Tuesday, October 16, 2018
WHO DOES HE THINK SHE IS? Him…Her…Them…Zir…Hir? In the transgender and non-binary community, the struggle with pronouns almost rivals the struggle with civil rights. Hir, now in a…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 05:24PMTuesday, September 11, 2018
LET THE SPIRIT MOVE YOU TO NORTH COAST REP Is it bigamy if you’re still seeing your first wife while married to your second? Does your answer change if the first wife has been dead for…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:15PMMonday, August 13, 2018
EVEN WHEN YOU’RE HAIR CAN’T HOLD UP, THIS MUSICAL CAN To say you like Hairspray really doesn’t cut it. Do you mean the 1988 John Waters film starring Devine and newcomer Ricki Lake…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:58AMTuesday, July 31, 2018
A FUNNY THING’S HAPPENING AT NORTH COAST REP Only in Ancient Rome! Pseudolus, the wise-cracking slave (Omri Schein), can earn his freedom if he can somehow get the pretty, bubble-heade…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:55AMTuesday, July 10, 2018
THE HOLY GRAIL OF SILLY MUSICALS The tales of King Arthur and his knights of the round table stand as icons of literature, leaving them ripe for outrageous parody in Monty Python’s 197…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:10AMMonday, June 25, 2018
PARTING IS SUCH SWEET SORROW AFTER A PLAY THIS GOOD “What’s in a name?” Juliet famously asks. A lot, if the name is Ruff Yeager. Yeager, a co-founder of Roustabouts, has be…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:36PMTuesday, June 5, 2018
FROM ORANGE JUICE TO A PIE IN THE FACE “What these people really want, hidden behind obscure legal phrases, is the legal right to propose to our children that theirs is an acceptable alter…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:22AMMonday, May 14, 2018
SOME ENCHANTED EVENING, INDEED Rodgers and Hammerstein’s 1949 Broadway hit South Pacific is so full of familiar, classic numbers that it almost feels like a Broadway review in itself �…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:56PMWednesday, April 25, 2018
ONE COULD GO ON AND ON FOR OFF Half the fun of theater is in the performance; the other half is in the rehearsal. Rehearsal is the time for experimenting, bonding, and watching everything co…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:40PMSunday, April 15, 2018
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED: A JOYFUL MESSAGE There is an ancient Chinese proverb: “The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher.” In the musical Sou…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:44PMTuesday, March 27, 2018
WOULD SHAKESPEARE BY ANY OTHER PLAYWRIGHT SMELL AS SWEET? If the title King Charles III sounds rather Shakespearean, yet you cannot recall a “Charles” among all his Henrys and …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:43AMMonday, March 19, 2018
A JEWISH JOKE WAS NO LAUGHING MATTER IN THE 1950s When the nation went into Commie panic in the ‘40s and ‘50s, one of the first places to get hard hit was Hollywood. In 1947, Congress’…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:16AMSunday, March 18, 2018
CYGNET DIDN’T SEND IN ANY CLOWNS ON THIS ONE Much like modern art, Steven Sondheim musicals aren’t for everyone. They are purposefully discordant in places, often dark in tone,…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:24PMWednesday, March 14, 2018
WELL-PLANNED IRONIES Facebook and LinkedIn have illuminated the error in the supposed six degrees of separation theory, which asserts that all living things and everything else in the world …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:47PMSaturday, February 24, 2018
THREE GREAT MINDS MAKE FOR INTRIGUING THEATER There’s a game where you get to pick three famous people and go to dinner with all of them. In Mark St. Germaine’s Camping with He…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:40PMTuesday, January 30, 2018
THE LAST WIFE GETS IT RIGHT Historical fiction can be a dicey game, let alone a modernization of historical figures. When the results are as captivating as Kate Hennig’s The Last Wife,…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:36AMSunday, January 28, 2018
THE FULL MONTY IS WORTH BARING IN MIND When the main factory in town shuts down and only menial work, far below previous pay grade, can be found, what’s a man supposed to do? For the t…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 11:42AMMonday, October 30, 2017
EVIL RIGHT AT HAND What could go wrong when a newly widowed mom leads three teens in a wholesome, Lutheran, extra-curricular church class tasked with creating a Christian puppet show? Thankf…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 07:30PMTuesday, October 24, 2017
GEORGIA MCBRIDE AIN’T NO DRAG Playwright Matthew Lopez (The Whipping Man) has created a theatrical recipe: Take one part Torch Song Trilogy, mix in some La Cage aux Folles and, for a …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:27AMMonday, October 2, 2017
A HERO’S JOURNEY FROM 1862 SPEAKS VOLUMES FOR OUR TIMES Father Comes Home from the Wars, Parts 1, 2 & 3 first played in 2014 at NYC’s Public Theater, yet Suzan-Lori Parks’ play…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:28AMSunday, September 24, 2017
TOO BIG FOR ITS BRITCHES With his touching screenplay as a basis, Lee Hall adapted the 2000 indie Billy Elliot for the stage, setting his moving lyrics to Elton John’s music. There…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:53PMSaturday, September 23, 2017
WORLD PREMIERE MUSICAL ADAPTATION MADE EVEN BETTER BY BRYCE PINKHAM It’s tricky turning a movie into a play, given that without the auteur’s camera gimmicks and edits, it can be …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 09:05PMWednesday, September 13, 2017
THE EFFECT OF GOOD THEATER “You know, maybe someday you will be pretty,” says Beatrice to her teenage daughter Tillie. Gee, thanks, Mom. Ah, mothers. The Glass Menagerie. Ordin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 02:59AMWednesday, August 9, 2017
DON’T CRY, BUT SEE ARGENTINA The crime of being a legend is to be simultaneously loved and hated, while the truth will always be a matter of perspective and interpretation. Eva Duarte,…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:31AMMonday, August 7, 2017
THE 90’s ARE BACK AND SOUNDING SWEET While the nineties might not sound that long ago to an older crowd, when was the last time you thought about Lorena Bobbitt? Or tamagotchis? Or won…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 08:00PMMonday, July 24, 2017
IT MAY SUCK TO LIVE ON AVENUE Q, BUT NOT TO SEE IT In the right setting, irreverence is so jovial. Our era of thought-police and political correctness has made it delicious to pervert that w…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:18PMThursday, July 13, 2017
A SWEET SAMPLING OF ANIMAL CRACKERS, ALBEIT A BIT DAY-OLD One can easily see why Animal Crackers was a Broadway hit from 1928-1929, followed by a successful movie version. Start with the zan…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:52AMMonday, June 19, 2017
HOW’S THE WITHER? (JUST IN CASE YOU WERE WUTHERING…) A complicated nineteenth-century story of love and retaliation, featuring 13 characters, could be tough to pull off in nin…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:31AMSunday, June 4, 2017
DAMN, YANKEES DOESN’T HIT IT OUT OF THE PARK While many of Jerry Ross and Richard Adler’s songs from the 1955 Broadway classic hold up rather well, Douglass Wallop and George Abb…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 03:52AMSaturday, June 3, 2017
WHAT A SHOCK In 1845, German psychiatrist Heinrich Hoffmann wrote a disturbing but popular children’s book featuring the perils of children who misbehave. A century and a half later, …
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 01:49PMSunday, April 9, 2017
A FIRST DATE THAT GOES WELL The device of having characters receive advice from a conscience or someone from their past is tried and true in musicals: They’re Playing Our Song‘s…
SOURCE: Stage and Cinema at 04:35PM 
