By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Jamie Lloyd has made a reputation for himself as a visionary minimalist director, winning a remarkable collection of Olivier Awards on…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") There are a few Off-Broadway shows that rise above the fray even though they are silly in concept or lack the kind of production value…
By AARON KRAUSE Forget ghosts and goblins. Deborah Zoe Laufer's frightening and moving drama, The Last Yiddish Speaker, centers on a real horrific scenario. Specifically, the playwr…
By ROY BERKO Bye Bye Birdie, Hair, Grease, Carrie, 13 (The Musical), Dear Evan Hansen and Mean Girls. What do all these Broadway musicals have in common? They placed the spotlight on teen…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Talk about hitting it out of the ballpark. With the Fall Classic being played out in arenas in Los Angeles and in New York, it's easy …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Playwright Antoinette Chinonye Nwandu has said the concept of Pass Over is similar to that of Beckett's Waiting for Godot and that it was…
By LOU HARRY Craig Lucas' play Prelude to a Kiss reached Broadway in 1988, the same year that "Big," "Vice Versa," and "18 Again" were hitting movie theaters. Yes, all were body-switching st…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When Girl from the North Country premiered on Broadway, there were a number of ebullient reviews trumpeting the musical for its invent…
By ROY BERKO "Neither Ruby Dee or Ossie Davis ever appeared in a Karamu House stage production but both had significant presence and impact in the organization and in the lives of Karamu art…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critc ("Steppin' Out") Whether you loved the board game "Clue" when growing up or, perhaps, enjoyed the Paramount Pictures movie of the same title, the murder…
By ANNE SIEGEL Just in time for Halloween, Beetlejuice, the Musical arrives as the first offering in the Marcus Center's 2024-25 Broadway season. The musical plays though October 6 in …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Several noted plays assign multiple roles to single actors in order to emphasize how clever and talented the actors are. Not only do t…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House was first mounted in the fall of 1879, so there is little debate that the work could use a bit of timely…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It's been said that the third time's the charm. Previously, two earlier iterations of Hairspray have graced local theaters. Le Petit T…
By ALAN SMASON For the past several weeks, I've been promoting this weekend as a way for the local theatre community to give back to Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré, the historic theater fo…
By AARON KRAUSE While summer camp is over for kids, a different kind of camp is in session for adults at Island City Stage (ICS). There, the side-splitting camp comic classic Die, Mommie,…
By AARON KRAUSE The term "collision" usually carries a negative connotation. After all, serious injuries or worse can result when people or vehicles collide. But a potentially healing collis…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It has taken nine years for the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans (TWTC) to tackle one of the biggest and most intrica…
By AARON KRAUSE "Bigger isn't better." So go the lyrics to a Cy Coleman and Michael Stewart song from the musical "Barnum." At least, bigger isn't always better. A fine example is New …
By ROY BERKO Confession: Â I am not a big fan of juke box musicals, the now popular Broadway vehicle which is a genre of American musical theatre in which pre-written songs are woven, most…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") After several decades in development and through various iterations, Empire, the musical that tells the story of the construction of t…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The Public Theater has enjoyed a well deserved reputation as a proving grounds for works that have later found great fame on Broadway.…
By LOU HARRY Prior to a performance, most theaters share a short list of expected behaviors. Turn off those cell phones. Unwrap those candies. Note the exits. However, for Hamlet, staged at …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") One of the marketing ploys for The Notebook: The Musical can be found at the merchandising kiosk downstairs at the Gerald Schoenfeld T…
By ROY BERKO In 1985, "Back to the Future," the feature film, opened.  It starred Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd.  It quickly became a cult favorite and spun off two sequel…