Sunday, June 2, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") James Bartelle, a founding member of The NOLA Project, has written a number of original works for the troupe of young, innovative perf…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:44AM[SHARE]Friday, May 24, 2024
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI " The Broadway Series at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts concludes its 2023-24 season with a bang. No, this is not a reference to the confetti-spewing …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 02:11AM[SHARE]Saturday, May 18, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") In what may be the greatest bit of casting for a national tour in decades, Rob McClure, the Tony-nominated actor brought his A game to…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:13AM[SHARE]Wednesday, May 1, 2024
The American Theatre Wing and the Broadway League, sponsors of the Tony Awards for excellence on the Broadway stage, were announced on Tuesday, April 30. The awards will be presented on Sund…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:51AM[SHARE]Saturday, April 20, 2024
By LOU HARRY While many companies have responded to the challenges facing post-lockdown theater by offering minimally cast shows and/or feel-good entertainments, the storied Guthrie Theater …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:33PM[SHARE]Thursday, April 18, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Playwright Michael Frayn claims he got the inspiration to write Noises Off in 1970 while watching a comedy he had written unfold backs…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:09PM[SHARE]Wednesday, April 17, 2024
By ANNE SIEGEL War is hell, they say. But the months leading up to war can also be a kind of hell, as demonstrated by the characters in From Here to Eternity, a new musical that opened recen…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:42PM[SHARE]Sunday, April 7, 2024
By ALAN SMASON While the Academy Awards buzz was mostly about "Oppenheimer" and "Poor Things," a smaller film starring Anthony Hopkins " "One Life" " was distributed a few weeks ago and is s…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:40PM[SHARE]Friday, March 29, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") While the Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival has ended this year's presentations and its famed Scholars Conference, seri…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:27AM[SHARE]Thursday, March 21, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") New Orleans audiences have long been enamored of local comedy genius Ricky Graham, but thanks to the regional premiere of The Prom, th…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:45PM[SHARE]Sunday, March 17, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The latest production of Jesus Christ Superstar bowed this weekend, presented by the Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS) at the J…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:01PM[SHARE]Thursday, March 14, 2024
By ALEX MILLER In the Algonquin Room of the Placid Pines Senior Care Center, a small group of New Yorkers gather to chat, drink coffee or juice and tell the same old stories. On one side of …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:22PM[SHARE]By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") With a subtitle " The Carole King Musical " it's easy to conceive that Beautiful is a musical that only concerns the life of legendary…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:29AM[SHARE]Monday, March 11, 2024
By ROY BERKO Northwestern grad, Selina Fillinger, was the first Judith Barlow Prize winner, an annual student award given to work inspired by a historic female playwright. "In 2019, her …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:56PM[SHARE]Sunday, March 10, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The producers from the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans had already planned for a major opening night on March 8 at M…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 01:21PM[SHARE]Thursday, March 7, 2024
By LOU HARRY There are Broadway shows that seem destined for long lives after the New York production folds. I'm willing to bet, for instance, that we will be seeing productions as wide rang…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 07:51PM[SHARE]Sunday, March 3, 2024
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Producers of Broadway shows that performed reasonably well on the Great White Way have largely been upping their game in the years sin…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:04PM[SHARE]Friday, March 1, 2024
By ALAN SMASON Biting satire must be carefully presented. If it doesn't go far enough, it can come across as insincere and tepid, but if it goes too far, it can be considered as inappropriat…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 02:42PM[SHARE]Wednesday, December 27, 2023
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Patrick Page chooses his words very carefully or, perhaps, it should be said he chooses Shakespeare's words carefully. In All the Devi…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:02PM[SHARE]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 04:35PM[SHARE]Sunday, 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 Clev…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:44PM[SHARE]Wednesday, 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, helped along by …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:12AM[SHARE]Wednesday, 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 like i…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:07PM[SHARE]Monday, 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 Broadway range f…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 09:10AM[SHARE]Sunday, 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 the same…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:58PM[SHARE]Monday, 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 concept al…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:51PM[SHARE]Sunday, 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 time. S…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:56AM[SHARE]Thursday, 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 creative. I…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:59AM[SHARE]Monday, 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-tr…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:10AM[SHARE]Sunday, 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 knew the…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 05:43AM[SHARE]By 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. In …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:41AM[SHARE] 
