15 stories by "Laura Caton"
Reviewed by Laura Caton At the risk of shirking my duty as a reviewer, my reaction to Journey of the Master, currently playing at Liberty Magic, can best be summed up in four little words: j…
Reviewed by Laura Caton If you’re anything like me, the past 18 months have left you feeling tired, rundown, and listless. But luckily, if you’re anything like me, the production of Leg…
By Laura Caton There’s a strong tradition in magic of learning by apprenticeship: an established magician mentors an up-and-coming magician to pass on the art. In her new show The Queen o…
The simplest way to put it is also the best: Derek Hughes is good. He is, in fact, almost unfairly good: he’s both witty enough and good enough at magic that he could easily let eith…
I think it’s fair to say that Pittsburgh punches above its weight in terms of its artistic offerings, and its holiday smorgasbord is no exception: it seems that every theater, restaurant, …
This season at Liberty Magic, several of the performers have been given catchy monikers; the latest magician to headline the venue, Robert Ramirez, is billed as “the Musical Theater Magici…
I’ll be honest: as a script, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike confuses me and on occasion annoys the heck out of me. (To give you the Reader’s Digest version of why, I’ll just point…
In many ways, technology and theater exist at opposite ends of a spectrum: the one is typically replicable and individualized, while the other is usually unique and communal. Bricolage’…
Choices are often cast as things to make us wary. There’s usually a dichotomy involved: we’re meant to choose the right thing, not the wrong thing; make a good choice, not a bad one. …
In looking at popular media from the last fifty years, you’d be forgiven for thinking every single high school in America is an inescapable hellscape where the popular students are mercile…
Mystery, mentalist Mark Toland notes in his new show Mind Reader, is in fairly short supply these days. After all, most of us carry infinitely-knowledgeable computers in our pockets; at a m…
I have the sneaking suspicion there’s not much point in writing a review of Grease: your initial reaction to even the word is probably all you need to know. If your reaction is a posit…
If you’ve walked down Liberty Avenue around 9th Street in the last few months, you’ve doubtlessly noticed the storefront for Liberty Magic (and maybe even recognized the trick it depicts…
As has often been noted, the original Broadway production of Bright Star had the misfortune of opening in the same season as Hamilton, which would have left any competitors in the dust; b…
By LAURA CATON A friend of mine likes to say his favorite comedies are the ones that are hilariously funny right up to the moment they aren’t—a moment when the truth of the humor tips in…
