1,741 stories by "Ghoover"
By Eva Phill;ipsWe exist in a remarkable sort of renaissance for musical theater. Indeed, the past 10 to 15 years has been characterized by an abundance of shows that successfully marry the …
By Eva Phillips It is surprising how a horrific accident or cruel twist of fate can catapult a career. Just ask Buddy Holly, or Lynyrd Skynyrd, or Otis Redding. Or ask the strapping young la…
By Eva Phillips Transcendentalism undergoes many changes as humans evolve. Whether this transcendentalism manifests the thirst to conquer the elements by mastering a flying apparatus, or dev…
By Brian Pope The timeless compositions of Alan Menken have been the heartbeat of many memorable musical tales dealing with the themes of duty, love, and morality. Should Ariel abandon her f…
By Eva Phillips The ways girls behave and the things they do to one another within the overwhelming hives of school, their social structures, and their own minds is the source of great, and …
By Eva Phillips In remarks discussing the nature of violent and racist language, Claudia Rankine cited the post-structural linguistic semiotics of fellow intellectual Judith Butler, stating,…
By Eva Phillips Harper York, not unlike two infamously fabled star cross’d lovers, had a feverish, impassioned vision that she was driven to bring to life. Thankfully, unlike those two lov…
By Eva Phillips Maybe Sweeney Todd isn’t being egregiously hyperbolic when he says there is a place in the world full of shit called London. The plague looms heavy; perfidious law-makers a…
Shakespeare’s Will. Perhaps the two-word title of Quantum Theatre’s autumn 2019 production sums up what many people think they know about the playwright’s wife. That very document and …
Saturday evening, November 9, will mark an important milestone in the long history of Pittsburgh Opera, when the curtain goes up on Florencia en el Amazonas, the first-ever Spanish-langua…
By Eva Phillips I first encountered Lisa Kron’s remarkable, one-person “show,” 2.5 Minute Ride, as a referential framework characteristically unconventional mechanisms through which qu…
By Brian Pope It’s not hyperbole, nor am I ashamed to tell you that, since first watching the film in 2004, I have fantasized about seeing the musical adaptation of Mean Girls. Everything …
By Eva Phillips So much of the history women are forced to learn, accept, and retell is conceived in terms of what is done to our bodies and what our bodies can handle. How fertile are we? H…
By Eva Phillips Good fences make good neighbors, and sturdy walls can make the most combustible of romances—just don’t expect those romances to be as sturdy or reliable. Theatre Factory�…
By Brian Pope They don’t call it the nuclear family for nothing. Just ask the Goodmans. Dan, Diana, Natalie, Gabe. “Father, mother, sister, brother cheek to cheek.†Or so Diana s…
By Casey Cunningham Warning: The following review contains spoilers for the play Medea but, not, Not Medea. (That is likely the last bad joke I will make.) This is not a show about Medea, de…
This November, Pittsburgh Classic Players will tackle William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet as the final show of their season of “Bad Romance.” This show will prove to be Pittsburgh C…
By Eva Phillips The range of emotions and sentiments in the final program of Pittsburgh New Works Festival on display throughout the categorically eclectic array of three plays are profoundl…
By Eva Phillips Poetry and myth are predicated on violence enacted upon women. Brutal possession, hostile silencing or neglect, hateful shame, and outright destruction of femininity drive so…
The curtain goes up on Pittsburgh Opera’s 81st season beginning next Saturday evening, October 12, with the first of four performances of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Don Giovanni. The p…
By Eva Phillips You know what they say: it’s all fun and games until someone summons your dead spouse from the beyond. When novelist Charles Condomine and his wife Ruth (his second wife, n…
By Brian Pope Even with their short run times, the plays that make up Program C of the 2019 Pittsburgh New Works Festival don’t pull any dramatic punches. Whether they’re revealing close…
By Eva Phillips The 70s and 80s were a macabre-surrealist paradise when it came to horror films. Even the Sparknote versions of these films are preposterously devious: A town ravaged by an u…
By Eva Phillips There’s a ferocious coding that comes with being a marine. It transcends the coding that comes with any military regimentation. A marine will be the first to tell you that.…
On Saturday, Spetember 21, MOMIX will return to the Byham Theater at 8pm with Viva MOMIX, a compilation of works. “They’re relatively short, each piece has a beginning a middle and an en…
