348 stories by "Alan Smason"
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…
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI. " Next Act, one of the city's longest-running theaters, opens the new year with an exhilarating, funny and disturbing Wisconsin premiere of Dominique Morisseau'…
By EDWARD RUBIN Despite countless closings, postponements, cancellations, empty seats, COVID interventions, and the annoying requirements of having to wear a mask, present proof of a vaccina…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") One of the most unanticipated closures on Broadway due to the COVID pandemic was the announcement from the Disney Theatrical Group tha…
By ROY BERKO Vickie Bussert, the director of Lizzie: The Musical, an exploration of the Lizzie Borden story, now on stage as a joint production between Baldwin Wallace's nationally respected…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Times have been very busy both together and separately for the composing team of composer Ricky Ian Gordon and librettist Michael Kori…
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI " Life hasn't been all unicorns and rainbows for the national tour of Mean Girls, which is playing in Milwaukee January 25-30. Some of its performances in other …
By JACK LYONS, Desert Local News Agatha Christie was the queen of the murder mystery genre hands down. The transfer of her novels to the stage and for viewers of the film medium only incr…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") With its current production of Cabaret finally on the boards, the Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts has achieved some major f…
By JACK LYONS It is said that with age comes wisdom. It is also said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. The eyes of today's beholders are currently in love with "West Side Story", ma…
By EDWARD RUBIN Kimberly Akimbo, the newly penned musical with book and lyrics by David Lindsay-Abaire (Rabbit Hole, Shrek the Musical) and music by Jeanine Tesori (Fun Home, Caroline, or Ch…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") If ever there was a city with which a spiritual kinship could be forged with the national tour of Hadestown, there is little doubt it …
