Saturday, July 6, 2013
Please welcome guest blogger Emma-Caster Dudzick. As an avid Harry Potter fan, Potted Potter sounded to me like an impossible feat: presenting all seven J.K. Rowling books in only 70 minutes…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:35PMThursday, July 4, 2013
I guess that Barbra Streisand is a legitimate target of satirists and imitators. It's not as though she simply does her acting and directing and retires to her quiet life. She has put hersel…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:47AMSunday, June 30, 2013
If you never had the amazing experience of seeing Colleen Dewhurst perform live, you can get a taste of how wonderful she was through the magic of technology. In 1959, John Steinbeck's Burni…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:40PMTuesday, June 25, 2013
Due to some technical thing or other, we have lost Liz's fabulous Here Lies Love Review. If you happened to have it on an email or feed or just cut and pasted it, could you get it back to us…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:59PMMonday, June 24, 2013
Playwright Mark Roberts is not a member of the Amoralists, but his play Rantoul and Die, well-directed by Jay Stull, is Amoralist material right down to its DNA. The characters are working c…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:00PMWednesday, June 19, 2013
You have through July 14th to catch N.C. Hunter's A Picture of Autumn at the Mint, and you really should. This 1951 drama/comedy features a huge house and characters that would fit right in …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:38PMTuesday, June 18, 2013
Here's the basic formula of reviewing: a bunch of people, frequently talented, sometimes brilliant, strive for weeks, months, or years, often at great sacrifice, and then I show up and judge…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 08:35PMSunday, June 16, 2013
In Frankenstein Upstairs, Mac Rogers once again uses science fiction as his delivery system to present us with his unique combination of insight, humor, wisdom, and compassion. The plot is s…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:17PMFriday, June 14, 2013
Sometimes more is less, as clearly shown by the revival of Pippin currently on Broadway. Or perhaps I should write "sometimes more is less for me," since Pippin's multitude of Tony Awards (r…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:59PMWednesday, June 12, 2013
Everyone has the occasional bad bad at work; 3 Kinds of Exile offers us a few of John Guare's.The first exile, Karel, has a few advantages: (1) his story is genuinely interesting; (2) he is …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:30AMTuesday, June 11, 2013
Potted Potter promises to present all seven Harry Potter books in 70 minutes, a promise it only kinda sorta keeps. Its talented, energetic cast of two--Dan Clarkson and Jeff Turner, who are …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:52PMI was glad to see Cyndi Lauper win best score for a musical, because I love Cyndi Lauper.But then I happened to turn on the radio and catch the tail end of this interview. Specifically, I ca…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:23AMMonday, June 10, 2013
For the first time in years, I felt that the Tonys were ours again, that the show and the awards focused on theatre and existed to entertain people for whom theatre is so primary that their …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 05:26PMMonday, May 27, 2013
Smash has had its supporters and detractors, but even its supporters never defended its quality. "Guilty pleasure," they said. "The show you love to hate." And it's not like there hasn't bee…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:13PMMonday, May 20, 2013
In his one-man Macbeth, the protean Alan Cumming orates, cries, hits his chest, yells, whispers, throws things, and tries to drown himself. What he doesn't do is define characters or tell a …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 11:31PMFriday, May 10, 2013
I had no intention of seeing Nice Work If You Can Get It. I'm not a Matthew Broderick fan, and word-of-mouth made the show sound lame. Then nicely discounted tickets became available, and Je…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:58PMJessica Walker has a pretty mezzo-soprano voice and a fascination with the male impersonators of the late 19th and early 20th century. With co-writer Neil Bartlett, she has turned these into…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:28PMSunday, May 5, 2013
It's amazing what really excellent playwrights can pull off. Take the Flux Theatre Ensemble's Honey Fist, by the wonderful August Schulenburg. In a dry description, it sounds like a stew of …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:55PMSaturday, May 4, 2013
When reading reviews, you sometimes just have to wonder, "Did we see the same play?" The Call, written by Tanya Barfield, directed by Leigh Silverman, and currently playing at Playwrights Ho…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 02:36PMOkay, Collegiate Chorale, you spoiled us with The Mikado, and raised the bar far too high. Then along comes Song of Norway, an okay presentation of an unimpressive show. It doesn't help that…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:52PMWednesday, May 1, 2013
In Sans Merci, written by Johnna Adams and directed by Heather Cohn, two young women, Kelly (the awkwardly, impressively real Rachael Hip-Flores) and Tracy (the lovely and intense Alisha Spi…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:10AMFriday, April 26, 2013
At the beginning of Michael Healey’s play, The Drawer Boy, a young actor/director named Miles (Alex Fast) shows up uninvited at the door of a farmhouse, hoping to carry out research on fa…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 01:44AMTuesday, April 23, 2013
The Epic Theatre's version of Shakespeare's Richard III (here called Richard III: Born With Teeth) aims for immediacy, edge, and individuality, and it largely succeeds. With a strong cast le…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:00AMSunday, April 21, 2013
Thrilled to have an audience, George and Martha--no, woops, Edgar and Alice--strut their hated and acid barbs with the eagerness of a three-year-old saying, "Mommy, did you see that? Mommy, …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 12:20PMTuesday, April 16, 2013
A woman is bent over the back of a couch; a man stands behind her; a sex act is about to take place. The man seems reluctant; the woman encourages him; their discussion is clearly meant to b…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:00PMSunday, April 7, 2013
Playwright Joe Gilford's parents were Jack and Madeline Gilford, and Finks is his fictionalized account of how the "Red Scare" of the 1950s affected their lives and careers. Finks has all t…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 06:56PMMonday, March 18, 2013
(I saw an early preview of Hands on a Hardbody, so take this review with the proverbial grain of salt.)A bunch of people stand around a pickup truck, each trying to win the vehicle by being …
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:56PMWhether you are a guest, a speaker, or a show, it's important not to overstay your welcome. As a 90-minute one act, The Lying Lesson might have come across as an entertaining little show. As…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 10:28PMSunday, March 10, 2013
(I saw an early preview of Kinky Boots, so take everything I write with the proverbial grain of salt.)Kinky Boots is not a great show. I'm not even sure it's a good show. But it is an entert…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 04:09PMSunday, March 3, 2013
Here are the main reasons to see this lovely production of Much Ado About Nothing: Jonathan Cake as Benedick. Clear and smart direction by Arin Arbus. Jonathan Cake. Delightful scenery (Ricc…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 09:00PMA woman carrying a yoga mat comes home, drops her coat on the floor, starts stretching. She is startled to hear a noise in the bedroom when she is ostensibly alone. Her fear turns to annoyan…
SOURCE: Show Showdown at 07:39PM 
