Theatre
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4000 Miles at Magic Carpet Showroom
Amy Herzog's Intriguing Play in Denver
By: - Jun 13th, 2016Every nook and cranny of Denver is packed with terrific theatre. Cherry Creek Theatre makes a carpet showroom its home. Here we get to know Leo and Grandma in Amy Herzog's justly celebrated play, 4000 Miles.
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Heathers The Musical a Smash Hit
At Broward Center for the Performing Arts
By: - Jun 14th, 2016The lyric “Beautiful” fits right into the musical adaptation of the 1989 cult classic “Heathers” if you look at the heart of the darkly comic, electric, fun show.
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What's Next for Hamilton Winners
From Broadway Sensation to Years on the Road
By: - Jun 14th, 2016At about $150 each my pal and BFA contributor, Jack Lyons, managed to get a few "cheap seats" for the Broadway smash Hamilton. We even got to go back stage and chat with now Tony winner Leslie Odom, Jr. Back in November I asked him "what's next." It was a bit premature but all of the original contracts expire this summer. Its creator and star, Lin-Manuel Miranda, has already announced plans to leave. The show will continue indefinitly on Broadway while several touring companies are launched.
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Camp David by Lawrence Wright
At Old Globe in San Diego
By: - Jun 06th, 2016Artistic Director Barry Edelstein continues to provide San Diego audiences with first rate theatrical entertainment. “Camp David” performs on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage through June 19, 2016.
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Nick Payne's Constellations
Premiere at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre
By: - Jun 06th, 2016Constellations, the new two-character play at Steppenwolf Theatre, is certainly a nonlinear story. Marianne (Jessie Fisher) and Roland (Jon Michael Hill) at times seem to be in parallel universes. She, an academic theoretical physicist, and he, a beekeeper.
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World Premiere Noir Musical Thriller Hollywood
By Tony Winners Joe Di Pietro and Christopher Ashley at La Jolla Playhouse
By: - May 23rd, 2016La Jolla Playhouse has the best track record of any West Coast theatre when it comes to sending their original theatrical productions to Broadway (over 30 of them to date). Their 2008 musical production “Memphis”, written by Joe Di Pietro and directed by Christopher Ashley went on to Broadway winning a 2010 Tony Award for Best Musical. “Hollywood”, again written by Di Pietro, and helmed by Ashley, is looking to pull off a Tony Award-winning ‘Daily Double’ coup.
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Sondheim on Sondheim as Putting It Together
Stage Door Theatre in South Florida
By: - May 24th, 2016Unlike in another Sondheim revue, “Side by Side by Sondheim,” has no narrator to link the songs. Rather, a dramatic framework exists in which two couples are attending a cocktail party at an upscale residence. This allows the characters to sing nearly 30 Sondheim songs outside the context for which he composed/or wrote the lyrics.
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Lettice and Lovage by Peter Shaffer
Lindsay Ann Crouse Launches Gloucester Stage Season
By: - May 24th, 2016Veteran actor Lindsay Ann Crouse left LA several years ago to relocate to Annisquam the summer home of her theatrical family. In a now annual production she has been offered great roles by the local Gloucester Stage now launching its 37th season. She is stunning in the meaty role of an eccentric docent of a seedy British mansion. While entertaining she doesn't stick to the script. The play was written as a vehicle for Dame Maggie Smith by Peter Shaffer who wrote Equus and Amadeus. This play, as you will learn, is the cat's meow.
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John Douglas Thompson and Maggie Lacey
NY's TFNA Presents Ibsen and Strindberg
By: - May 25th, 2016Can men and women find themselves and satisfaction at the same time? This question has been asked since the beginning to time. Theatre for a New Audience, in their remarkable home, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in Brooklyn, features John Douglas Thompson and Maggie Lacey in Ibsen's A Doll's House and Strindberg's The Father, running in repertory.
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Presto Change-O at Barrington Stage
A Magical Three-Card Monte Musical
By: - May 29th, 2016Barrington Stage Company is launching its Pittsfield season with a commissioned musical Presto Change-O which is having its world premiere on the intimate St. Germain Stage. On many levels this perky production is zesty and magical and that's not just an illusion.
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Annie Baker's The Flick
Miami Theater Center
By: - May 30th, 2016The Flick by Annie Baker is being staged all over America. Given the scale of the movie theater with a theater the length of the individual productions varies greatly depending upon how long it takes for the trio of actors to sweep up all the popcorn between screenings. This is a review of a Miami production where it weighed in at about three hours.
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Haymarket: The Anarchist’s Songbook
Chicago's Underscore Theatre Company
By: - May 30th, 2016If the Haymarket story is unfamiliar, you can read about it before you see the play. The creators do a good job of telling a complex story, but everything will make more sense if you read before seeing this production.
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Spinning by Deirdre Kinahan
US Premiere at Irish Theatre of Chicago.
By: - May 31st, 2016Spinning is notable for its fine direction and acting. Dan Waller is one of those solid Chicago actors who plays many types of roles and makes each one his own. His portrayal of Conor is wrenching and passionate as he gradually learns so accept his responsibility for his actions.
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Annual Piccolo Spoleto Festival
Fever Was Red Hot in Charleston
By: - Jun 03rd, 2016Piccolo Spoleto Festival is officially the outreach arm of Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina. This year marks the fortieth anniversary of Spoleto Festival USA, and thirty-eighth year of Piccolo Spoleto.
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Tragedy of Eugene O'Neill
Family Ravaged as Long Day's Journey Into Night
By: - Jun 04th, 2016Currently Long Day's Journey Into Night, the masterpiece of Eugene O'Neill, is enjoying an all star Broadway revival. One of the last of his plays before a decade of illness he left instructions that it not be published until 25 years after his life. It was produced in Sweden within three years of his death. Based on the horrendous circumstances of his alcoholic, drug addicted family he hoped to avoid collateral damage to survivors. It begs the question of who owns the moral and legal rights when artists draw upon family and friends as material for their art.
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The Royale by Marco Ramirez
GableStage at Coral Gables, Florida
By: - Jun 04th, 2016The latter part of The Royale which played Broadway’s Lincoln Center Theater earlier this year, features one of the strongest, most powerful scenes of dramatic tension I’ve encountered in a theater in a long while
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Lauren Gunderson's The Taming at S&Co;.
Political Comedy Disconnects
By: - Jun 05th, 2016Lauren Gunderson is widely renegaded as among the best and brightest of American playwrights. She can be thoughtful and provocative. With The Taming, however, which is being given an energetic and ambitious production, the comedy of brought down as too clever, thinky and talky for its own good. It was just too difficult to connect with and care for the unmanageable characters and their absurd situations.
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Nunsense in Charleston
Footlight Players Part of Piccolo Spoleto
By: - Jun 05th, 2016Our coverage of Piccolo Spoleto in Charleston continues with Nunsense at Footlight Players. Saints preserve us.
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Beauty and the Beast
Road Company Visited Ft. Lauderdale
By: - Jun 18th, 2016Pretend we’re on an airplane, because the oxygen mask above will prove beneficial. Certainly it will help you deal with the spectacular, breathtaking special effects of the mostly impressive non-equity national touring version we will see of the beloved Broadway musical “Beauty and the Beast.”
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Golem Haunts Charleston
Robotic Presence in Annual Spoleto Festival 2016
By: - Jun 18th, 2016With a reviw of The Golem our Charleston correspondent, Sandy Katz, completes her coverage of the annual Spoleto Festival 2016. The mytical Golem was an exotic and exciting production.
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Macbeth at Old Globe
Lowell Davies Outdoor Festival Theatre
By: - Jul 12th, 2016Under the deft direction of Brian Kulick, this ‘Macbeth’ production has been updated to a visual setting more or less around the time of World War I. However, the language, spirit, and the murderous intrigues that Shakespeare loved so dearly are still present. It’s a clever way to update the core story that is familiar to all without sacrificing any dramatic elements or story points as conceived by the Bard.
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Wastwater at Chicago's Steep Theatre,
By English playwright Simon Stephens
By: - Jul 12th, 2016Wastwater by Simon Stephens is a loosely connected trilogy of stories, skillfully directed by Robin Witt. They’re set near London’s Heathrow Airport, where the village of Sipson is threatened with obliteration for the sake of a new airport runway. The playwright is best known for his Tony-winning adaptation, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.
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Between Riverside and Crazy at Steppenwolf
Funny and Poignant Stephen Adly Guirgis Play
By: - Jul 14th, 2016Between Riverside and Crazy is a rowdy, raunchy play with lots of action. (Sensitive ears alert: When I said raunchy, that’s what I meant.) Yasen Peyankov directs it with style and glee.
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The Chinese Room at Williamstown
World Premiere of Michael West Play
By: - Jul 17th, 2016The hilarious comedy The Chinese Room by the Irish playwright Michael West is having its world premiere at Williamstown Theatre Festival. The current production allows for fine tuning for when the play transfers Off Broadway to Manhattan Theatre Club. It is sure to be a hit in New York.
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Kanze Noh's Inaugural at Lincoln Center
Traditional Japanese Theater Intrigues
By: - Jul 16th, 2016Even if you don't know the conventions of Noh Theater, developed over 600 years in Japan, there is great pleasure in its performance. The Kanze Noh troupe sports players whose descent can be traced back 22 generations. Deep emotions are generated by performances of dramas from this rich history.
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