Monday, December 25, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic Following his 2019 Tony Award win for Tootsie, writer Robert Horn was offered several projects of his choosing, but none seemed more appropriate than r…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:35PMSunday, December 17, 2023
By ROY BERKO Langston Hughes, the author of Black Nativity, now on stage at the Allen Theatre, in a joint production between Karamu, the country’s oldest black producing theater and the Cl…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:44PMWednesday, December 13, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Since its release in 1982, New Orleans native Bob Clark’s “A Christmas Story” has been part of the holiday landscape, help…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:12AMWednesday, December 6, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) After celebrating its 20th anniversary this past October, the juggernaut that is Stephen Schwartz’s Wicked on Broadway seems …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:07PMMonday, December 4, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) “Harmony: A New Musical,” the Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman work is hardly a “new” musical, having simmered off the Br…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 09:10AMSunday, November 26, 2023
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI. – Don’t be late for this class: the School of Rock is astonishing audiences at Milwaukee’s Skylight Music Theatre. Based on the successful 2003 film of th…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:58PMMonday, November 20, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The history of Here Lies Love dates back almost two decades ago when David Byrne and Fatboy Slim came up with an improbable conc…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:51PMSunday, November 12, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) There was a time when Tallulah Bankhead was as well known a celebrity as any who dominate the social media channels of our own t…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:56AMThursday, November 9, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The history of Onepiece, billed as “A Splashy Musical Play” goes back many years to a time when Randy Bibb felt especially c…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:59AMMonday, November 6, 2023
By ROY BERKO David Greene, the Senior Vice President of Programming at Playhouse Square, informs theater-goers in his program notes for Girl from the North Country that “it is a non-trad…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:10AMSunday, November 5, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When award-winning playwright Lynn Nottage accepted the task as book writer for MJ, the Michael Jackson musical, she probably kn…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:43AMBy ANNE SIEGEL The American musical theater has been graced with another revival of Company, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s 1970 musical about our basic human need for togetherness. I…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:41AMThursday, November 2, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Following the record setting production of The Producers, Mel Brooks set his sight on bringing another of his film classics from…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:18AMTuesday, October 31, 2023
By ROY BERKO Former South Euclid resident and Brush High School graduate, Dr. Alan Wieder, is on a quest “to stem the time of forgetfulness.” An oral historian, Wieder has been on the fa…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:21AMFriday, October 27, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When most people consider the macabre work of Stephen Sondheim and his delicious sense of dark humor, they typically point to Sw…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 09:44PMWednesday, October 25, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) One of the most eagerly awaited new musicals in the country bowed recently in Milwaukee, not a typical launching place for such …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:36PMWednesday, October 18, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) Following his success with both Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time at Le Petit Theatre …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:37AMWednesday, October 11, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) (NEW ORLEANS) – A Wonderful World, sub-titled “A New Musical About the life and Loves of Louis Armstrong,” made its bow in…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:29PMBy ROY BERKO The reconfigured The Wiz, as one of its major song’s states, is easing down the road on its way to Broadway. Previews for that show begin on March 29, 2024, with the Big Appl…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:28PMSunday, October 8, 2023
By ANNE SIEGEL (Editor’s note: This review appeared briefly on the website of Milwaukee’s Shepherd Express, the city’s alternative newspaper. However, due to pressure from Milwaukee Re…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:23AMTuesday, October 3, 2023
By ROY BERKO When I saw the show in its Broadway run, I wrote in my review: “The total effect of Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 is breathtaking. The traditional music, dress, …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 07:17AMSunday, October 1, 2023
By ROY BERKO Thurgood Marshall, the subject of Thurgood, on stage at Cleveland Play House’s Allen Theatre, was the grandson of slaves. He was born in segregated Baltimore and attended all-…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:42AMFriday, September 29, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS) has returned to that old chestnut Steel Magnolias by Robert Harling, a fellow Louis…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:44AMSaturday, September 23, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When MGM was giving itself a hearty pat on the back back in 1974 with the release of their tribute movie “That’s Entertain…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:21AMTuesday, September 19, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) With seven seasons under its belt, the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans, superintended by the diligence of prod…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:30AMSaturday, September 16, 2023
By LOU HARRY A theater festival, a good one, is greater than the sum of its parts – even when its parts are very strong to begin with. Such is the case with the Stratford Festival, North A…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 07:42AMFriday, August 18, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Director Guy Nattiv uses the symbolism of birds throughout the movie “Golda.” Birds show up at the very beginning, when the …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:13PMMonday, August 14, 2023
By ROY BERKO Alison Bechdel is a cartoonist who came to national attention via her long-running comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For.” She combined her life story and her comic strip styl…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:22PMFriday, August 11, 2023
By ROY BERKO “Guilt, the gift that keeps giving.” “Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.” “Encourage independence in your c…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:51PMWednesday, August 9, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) With its undercurrent of racism, statutory rape and threatened castration, Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth is not a pl…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:55AMWednesday, August 2, 2023
By EDWARD RUBIN OK, so they weren’t exactly dancing in the aisles at the New World Stages the night that I attended The Rock & Roll Man. Forget that I said that. What the audience was …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:56AM 
