SWEET AND WITTY SPOOF IS A CURE-ALL FOR THE BLUES The playbill cover for Coronado Playhouse's highly charming production of The Drowsy Chaperone describes it as “A Musical Within A Com…
GET SOME FANNY There are many reasons to see the revival of Harold Rome's 1954 musical Fanny at the Alex Theatre, but you only have one shot. Musical Theatre Guild (MTG), an Equity company o…
A DREAMBOAT IN DREAMCOAT In just two productions, the Paramount Theatre has elevated itself to the top of the class in Chicagoland musical theater, in company with Drury Lane in Oakbrook Ter…
SITTING VIGIL FOR THE CENTER THEATRE GROUP, OR LIVING ON BORROWED THEATER Vigil, which was first done in Canada in 1995, is an oft-produced play, having been translated into 19 languages. At…
CONSTANT CATFIGHTS Race is a subject loaded with potential drama. This season alone, there has been a cornucopia of plays staged in New York featuring storylines involving race. They…
YOU CAN GO HOME AGAIN A trip to South Coast Rep is exactly what was needed to shake off the blues of this year's morass of over-produced and/or over-written theater. The Trip to Bountiful, H…
FALL FLAT My extreme reluctance to recommend Next Fall should not necessarily deter you from seeing it. Stay with me here. Geoffrey Nauffts' Tony-nominated play, which concerns a gay cou…
LOST IN THE LABYRINTH In Outrageous Fortune, Todd London's seminal work on the current state of new plays in America, he writes that the challenge is finding a way to remain relevant to the …
AUTUMN THEATER IN NEW YORK:Â OFF BROADWAY, THE ACTING’S THE THING Acting is the main artery through which most of New York Theater travels. When a new season is announced, one looks…
THE ACTING IS DELICIOUS, THE SCRIPT IS HALF BAKED October has seen a great run for mothers on the Los Angeles stage: Lily Knight in Peace In Our Time at Anteaus, Denise Crosby in House of Go…
MANAGEABLE HAIR Say what you will about Musical Theatre West's fluffy season selections, including Winter Wonderettes, Forbidden Broadway and Spamalot, this company continues to collect an a…
OCCASIONALLY, WHEN WE’RE LUCKY, IT FLIES In Come Fly Away, there are at least four dances " "I've Got A Crush On You," "Body and Soul," "I Like To Lead When I Dance," and "Teach Me Ton…
PROMISING PREMISE PRODUCES PREPOSTEROUS PRODUCT Katha and Ryu are a modern married couple fed up with their harried lives: Ryu hates his 60-hour workweeks as a doctor and Katha is discontent…
THE TROUBLE WITH BHUTAN I am not advocating that bad directors should face a firing squad in the town square in full view of the entire community. But I have seen three plays now that were d…
A BIGGER NOISE NEEDS TO BE MADE WITHIN A Noise Within (ANW), one of the nation's leading classical repertory theatre companies, has done the unimaginable: after 19 seasons in a Masonic build…
WHAT’S COOKING IN HER KITCHEN? In the bracingly intelligent and potentially powerful Hermetically Sealed, playwright Kathryn Graf has set out to explore the ways in which families dece…
TENNESSEE W’S MASTER CLASS FOR ACTORS The New American Theatre production of Five Beauties (or, as it turned out to be at the performance I attended, Four Beauties) is not like going t…
DANCE MACABRE The Zombie Joe's Underground production of The Cask of Amontillado: Although there are only two performances left of this show, this is a piece that should be extended; if it i…
TENNESSEE’S LESSER KNOWN CATS La MaMa presents the New York premiere of a short Tennessee Williams play, Now the Cats with Jewelled Claws. That's the good news, an opportunity to s…
CYGNET’S GLASS MENAGERIE SPARKLES It is easy to see why Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie was an immediate hit when it debuted in 1944. In an era of everyone keeping up appea…
HAND OVER GIST Martin McDonagh, the English dramatist known for his quirky and violent plays set in rural Ireland, sets A Behanding in Spokane in the United States, but the setting hasn't in…
PRINCIPLES ON TRIAL Playwright David Mamet is a master of provocative, gut-wrenching truths packed in fast-paced, blue dialogue, and Race, his 90-minute, one-act take on racism and the Ameri…
MOSTLY EVERYTHING’S COMING UP ROSES FOR ION PRODUCTION For most theater lovers, Gypsy equals Ethel Merman as Mama Rose, even if you never saw her do it. After a single time hearing…
A RESONANT AND RESOUNDING SOUND OF MUSIC Although the Drury Lane Theatre extended the run of its revival of THE SOUND OF MUSIC even before the show opened, the laudable theater company might…
I'M DREAMING OF A WHITE CHRISTMAS THAT WORKS It is possible that Irving Berlin's White Christmas might succeed with audiences. Possible, that is, if they are willing to tolerate a lame, clic…