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Theater Review: THE BOOK OF WILL (Hub Theatre Company of Boston)
A FOLIO AND ITS MAKERS Playwright Lauren Gunderson (Bauer, Silent Sky) has a gift of dramatizing small moments in history to illuminate larger influences, and that is exactly what she does in The Book of Will. Under the direction of Bryn Boice, the Hub Theatre Company, which offers pay-what-you-can tickets for every seat at every…
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Recommended Dance: THE NUTCRACKER (Inland Pacific Ballet, December 2-23, 2023)
Inland Pacific Ballet’s The Nutcracker comes to life this season with beautiful sets, dazzling costumes, Tchaikovsky’s classic score, and more than 80 dancers on stage. This annual holiday favorite tells the story of a young girl named Clara who receives a magical nutcracker doll on Christmas Eve and sets out on a wondrous journey to the…
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Theater Review: DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (North Coast Repertory Theatre)
A JEKYLL AND HYDE SCRIPT In 1886, Robert Lewis Stevenson’s short novel The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was published in London. The story has become one of the most popular in English language literature, dealing with an upper-class English scientist who manages to split his personality between good and evil, with…
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San Diego Theater Review: DEATHTRAP (Lamplighters Community Theatre)
PLAYWRITING CAN BE A DEADLY BUSINESS Tony-nominee Deathtrap ran for over four years (1978-1982) on Broadway, with good reason. Ira Levin’s script is intellectual, witty, full of twists, and – done right – full of suspense. I recall being on the edge of my seat in 1981, catching Farley Granger (notably of Hitchcock’s Rope) and…
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Theater Review: GROSS INDECENCY: THE THREE TRIALS OF OSCAR WILDE (Bent Theatre, Palm Springs)
WATCHING THREE TRIALS BECOMES A BIT OF A TRIAL In kicking off their second season, The Bent has again chosen to highlight an important issue of concern to the queer community, this time with a play by Moises Kaufman (The Laramie Project, I Am My Own Wife, 33 Variations). The Bent fills an important niche in…
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Highly Recommended Theater Review: JANE: A GHOST STORY (Lamb’s Players Theatre in San Diego)
A NOVEL FOR THE AGES BECOMES A PLAY FOR THE AGES Jane: A Ghost Story at the Lamb’s Players Theatre is an original version of Charlotte Brontë’s famous 1837 English novel Jane Eyre. Not to mince words, it is the best new play I’ve seen in a very long time. Excellences are everywhere — notably…
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Theater Review: SUMO (World Premiere by Lisa Sanaye Dring at La Jolla Playhouse)
FOR ALL IT’S GIRTH Sumo is a Japanese sport in which two bulky Japanese wrestlers clutch and grab at each other within a circular ring enclosed by bales of straw. The goal is to either eject the opponent from the ring or knock him on his back. The typical match runs a few seconds and…
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Theater Review: JANE: A GHOST STORY (Lamb’s Players Theatre in San Diego)
LAMB’S STRIVES FOR AN EYRE OF MYSTERY Playwright David McFadzean is no stranger to Lamb’s Players, having been a part of the company from 1979-1984. From there, his career took him to writing and produced for TV and film, including Roseanne, Home Improvement, Carol & Company, Thunder Alley, and the Mel Gibson comedy, What Women…
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Theater Review: STEEL MAGNOLIAS (Palm Canyon Theater in Palm Springs)
MAGNOLIAS FOR JUDITH CHAPMAN AS M’LYNN In Steel Magnolias at the Palm Canyon Theatre in Palm Springs, which opened last weekend, Judith Chapman as M’Lynn blows the roof off of the theater and insists you pay attention; her second act monologue and emotional outburst is just brilliant. Chapman’s character takes almost the entire evening to…
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Theater Interview: BRUCE TURK (Starring in “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” at North Coast Rep)
From October 18 to November 12, 2023, North Coast Repertory Theatre is presenting Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a daring reimagining of Robert Louis Stevenson’s timeless tale, filled with darkness, desire, love, and unbridled terror. Playwright Jeffrey Hatcher delves deep into the human psyche, exploring the eternal conflict between good and evil. Relentless forces engage…
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Theater Review: THE SORCERER (Ventura County Gilbert & Sullivan Repertoire Company)
THE SORCERER TAKEN FROM THE SOURCE This weekend, the Ventura County Gilbert & Sullivan Repertoire Company began its three-weekend run of The Sorcerer, a revival of their 2016 production. It is Gilbert and Sullivan’s first full-length opera and infrequently performed today. Subject to revisions since the opera’s 1877 premiere, this version reinstates the original Act…
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Theater Review: SHINERS (Woolworth Theatre in Nashville)
CIRQUE DU WICKS SALOON REVUE Booze, mostly respectable eye candy, and the music turned up. That’s downtown Nashville in a nutshell. Until recently, Broadway (not The Great White Way, but the iconic southern thoroughfare) was replete with these three in the historical honky tonk bars that vibrated with live country and western tunes of Roger…
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Theater Review: DOUBT: A PARABLE (New Village Arts Center in Carlsbad Village)
DON’T DOUBT THIS PRODUCTION John Patrick Shanley‘s drama Doubt: A Parable opened in New York City in 2004 and won the Pulitzer Prize for drama in 2005. As evidenced by New Village Arts‘ production, which opened at the Conrad Prebys Theatre last weekend, twenty years after its premiere it still ranks among the most stirring…
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Theater Review: THE ADDAMS FAMILY (San Diego Musical Theatre)
ALTOGETHER OOKEY GOOD FUN When American cartoonist Charles Addams started drawing a family of moderately harmless ghoulish folks for The New Yorker in 1938, how could he have expected them to gain huge fame in the world of television (as there was no TV) and multiple films. And he certainly would have been amazed if…
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Highly Recommended Theater: ROMEO & JULIET (The Curtain in Jersey City)
The Curtain — Jersey City’s premier classical theatre — has opened their Jazz Age adaptation of William Shakespeare’s classic Romeo & Juliet, directed and adapted by producing artistic director Sean Hagerty. Leading the cast are Italian actress and Venice Film Festival Pasinetti Award winner Anita Pomario (The Macaluso Sisters) in her American stage debut as ‘Juliet’; and Aria…
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Theater Review: THE CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT-TIME (Chance Theatre)
AN AMAZING INCIDENT Meet Christopher Francis Boone, a wannabe bloodhound who has significant social, behavioral and communication challenges; we assume the unnamed disorder is on the autism spectrum, but this magnificent play isn’t about his mental challenges, nor is Christopher’s neurodivergent condition even mentioned. The British teen ’” the unlikely hero of Mark Haddon’s best-selling novel…
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Theater Review: Fat Ham (The Huntington at Boston Center for the Arts)
BLACK JOY RIDE This collaboration between Boston’s Black theater company Front Porch Arts Collective and the Atlanta-based Alliance Theater Company, directed by Stevie Walker-Webb, takes its audience into a fun-house version of Shakespeare’s Hamlet that is, well, FUN even as it offers the characters and the audience visions of their better selves. James Ijames’s Fat…
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Theater Review: ASSASSINS (Lyric Stage Company)
LIVES OF NOT-SO-QUIET DESPERATION The premise is simple: Each of nine people who have tried to kill or who actually have killed an American president is given a chance to persuade us of his or her higher purpose. Stephen Sondheim and John Weidman’s Assassins is an entertainment’”in the bygone sense of revues and follies built around…
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Theater Review: ANGELS IN AMERICA: PART TWO (Bedlam and Central Square Theater in Cambridge, MA)
ONE PLAGUE OR ANOTHER What happens when you put eight actors on a stage with a script that includes the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s, the Mormon Visitors Center, the Jewish mysticism of philosopher Walter Benjamin, and Roy Cohn’”one of the slimiest lawyers who ever lived? If that script happens to be Angels in America…
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Theater Review: LES MISÉRABLES (National Tour)
DON’T MIZ IT Unlike most of the characters in the blockbuster sung-through musical Les Misérables, the show itself will never die. Consistently presented either on Broadway, national tours, and globally since the English-language version opened on the West End in 1985, audiences can’t get enough of Victor Hugo’s story about ex-con and do-gooder Jean Valjean…
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