Monday, June 9, 2025
The 2025 Tony Award winners were announced in ceremonies at Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 8, hosted by Tony Award winner Cynthia Errivo. Maybe Happy Ending, a musical set in the futu…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:47AM[SHARE]Tuesday, June 3, 2025
By LOU HARRY I caught the first performance of The Prom, produced by Summer Stock Stage, a unique company that fuses the talents of established performers with early career actors. It's now …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 09:31AM[SHARE]Sunday, June 1, 2025
By LOU HARRY I caught the opening night of Terry Guest's play Oak at the Phoenix Theatre Cultural Center, the second of its three rolling world premiere productions. Some thoughts: " Oak con…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:59PM[SHARE]Friday, May 30, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") A decade ago the NOLA Project mounted an unusual production of Adam Szymkowicz's Clown Bar at The Little Gem Saloon. Set in a seedy ba…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:51PM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 21, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Over the course of the last several years, Crescent City Stage has established itself as the premiere equity theatre company in New Or…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:31PM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 13, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, the two brothers who conceived Something Rotten! and more recently wrote the music and lyrics for the mus…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:35AM[SHARE]Tuesday, May 6, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") John Patrick Shanley's Doubt: A Parable is a brilliant indictment of organized religion and the negativity attached to innuendo and go…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:52AM[SHARE]Thursday, May 1, 2025
The 2025 Tony Award nominations were announced on Thursday, May 1 by Tony Award winners Sarah Paulson and Wendell Pierce. The nominations for competitive Tony Awards are: Best Play English,�…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 02:35PM[SHARE]Monday, April 14, 2025
By ROY BERKO Hispanic theatre is noted for its' fictional-based literature that normally has six elements: character, plot, point of view, setting, style and theme. These are often encased i…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:20PM[SHARE]Saturday, April 12, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It's been a full decade since Lin-Manuel Miranda's idea of a "mixtape" about the Founding Fathers was playing at the Public Theater to…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 02:48PM[SHARE]Thursday, April 3, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When the season announcement was made last year that Jefferson Performing Arts (JPA) would be producing Billy Elliot: The Musical for …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:59AM[SHARE]Sunday, March 30, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Throughout his life, Tennessee Williams knew tragedy. Whether through his sister Rose's struggle with mental health or the loss of his…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:04AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 29, 2025
By SCOTTY BENNETT There are times in a person's life when the only rational response to the pressures of daily living is to escape into a different reality. Drugs and alcohol are often the d…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:09AM[SHARE]By SCOTTY BENNETT In the moments between daylight and evening, there is a time when it is neither day nor night. It is a time of transition, a liminal state between now and then, a twilight …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:45AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 22, 2025
By ROY BERKO A juke box musical consists of pre-existing songs which are melded into a script to tell a story.  The songs, in contrast to lyrics and music, which are specifically integ…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:17PM[SHARE]By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The Hans Christian Andersedn fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea" is the basis for Once Upon a Mattress, the 1959 musical that launch…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:38PM[SHARE]Friday, March 21, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré has removed any doubt about whether it could creatively pull off the first local production of Je…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 09:46AM[SHARE]Sunday, March 16, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It's hard to believe, but until three years ago there had never been a revival of Funny Girl on Broadway. The starring vehicle in 1964…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:41AM[SHARE]Saturday, March 15, 2025
By SCOTTY BENNETT One of the fascinating things about humans is how easily they mask intense feelings in a cloak of smiles and good humor. Pain, both physical and emotional, can be disguised…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:48PM[SHARE]Tuesday, March 11, 2025
By ELIZABETH SCHABINGER The Bedwetter, based on Sarah Silverman's memoir of the same name, is an intimate look at Silverman's year as a 10-year-old. In The Bedwetter, Â Sarah is a fifth gr…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:39AM[SHARE]Thursday, February 20, 2025
By ROY BERKO Parade, which is now on stage at the Palace Theatre as part of the Key Bank Broadway series, is a musical with a book by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:40AM[SHARE]Saturday, February 15, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") As hard to believe as it may be, Mamma Mia!, the ABBA hit jukebox musical is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. It continues …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:09AM[SHARE]By LOU HARRY, Special to Theatrecriticism.com Yes, "Henry IV" is the complete title. Sans the "part 1" and "part 2" that traditionally complete the title of William Shakespeare's his…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:20AM[SHARE]Wednesday, February 12, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Sam Shepard's powerful play about the toxic relationship between two brothers " True West " is back at the Jefferson Performing Arts' …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:39AM[SHARE]Monday, February 10, 2025
By LOU HARRY, Special to Theatrecriticism.com It's made clear from the first moments of "The Antiquities" that the human race is history. Jordan Harrison's play, a co-production of Playwrigh…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:05AM[SHARE]Sunday, February 9, 2025
By LOU HARRY I've only seen Liza Minnelli once live. That was at a concert with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, where her batteries seemed fully charged and she treated the audience lik…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:59AM[SHARE]By ANNE SIEGEL, Exclusive to Theatrecriticism.com MILWAUKEE " Okay, we're not Iowa. But when the Broadway national tour of Shucked opened this week in Madison, WI " the Wisconsin state capit…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 07:45AM[SHARE]Wednesday, January 22, 2025
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Capturing the wit and destructive lifestyle of humorist Oscar Levant is a daunting task for any actor attempting to portray the tortur…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:13PM[SHARE]Monday, December 23, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The biggest problem Broadway has with so-called "jukebox musicals" is they always seem to get mired down by the exposition of the stor…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:42AM[SHARE]Saturday, December 21, 2024
By ALAN SMASON There are a lot of people capable of taking a beloved film soundtrack and adapting it faithfully into a theatre piece for presentation on the stage. There are also a lot of pe…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:07PM[SHARE]Thursday, December 5, 2024
By ALAN SMASON Of all the holiday-themed shows that make their way onto stages in December, Elf: The Broadway Musical may be the one most resistant to the Grinch, Scrooge and other humbugs. …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:50PM[SHARE] 
