Wednesday, June 6, 2012
¿POR QUÉ? I have been trying to figure out sixty ways from Sunday's opening of Los Otros just exactly how to approach a critique. The new one-act musical by composer Michael John LaCh…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:33PM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 5, 2012
VERY IMPERVIOUS AND HARD TO GET, OR WHAT THE HELL..? I'm debating whether or not to tell you to go to Hell. Should you choose to go, playwright Steve Yockey will take you there in the world …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:41AM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 29, 2012
PIECE OF EIGHT Conceived by Ashlin Halfnight and Melanie Sylvan at New York's Electric Pear Productions, Synesthesia can easily be classified in the "Why Didn't I Think of That?" Department.…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:40PM[SHARE]Monday, May 28, 2012
TOO MUCH TRAGEDY SPOILS CLEVER CONCEIT Prior to curtain at Sacred Fools' production of Stoneface, the packed house watched samplings of Buster Keaton's films, projected on a screen center st…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:12PM[SHARE]Saturday, May 26, 2012
IT IS (BUT SHOULDN'T BE) DONE There was something that felt particularly showcase-y about It Is Done, which can best be described as a 22-minute episode of The Twilight Zone laboriously stre…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:27PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 24, 2012
AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY BECOMES A MUSICAL COMEDY 1931 was a crossroads in American history. With no economic recovery in sight, the Depression had people edgy, and when Americans are edgy, they …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:16PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 23, 2012
MUSICAL TAKES ON REALITY TV What better place than the stage to examine the phenomenon of Reality TV? One would hope that by now, Americans would be wise to the fact that these shows, whethe…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:23PM[SHARE]Monday, May 21, 2012
BONA FIDE ACTING FUELS DIDACTIC SCRIPT At about the same time that the United States entered WWI, units of the 24th Infantry Regiment, one of the Army's four black regiments, set up camp on …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:13PM[SHARE]Saturday, May 19, 2012
WHERE IS MRS. O’LEARY’S COW WHEN YOU NEED HER? Had the inexhaustible 57-year-old Christie Brinkley performed "Roxie" on America's Got Talent, I would have demanded that she make …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:57PM[SHARE]IT WOULD HAVE BEEN WONDERFUL East West Players' cross-cultural take on the Stephen Sondheim/Harold Wheeler musical A Little Night Music highlights one of the most shimmering and romantic sco…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:12AM[SHARE]Friday, May 18, 2012
BETTER BE ON YOUR AVANT-GARDE Have you ever eaten at a new restaurant and summed it up thusly?: "I have no idea what I just ate! It was a little tough to chew and digest, but the presentatio…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:33PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 15, 2012
A CAPTIVATING GENDER-BENDING STORY In Michael Premsrirat's thoroughly engaging The Girl Most Likely To, an unnamed teenage Boy (a winning Tobit Raphael) is, and always has been, in the wrong…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:22PM[SHARE]THE PAINT JOB ON THIS PROMISING MUSICAL NEEDS DARKER COLORS NPR's This American Life is where I first heard about the 1997 film Hands on a Hard Body, which documented a 1995 dealership-spons…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:33PM[SHARE]DEAFTRAP Writer Stephen Sachs and the Fountain Theatre have come up with what would appear to be a fresh approach to Rostand's classic play, Cyrano de Bergerac. In this modern-day version, C…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:43PM[SHARE]Friday, May 11, 2012
A WAR OF IDEAS For the first forty-five minutes of City Lit's OPUS 1861, a miracle occurred: I wept. Consistently. The simple but mighty idea is this: six actors dressed in simple army fatig…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:23PM[SHARE]Thursday, May 3, 2012
TIMON ON OUR HANDS OK, raise your hand if you have read Shakespeare's Timon of Athens. No? Do you even know how to say Timon? It is pronounced TIME-uhn. Have you seen a production? Probably …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:04PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 2, 2012
TOO MANY THEATER INGREDIENTS SPOIL THE BROTH If there were a Joseph Jefferson Award simply for risk-taking in the theatre, Brandon Bruce would most assuredly win for his direction of John We…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:45AM[SHARE]Saturday, April 28, 2012
ONE FROGGY EVENING Once again, Musical Theatre Guild (MTG), a company of professional performers who present concert-staged readings, has produced a stellar offering of a rarely-seen musical…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:01PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 24, 2012
SIXTY MILES TO NOWHERE The setting for Dan LeFranc's Sixty Miles to Silverlake is the front seat of a car. Ky (Sean Bolger) has picked up his son Denny (Ethan Dubin) from a soccer game, as h…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:47PM[SHARE]Saturday, April 21, 2012
A REFRESHING RAIN When reviving an oft-produced play like N. Richard Nash's The Rainmaker, the hope is that the director will somehow put a new spin on the production so that the piece doesn…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:25PM[SHARE]FEELING A LITTLE BLUE In 1992, a friend insisted that we see Blue Man Group: Tubes at the tiny, cramped Astor Place Theatre in New York City. At the time, people were calling it a new genera…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 12:38PM[SHARE]Friday, April 20, 2012
THERE'S MUCH TO DESIRE One of the most truly inspiring films of the last year was Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, not just for its devotion to Joffrey's legacy, but because the docu…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 19, 2012
GET THEE TO BEING SHAKESPEARE There's simply no other way to encourage your attendance to Being Shakespeare than to submit my unequivocal good word. Those who fret at comprehending Shakespea…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:58PM[SHARE]Sunday, April 15, 2012
AS GOOD AS IT GETS In his extraordinary production of Good People at the Geffen, director Matt Shakman has validated the necessary ingredients of a great show: First: Storytelling. In descri…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:54AM[SHARE]Thursday, April 12, 2012
THE IMPORTANCE OF A BIG BROTHER When you hear of Billy Elliot being a phenomenal world-wide success, it is almost shocking that the popular musical (music by Elton John, book and lyrics by L…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:54PM[SHARE]AWAKENING TO THE FACT THAT IT’S A POORLY-WRITTEN MUSICAL I feel sorry for the cast and crew of Over the Moon Productions (OTM). The hard-working Broadway-caliber talent in Spring Awake…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:00PM[SHARE]Tuesday, April 3, 2012
KILLER HUNK, KILLER SET, AND KILLER STORY MAKE UP FOR BLOODLESS PERFORMANCES As evidenced by his astoundingly beautiful production of Ira Levin's 1978 comedy-thriller Deathtrap, Jon Imperato…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:35AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 31, 2012
THE DISNEYFICATION OF LINCOLN’S DEATH In many ways, Hershey Felder is a theater machine. In his four previous self-crafted one-man shows, the earnest and multi-talented actor/pianist/c…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:36AM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 27, 2012
A CHARMING MUSICAL WITHOUT A VIEW Theatre lore maintains that creating a successful new musical for the stage is more difficult and trying than creating peace in the Middle East. Noticing th…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:03AM[SHARE]Friday, March 23, 2012
SOMEHOW, IT KEEPS ON WORKING For those who have never seen the 1978 musical Working, the Production Company's current revival may be somewhat of a revelation. The subtitle of Studs Terkel's …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:18AM[SHARE]Wednesday, March 21, 2012
ODD CASTING CHOICE NEARLY SINKS SHOW There is a perplexing and ultimately infuriating casting choice in the Old Globe's production of Anna Christie that nearly sinks Eugene O'Neill's 1921 ta…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:54PM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
