To start with, "Yinz'r" is a contraction of "yinz are," and "scrooged" is, of course, a verb made out of the famous name. If you're within the sound of this review, you know what "yinz" mean…
Homer, Shakespeare, Cervantes " whatever their genres, the great authors were always great storytellers. Victorian novelist Charles Dickens (1812-70) belongs in that elite company, and altho…
Don't let the blistering street language with which Dominique Morisseau opens "Sunset Baby" mislead you: It's with a poet's skill and an aching heart that she observes this trio of angry you…
Along with his poetry and passion, August Wilson had the gift of finding the intimate in the epic, and vice versa. In his Pittsburgh Cycle of 10 plays, he tells stories of families and indiv…
NEW YORK " First up in the 45th induction ceremony into the Theater Hall of Fame in the upper lobby of Broadway's Gershwin Theatre, where the names of Hall members are emblazoned in gol…
Midway or so through Andrea Lepcio's new play, one of the two bewildered women trapped in a mysterious underground of memory and clutter says, "I feel like I didn't get the memo."
Homophobia at a prestigious all-black prep school is at the heart of it. In contrast, there are spirituals, lovingly sung a cappella as respite from the taut, competitive life of a dema…
NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE, Ontario " This colorful confection of a town is worth visiting in any season, but especially during the long run of the Shaw Festival, this year extending to Nov. 1…
There's no apparent pattern to the second and final pair of New Works Festival programs, running through the weekend. Variety is its spice.
Stephen Flaherty, 55, a Dormont native best known as the composer of the Broadway musicals "Ragtime," "Once on This Island" and "Seussical," will be inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame as…
Rest assured, the most famous Shakespearean stage direction is fully honored: "Exit, pursued by a bear."
As the adage goes, all happy families are the same, but unhappy families are unhappy in different ways. True or not, it does suggest the complexity and interest of "The Country House," where…
Where do you draw the line between ambition and folly? That must have given pause to Greggory Brandt, new artistic director of the Saint Vincent Summer Theatre, as he contemplated stagi…
In the program for "Sharon's Grave," PICT Classic Theatre prints "Epic," a sonnet by Patrick Kavanagh that contrasts village tussles with history's great events, and finds them all …
Sometimes, you just want silly. That's certainly the aim, and the payoff, of "The Dance on Widow's Row," now finishing its run (only through Sunday) at the New Horizon Theatre, rep…
If saints are (as they must partly be) those who help us see with fresh spiritual breadth or depth, then Bricolage's latest peripatetic theater event, "Saints Tour," is justly named.
Barebones in a black box in Braddock: Whatever that sounds like tripping off the tongue, it proves an auspicious debut.
NEW YORK " Fortunately for Hilary Mantel, the Seymour family named their 16th century Wiltshire manor house Wulfhall, providing a juicy name for her historical novel about the care…
Whatever the small, semi-pro Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre may be, it is hardly small or even semi-pro " not when it takes on a bear of a play like "Fences," harvesting such a vivid ta…
To start, the title of Samuel D. Hunter's "The Whale" seems cruel, or at least painfully honest, because there he is, Charlie, 600-some pounds, beached helplessly on the sofa in his apartmen…
NEW YORK " Producer Rocco Landesman presented former New York Times critic Frank Rich with a meat cleaver. Designer John Lee Beatty complimented director Marshall W. Mason for having th…
Among Shakespeare's half-dozen great tragedies, none tells a clearer, more streamlined story than "Othello."
It's just April, but 2015 has already been an august year " an August year, that is, as in August Wilson.
And in the main ring, the heavyweight championship bout of all time, as many rounds as it takes, fought to the death " husband vs. wife!
A puzzle pursued in intriguing fits and starts, narration alternating with wordless installations, magic walls that write, a ceiling that speaks, characters doubled, the audience o…