Tuesday, November 8, 2011
FALL FLAT My extreme reluctance to recommend Next Fall should not necessarily deter you from seeing it. Stay with me here. Geoffrey Nauffts' Tony-nominated play, which concerns a gay cou…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:32PM[SHARE]Saturday, November 5, 2011
MANAGEABLE HAIR Say what you will about Musical Theatre West's fluffy season selections, including Winter Wonderettes, Forbidden Broadway and Spamalot, this company continues to collect an a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:37PM[SHARE]Thursday, November 3, 2011
A BIGGER NOISE NEEDS TO BE MADE WITHIN A Noise Within (ANW), one of the nation's leading classical repertory theatre companies, has done the unimaginable: after 19 seasons in a Masonic build…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:49AM[SHARE]Thursday, October 27, 2011
A COWARD IN PEACETIME [Undelivered letter to Noël Coward discovered in North Hollywood:] My Darling Noël: Sir Anthony here, writing to you from the palm-drenched regions of Los Angeles…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:12PM[SHARE]THIS FAIR IS JUST THAT: FAIR Science Fairs are an opportunity for students to apply scientific methods to an experiment and present them at a competition. The best way to take first prize fr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:46AM[SHARE]Friday, October 21, 2011
A BRIDEGROOM ROBBED OF ITS CHARM Anxiously anticipating The Robber Bridegroom at International City Theatre (ICT), I felt like an excited bride who had already slept with her soon-to-be husb…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:38PM[SHARE]'TIS FOLLY TO OVERPRAISE FOLLIES The buzz in the lobby of Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) on opening night of Stephen Sondheim's landmark 1971 musical Follies was palpable; people from aro…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:43PM[SHARE]Monday, October 17, 2011
TWO PLAYS IN ONE What is the purpose of theater? Some say that it is to reflect reality while being entertaining, enlightening, and/or educating. Yet when Shakespeare wrote that theatre is d…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:33PM[SHARE]Saturday, October 15, 2011
THE SHADOW OF A GREAT PLAY The birth of the Irish Republic occurred around Dublin in 1916. Aiming to end British rule, Irish Volunteers staged an insurrection known as the Easter Rising, a r…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:29PM[SHARE]Tuesday, October 11, 2011
WHO IS TO SAY WHAT IS REAL? Tom Stoppard is the thinking person's playwright. Ever since his breakout hit Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead in 1967, the erudite scribe has been earmarked…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:51PM[SHARE]WHAT WE FIND IN THE ATTIC IS A CASE OF THE CUTES It was a privilege to witness Snapshots: A Musical Scrapbook at Northlight Theatre, for this reviewer has never seen anything like it before.…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:37PM[SHARE]LITERATURE NOT MEANT TO BE STAGED Halfway through the first act of Brand at Red Tape theatre, it occurred to me that I had no idea what was going on. First of all, it can be argued that Henr…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:19PM[SHARE]Saturday, October 8, 2011
THIS MUSICAL IS MURDER Dear Drury Lane Theatre: Since your production of Sweeney Todd is closing this week, please allow me to write a love letter to you for giving me the privilege of witne…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:12AM[SHARE]Sunday, October 2, 2011
A PALE SHADE OF RED The closing stage picture in John Logan's 2010 Tony-winning Red at the Goodman is about as thrilling and breathtaking as theatre gets: as Abstract Expressionist painter M…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:29AM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 28, 2011
FORGIVE AND FORGET The Amish people of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania taught the world a sobering lesson in 2006 when they instantly forgave the man who murdered five girls in their one-room sch…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:10PM[SHARE]Wednesday, September 21, 2011
GHOST LIGHT LEAVES US IN THE DARK Assassin Dan White ensured Harvey Milk's legacy when he shot the openly gay San Francisco politician. The gay community continues to hold Milk as a martyr t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:52AM[SHARE]LOVE'S LABOR'S LOST, FOUND, LOST, LOST, AND FOUND I'm not so sure that this William Shakespeare has a future as a playwright. Oh, the man can write, but his newest play, Love's Labor's Lost …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:28AM[SHARE]Monday, September 12, 2011
GREAT CAESAR'S GHOST Banners of slain leaders in world history, made to look as though they were hastily and inexpensively painted, chillingly greet us at the entrance to the New Theatre at …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:32PM[SHARE]AMBIGUITY WITH PURPOSE If you read the spiritual/psychotherapeutic tome A Course In Miracles, it states that miracles occur as a result of a shift in perception; that meaning lies not in the…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:34PM[SHARE]Friday, September 9, 2011
A MISSED OPPORTUNITY We learn very little about the history of the African Company (the world's first known African-American theater company) and even less about Richard III in The African C…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:46PM[SHARE]Monday, September 5, 2011
DROOPING MAGNOLIAS One of six female denizens at a rural beauty salon in Louisiana states that, from the Southern male's point of view, "You either shoot it, stuff it or marry it." Well, tha…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:08AM[SHARE]Saturday, September 3, 2011
AN UGLY DUCKLING OF A MUSICAL In Stephen Schwartz' musical My Fairytale, now receiving its American premiere at PCPA in Solvang, well-known storyteller Hans Christian Anderson has an idea fo…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:39PM[SHARE]Friday, September 2, 2011
THE ONLY THING THAT MAY NEED A CHANGE IS THE TITLE We hear that that the only thing constant is change, yet we struggle against change, we fight against change, and some are even willing to …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:52PM[SHARE]Thursday, August 18, 2011
AN OUNCE OF MISSTEPS IS WORTH THIS POUND OF FLESH Before you run off to see The Porters of Hellsgate production of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice " and I surely hope that you d…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 10:32PM[SHARE]THANKS FOR THE MEMORY Occasionally, I attend theater with no intention of reviewing a show, but afterwards my spirit is so refreshed by an uplifting and inspiring experience that an urgent p…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:57AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 17, 2011
I HAD A GAY OLD TIME A letter to Sandra Bernhard: Dear Sandy: Oh my God, it thrilled me to no end when I was assigned to review your latest show at REDCAT: Sandra Bernhard: I Love Being Me, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:48PM[SHARE]Tuesday, August 16, 2011
NO TROUBLE HERE Although the run of Pacific Opera Project's Trouble in Tahiti was two days long, I had to check out this new company whose mission it is to use local talent and bring afforda…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:17PM[SHARE]Thursday, August 11, 2011
DOG GONE Having immersed myself in forty Fringe shows this year, I have become highly suspect of those shows that bounce from Fringe to Fringe across the land, cross-promoting like oversexed…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:26AM[SHARE]Wednesday, August 10, 2011
WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT? At the top of Melissa James Gibson's This, five urbanite thirty-somethings take part in an innocent parlor game that inadvertently goes awry for one of them: an unsusp…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:31PM[SHARE]Sunday, August 7, 2011
NEVER FORGET Writer/performer Tom Dugan's solo show Nazi Hunter " Simon Wiesenthal capitalizes on the strengths of the famous Nazi hunter " his resilience, tenacity and humor " but largely o…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 06:20PM[SHARE]THE FANTASY FIZZLES Since 1933, Pageant of the Masters has been a Southern California must-see for tourists and locals alike. The professionalism with which they stage tableaux vivants (l…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:23AM[SHARE]Loading more stories…
