359 stories by "Alan Smason"
Between the years 1848 and 1851 over four thousand Irish females took passage on ships from Ireland to Australia under the Orphan Emigration Scheme, established by Earl Grey. This action had…
By ROY BERKO Mathew Lopez, the author of The Legend of Georgia McBride " now on stage in the Studio Theatre at Beck Center " also wrote The Inheritance, which, in 2018 was the most hon…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Tina Fey's success as a screenwriter for the film "Mean Girls" was supported by her husband Jeff Richmond's music. So, when the though…
By ED RUBIN MCC Theater's production of Which Way To The Stage running through Saturday, May 28, at the Robert W. Wilson Theater Space at 511 West 52nd Street in Manhattan, is one of the …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré has been trying to bring Janis Joplin to New Orleans for more than two years and, as any music lover …
By ALAN SMASON Jason Petty strides onto the stage of BB's Stage Door Canteen wearing a classic white country and western suit. On the sleeves and lapels are black musical notes and staffs wi…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When Robert Louis Stevenson penned his classic tale of buccaneers and buried booty, "Treasure Island," he could not have had a clue th…
By ANNE SIEGEL (MILWAUKEE, WI.) " The most surprising thing about Get Happy: Angela Ingersoll Sings Judy Garland is that the Milwaukee Repertory Theater has taken so long to bring this show …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It seems children's writer Roald Dahl and his dark prose will never go out of fashion. More than 30 years after his death, the genius …
By ALAN SMASON Most lovers of literature will consider Ira Levin for his best-selling novels "Rosemary's Baby" "The Stepford Wives," "A Kiss Before Dying," and "The Boys from Brazil," all of…
By JACK LYONS, Desert Local News (PALM SPRINGS, CA.) " As the early scenes of playwright Karen Zacarias' 2019 comedy play-with-a-bite unfolds, one would think "I've seen this play /story bef…
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI " Although it's not "official," playwright Bill Cain and Milwaukee's Next Act Theatre seem to be having a love affair or, at least, a mutual admiration society. …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It's taken 25 years for Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman to birth their baby, but Harmony: A New Musical, with direction and choreograp…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II set out to write Cinderella, their only musical to be aired over the nascent medium of l…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The debate over mainstreaming children of special needs has raged in this country for many years with advocates on both sides making t…
By ROY BERKO Shakespeare, in his comedies, writes of trickery, false accusations, restoration of harmony and romance. He uses lots of double entendre and encourages fun and farce as well as …
By ALAN SMASON If, as the adage says, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then satire must be the epitome of adoration. Two one-act plays by famed playwright Christopher Durang and …
By JACK LYONS, Desert Local News Its springtime in Palm Springs, CA. and love is in the air, especially, on stage at the Palm Canyon Theatre (PCT) where bravado and bragging go hand in hand …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It's taken more than two years to finally open the revival of Neil Simon's Plaza Suite at the Hudson Theatre, a show that was prepa…
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI " The Tony-nominated play Indecent, written by noted playwright Paula Vogel, comes vividly to life in this part of the Midwest. Thankfully, Milwaukee has a pe…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When Lin-Manuel Miranda was 17, he was exposed to the musical Rent for the first time and he became attuned to the original contempora…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts announced two years they were mounting The Drowsy Chaperone, there were smiles on many…
By ROY BERKO The film "Pretty Woman," with its signature Roy Orbison song, was originally planned to be a tale about class and prostitution, but was re-conceived into a romantic comedy and o…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") There are times when resetting a classic work in an updated time or alternative setting makes sense to breathe new life into staid wor…
By JACK LYONS The country's pandemic hit the Coachella Valley pretty hard. We lost CoyoteStageWorks, one of our multi-award-winning leading professional theatre companies, who after more tha…
