back with a rousing production of Newsies, doing the best they can with a so-so-script. In Harvey Fierstein’s stage book adaptation of the same-titled 1992 Disney musical film, we meet a group of impoverished young men, most of whom are orphans. Inspired by a true story…

IF LOOKS COULD KILL : The strength of a person’s spirit would then be measured by how much ‘truth’ he could tolerate, or more precisely, to what extent he needs to have it diluted, disguised, sweetened, muted, falsified. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) Best friends (and sometimes lovers) Nathan and Richard decide, because of their extreme intelligence…

ALICE IN STUNNED-ERLAND Lewis Carroll sure never saw this version coming. His 1865 novel Alice In Wonderland, probably best known from the 1951 Disney animated film, has been reinterpreted time and again. This rocking musical version (with music by Duncan Sheik, lyrics by Steven Slater, and book by Slater and Jessie Nelson) reworks the original…

MACROBATS The one challenge in writing this review is my atypical, completely-blank notepad taken home from the theatre. But that’s with good reason.   Duel Reality — which opened last night — makes it challenging to decide just what to look at on stage at times, let alone dare to look away for something as mundane…

NOT LARSON’S BIGGIE, BUT IT PAID THE “RENT” One of the great heartbreaks of theater history is that Jonathan Larson, the author and composer of the rock opera Rent, his modern telling of Puccini’s La Bohème, died suddenly at 35 of an aortic aneurysm on Jan. 25, 1996, 10 days before his 36th birthday and…

MOMMIE McDEAREST Irish playwright Martin McDonagh quickly makes it abundantly clear that dysfunctional mother/daughter relationships are not just the stuff of Hollywood. In the tiny town of Leenane in Western Ireland in the 1990s, Maureen is in a situation many families can relate to: she is the only daughter out of three willing to be…

IN THIS CASE, NINE IS A PERFECT SCORE In Nine, the musical adaptation of Federico Fellini’s 1963 film 8 ½  now playing at Coronado Playhouse, Guido Contini (William Henry Schneider), an internationally famous film director of the 1960s, is turning forty and is at an impasse in several ways. After three critically and financially successful films, his…

THIS AMERICAN FELT LIKE AN IDIOT UNTIL READING A SYNOPSIS When MTV hit the airwaves, a young generation stopped dead in their tracks and watched hours and hours of endless videos. Frequently, they made no sense because, in most cases, the video had far less to do with the words of the song and more…

STIRRING UP A RECIPE FOR FAMILY REVELATIONS It may seem like a lifetime ago, but can you remember way back to April of 2021?   Washing canned goods with gloves on?   Masking to accept a package?   Envying 80 year olds because they had first crack at a vaccine?   It’s staggering, as we’re fully caught up in…