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London Theatre Reviews: THE TEMPEST; SUMMERFOLK; LES LIAISONS DANGEREUSES (The Globe and National Theatre)
DIRECTORS TAKE CENTER STAGE Bold vision and theatrical daring define a revelatory London season Directorial daring dominates the London stages this spring season, providing some of the most memorable moments in the theatre that I’ve witnessed in years. Of the eight plays I saw in London last week, none were new. Yet, thanks to some…
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Cabaret Review: DREAM THE IMPOSSIBLE DREAM (LEO: Letztes Erfreuliches Operntheater in Vienna)
LOVE LANGUAGES A cabaret performance in Vienna’s smallest opera house In Vienna, there’s the Staatsoper (very large, very elegant, very impressive, opened in 1869) and the Volksoper (not quite as large, more relaxed, somewhat whimsical, opened in 1898), and then there’s the LEO, the Letztes Erfreuliches Operntheater, rendered in English as the Last Enjoyable Opera…
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Dance Review: GRAHAM100 (Martha Graham Dance Company at The Auditorium Theatre, Chicago)
About midway through Martha Graham’s powerful Chronicle, performed last Saturday at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, I realized that the elevated platform at center stage was not just a platform but a highly stylized Olympic podium. It’s an important distinction. In 1936, Graham had been invited to participate in the Berlin Olympics, hosted under the…
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Theater Review: CAMELTON (Stephen Cole’s One-Man Show About One Man’s Wild Ride)
THERE’S NO BUSINESS LIKE SHOW BUSINESS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE MIDDLE EAST Stephen Cole’s backstage Qatar saga is stranger than fiction—and just as entertaining In the story category of “truth is stranger than fiction,” and well worthy of inclusion in an edition of Ripley’s Believe It or Not, comes the mind-boggling saga of how…
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Theater Review: THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET (Eddie Izzard; International Tour; Hollywood’s Montalbán)
A SOLO HAMLET BUILT ON PRECISION AND VELOCITY Inside the White-Box World of Izzard: One Performer, Twenty-Two Roles, No Safety Net Suzy Eddie Izzard—formerly known as Eddie Izzard until 2023 and now using she/her pronouns—is a groundbreaking British comedian known for her gender-defying stage persona. Now Izzard has taken up a new challenge, the actor’s…
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Dance Preview: GRAHAM100 (Martha Graham Dance Company International Tour in Chicago)
GRAHAM’S DANCE DYNASTY DESCENDS ON THE AUDITORIUM THEATRE Martha Graham Dance Company pairs signature works with a Bernstein-inspired Chicago premiere. On January 24, The Auditorium Theatre will host the living legacy of a pioneering genius. As part of its celebratory 100th anniversary international tour, the Martha Graham Dance Company will commemorate this unmatched milestone with…
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Theater Obituary: ROBERT WILSON (1941-2025)
VISIONARY OF STILLNESS AND LIGHT The line was always the thing. Before speech, before movement, there was line. Line as structure, line as breath, line as the actual measurement of time. In the theatre-world Wilson built and then rebuilt across five decades, a single raised eyebrow might require five full minutes to complete its journey….
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London Theatre Review: STEREOPHONIC (Duke of York’s)
THEATRE TURNED ALL THE WAY UP There are moments in the theatre when everything converges: writing, performance, design, direction, and something indefinable that transforms craft into revelation. David Adjmi’s Stereophonic, now blazing through the Duke of York’s Theatre, is precisely such a moment. This isn’t simply 2024’s finest American play; it’s a seismic shift in…
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London Theatre Review: OLIVER! (Gielgud Theatre)
BOURNE AGAIN: A MUSICAL RECLAMATION IN GLORIOUS MINOR KEY After a long absence from the West End, Oliver! has returned with the force of a Victorian street gang bursting through fog-shrouded London alleys. Matthew Bourne‘s revival of Lionel Bart‘s beloved musical at the Gielgud Theatre is nothing short of theatrical gold, a production that honors…
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London Opera Review: SEMELE (Royal Opera House)
THE SERVANT PROBLEM: OLIVER MEARS STRIPS HANDEL’S SEMELE TO ITS DISEASED CORE There’s something deeply unsettling about watching gods behave badly in a conference hotel. Oliver Mears‘ production of Handel’s Semele at the Royal Opera House at Covent Garden, which conquered Paris earlier this year, doesn’t just update the myth; it performs surgery on it,…
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London Review: MY NEIGHBOUR TOTORO (Gillian Lynne)
WHAT THE FOREST KNOWS: TOTORO AND THE RADICAL ACT OF WONDER There’s something profoundly radical about a piece of theatre that trusts its audience to believe in wonder. The Royal Shakespeare Company’s production of My Neighbour Totoro, now enchanting audiences in its West End transfer at the Gillian Lynne Theatre after breaking box office records…
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Theatre Review: GIANT (Harold Pinter Theatre, London)
A GIANT PEACH OF AN ANTISEMITE There’s something eerily familiar about the way John Lithgow adjusts his cardigan in Mark Rosenblatt‘s haunting new play Giant, now playing in the West End’s Harold Pinter Theatre, having transferred from Royal Court. Like a beloved uncle settling in for storytime, he radiates the practiced charm that made Roald…
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Theatre Review: EVITA (London Palladium)
THE GYM TOOK OVER ARGENTINA AND NOBODY LOOKED BACK Jamie Lloyd’s Evita comes at you like a SoulCycle class that got a state grant for performance art. It’s sweaty, shiny, and occasionally shouts at you in political slogans. The whole thing feels like someone dared the production team to stage a military coup with nothing…
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Highly Recommended Concert Theater: BYRD SONG (Concert Theatre Works and Gesualdo Six in L.A., S.F., Chicago, Ireland)
BYRD SONG IN SHADOW: CONCERT IN CANDLELIGHT, THEATRE OF DEFIANCE Hark! Attend, ye lovers of sacred sound and clandestine devotion, for the international tour of Secret Byrd—an evanescent glimpse into a hidden past—cometh to The Americas but ten times—16th-21st of July—in Los Angeles, San Francisco and Chicago. In the flicker of candlelight within the vaults…
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Theater Review: ONE MAN POE (Stephen Smith on Tour)
A MONODRAMA OF SHADOWS AND SHATTERED SANITY Stephen Smith’s One Man Poe at the Broadwater Studio comes in two one-hour servings, with each serving offering two of the author’s most macabre and disturbing pieces. The first part consists of “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Pit and the Pendulum.” The second part comprises “The Black Cat”…
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Theater Review: ONE MAN POE (Stephen Smith on Tour)
MADNESS MADE FLESH I’ve seen several performances of Edgar Allan Poe’s poems and short stories over the years, but none compare to the artistry, intensity, and total immersion Stephen Smith brings to Poe’s descent-into-madness characters in One Man Poe at the 2025 Hollywood Fringe Festival. The production is divided into two one-hour shows, each featuring…
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LEE MEAD IS NOW OFFICIALLY THE WORLD’S GREATEST SHOWMAN
Bill Kenwright Ltd has recently announced that they are going to be doing a full UK tour of Barnum. This is a Broadway musical that celebrates the life of P.T. Barnum, the World’s Greatest Showman. The show is set to take place on Saturday April 25th 2026, and there’s going to be a world premiere…
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Theater Review: SHAKE IT AWAY: THE ANN MILLER STORY (Kayla Boye)
TAPS, TINSEL, AND TENACITY: KAYLA BOYE DAZZLES AS ANN MILLER Kayla Boye is a powerhouse performer whose ability to step inside the soul of her characters will astound you, beginning from her intimately revealing portrayal of legendary Hollywood icon Elizabeth Taylor at Fringe 2022 to her current tour-de-force performance as Hollywood Golden Age and Broadway…
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Theater Review: ECHO (Cirque du Soleil)
ECHO: A CUBE WITH BIG DREAMS IN A SHOW STILL FINDING ITS SHAPE It opens with a cube. Glowing, two stories tall, and unmistakably the star of the show, this bold architectural gesture doesn’t just set the tone; it declares intent. ECHO arrives with a whiff of manifesto, promising reinvention, disruption, a new kind of…
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Theater Interview: TOM MORAN (Starring in National Tour of “Tom Moran is a Big Fat Filthy Disgusting Liar”)
AN HONEST INTERVIEW ABOUT LYING Tom Moran is many things: a stage and film actor, a writer, a voice-over artist, a budding author, and a podcast host of Personality Bingo. Under the auspices of The Abbey and Culture Ireland, he’s been to Sydney and Melbourne with his one-man comedy show, Tom Moran Is a Big Fat…
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