By ROY BERKO Describe the Night, which is now on stage at Ensemble Theatre, is Cleveland Heights native Rajiv Joseph's 2018 Obie Award winner for Best New American Play. Joseph was named …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") There is probably no more magnificent opening number in Broadway history than "Circle of Life/ Nants Ingonyama" found in Disney's The …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It's taken a minute, but the only play to ever win both an Olivier Award in London and a Tony Award on Broadway has finally arrivedÂ�…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It would seem The NOLA Project, those upstarts who came to New Orleans from New York's Tisch School just prior to the landfall of Hurr…
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI " With the mid-term political elections just weeks away, one of Milwaukee's newer theater companies uses that timing to open The Totalitarians, a 2015 political …
By EDWARD RUBIN Sometimes, a gripping story with universal relevance sells big. Such was the case of "The Kite Runner," Khaled Hossein's 2003 semi-autobiographical novel which was turned int…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Back when I was still in high school, writer Peter Stone and composer and lyricist Sherman Edwards got together to reimagine a patriot…
By ROY BERKO When Les Misérables last came to Cleveland in November of 2018, in part I wrote: "From the very first time I saw Les Miserables, shortly after its opening in London, to the New…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It's taken 16 years since it first bowed at the Public Theatre and 15 years after it became a Broadway smash, but In the HeightsÂ�…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") There are some classic movies that easily make the transition from the big screen to the stage. Because some have first been independe…
By ROY BERKO The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, now on stage in the Senney Theater in the Beck Center complex, is a play by Simon Stephens which is based on British writer Ma…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic It's not going to reshape your concept of the Founding Fathers through inventive use of choreography and hip hop music. It's not going to give you insi…
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI. " Race-based violence " especially against young Black men " is not unknown in this Midwest city, although most of the conflicts seen on the local TV news s…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") It wasn't that long ago when theaters were shuttered and charges were leveled at many theatrical institutions for a perceived lack of …
By EDWARD RUBIN What is it to become a word? To become or even create an emotion that doesn't exist…at least not yet. How much power does the artist have to convince and make believe? The …
By ALAN SMASON Tennessee Williams' last play on Broadway was the terribly titled Clothes for a Summer Hotel, which lasted for 14 performances before it shut down. The play bears the explanat…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") From the first few lines in the opening number ("We're Live") of "Mr. Saturday Night," it is apparent this is a throwback to Broadway …
By ANNE SIEGEL CHICAGO " It's no secret that the recent opening of The Devil Wears Prada is a mere precursor to its 2023 Broadway run. Although no dates, theater or cast has been announced f…
By ROY BERKO In the fall of 1957, I had a mind-blowing experience. I saw the newly opened Broadway production of West Side Story. At the time, all I knew about the show was that it was…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") One of British playwright Pam Gems' early stage successes was Dead Fish, which has since been renamed Dusa, Fish, Stas & Vi. Fi…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Since its founding, the mission of the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company (TWTC) has been to tell the stories of New Orleans' best kno…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When the musical Mrs. Doubtfire was preparing to open in 2020, the show became a victim of the forced lockdown of all theaters in N…
By EDWARD RUBIN I seem to remember reading, in all of the hoopla surrounding the Baryshnikov Art Center's Production of Chekov's The Cherry Orchard, somebody saying "Unlike anything that you…
By ROY BERKO Theater history books refer to The Black Crook, which opened in 1866 in New York, as the first musical. However, according to Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, the conceivers …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") One of the funniest comedies of the big screen of 1983 was "Trading Places," Eddie Murphy's sophomore vehicle in which he starred oppo…