A show that catapults you into the extremities of climbing one of the highest summits on earth, 8000M is a testament to how good storytelling doesn’t require expensive bells and whistles.
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Richardson Theatre Centre’s production of Del Shores’ play “Daddy’s Dyin’...Who’s Got the Will?” delivered an intimate, well-rounded and entertaining performance. The Dallas-FortWorth-area audience in attendance quickly connected with the cast’s portrayal of a 1980s-era family from the small town of Lowake, Texas. Here, siblings reunite for the first time in years to spend a few last days with their ailing father who recently suffered a debilitating stroke.
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So, how would I describe my first visit to the ballet? Gorgeous and vibrant pictures are created all the time as the music lends to the unfolding of the story. The costumes and sets are a wondrous sight to behold and I wanted to marvel for a few minutes longer looking at them, but I had to focus on the story and the choreography.
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Taking place entirely in a jail cell near Yellowstone National Park, “The Buffalo Play” tells the story of a Woman (Ciara Griffin) as she is visited by the vision of a buffalo (Kendra Potter), after having just taken a baby buffalo and put it in her car because she thought it looked cold. This eventually leads to the baby being rejected by the heard and having to be euthanized. The Woman and the Buffalo discuss life and nature and the morality of human interference. Combing realistic and abstract elements, this new play by Ciara Griffin and Kendra Potter, explores human’s relationship with wildlife and our internal connections to the nature around us.
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Clowns!
Some people find them entertaining, or at the very least amusing. Others might find them creepy, perhaps to the point where they appear in their nightmares. For a select few, it may be a combination of all of the above. In IRTE’s latest show – which, as the title suggests, is all about evil clowns – that combination is exactly what is shown to theatergoers…although thankfully, it leans far more toward the silly and whimsical side of these characters.
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The Tankhouse Theatre in the Young Centre for the Performing Arts, the Distillery District, is home to Rare Theatre Company’s ‘Welcome to My Underworld’, a collection of voices of individuals of varying abilities wanting our attention to several modern-day social justice issues, each of them relevant and pertinent. These are performers and writers who travel to the underworld to discover and find their true voices.
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Poet-playwright Aziza Barnes puts many ingredients into their script blender to whip up a “comedic look” at the lives of Octavia (Paige Gilbert), Imani (Alfie Fuller), and June (Antoinette Crowe-Legacy, three twenty something black women living in New York City – a city where black lives seem not to matter and where, for that reason, it has become difficult for the trio to navigate the bumpy road to finding intimacy and purpose.
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Author Jean Kerr once quipped, “Being divorced is like being hit by a Mack truck. If you live through it, you start looking very carefully to the right and to the left.”
Kerr is full of such quips, and she uses them hungrily in her 1960s comedy hit, "Mary, Mary," being revived ambitiously by Retro Productions at the Gene Frankel Theatre downtown.
"Mary" is about what happens when two people have married each other, separated, and after vigorously looking to the right and left, through a number of snarky quips, get back together happily ever after, no questions asked.
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Playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s project was to learn more of the story behind her paternal family, especially her great grandfather, Chaim Moscovitch (Dani Oore) and her great grandmother Chaya (Mary Fay Coady). They came to Halifax, Canada, in 1908 on a boat. Chaim’s family were all killed in a pogrom in Romania. In a chilling narration, he recounts to Chaya and to all of us how he found their bodies which is a moment he will never forget. Chaya was coming to Canada with her entire family. Her first husband died in Russia while trying to leave from there.
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Whenever I see a production of a classic Greek play, I’m always a tad leery of what to expect for the fact I have never found these stories particularly interesting. I know, an English major/French minor who should have studied and respected these works. I know, I know, and I did. I’ve always enjoyed most of the Shakespearean works but there was something about the Greek plays that just never intrigued me to want to attend.
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The story of the infamous figure of Lee Harvey Oswald is of particular interest here just outside of Dallas, Texas. Over half a century ago, he became a household name not just in Texas, but across the world for gunning down the 46-year-old President in downtown Dallas. After the Kennedy assassination, the details of Oswald’s life were dissected, analyzed, and sensationalized to the point where few, including his widow, actually recognized the man they thought they knew.
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Sex Ed is something that everyone has had some sort of encounter with in one way or another, whether it was extremely restrictive in the information given (perhaps even no information at all) or given way too much information to the point of confusion. Often as we grow older we find that the information that we received as children was a little off or just downright wrong. This is what “Miseducated” is about.
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In Normal Ave’s final installation in their 2019 season, “Sons of the Prophet” explores the tenacity of the human spirit in the face of senseless tragedy. This production has made its home at the Medicine Show Theatre and will play through May 5th. At the beginning of the matinee I saw, the show’s director Shannon Molly Flynn announced Normal Ave’s residency at the Medicine Show theatre. So first and foremost a huge congratulations to them for finding a home for what continues to be a talented and up and coming theatre company.
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“Tootsie” has arrived and the lights on Broadway, especially those the Marquis theater where the musical is in residence, are shining much brighter because of the energy generated by the incredible cast that delights the audience and sparks uproarious laughter and spontaneous applause at every turn.
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“Spanker Machine” is performed through the In Scena Italian Theater Festival and tells the story of a young woman, Anita, as she tries to make sense of the most traumatic moments of her life through dressing up as her favorite characters (Sailor Moon, Anne of Green Gables, Oren Ishi). Tormented by a mother who never accepted her controversial sexuality and a lover, Marco, who left without explanation, she finds refuge in her characters. We as the audience are given details of her life outside of the characters through, phone calls and Anita’s stories.
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When the house lights finally came back on after the entire cast treated the appreciative audience a peppy, rain-soaked reprise of the show's title song as an encore, I turned to my friend beaming and said "I could not stop smiling the whole time!"
It is probably a safe assumption—judging from the thunderous applause of its recent opening night performance—that my happy reaction to McCoy Rigby Entertainment's joyfully buoyant new production of "SINGIN' IN THE RAIN"—now on stage at the La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts through May 12, 2019—was not a solitary feeling I alone felt after that performance.
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Praise be to Theatre Three for serving up a divinely-entertaining comedic feast for the soul in “Raptured.” Not only is this show chock full of deliciously dark humor and non-stop hilarity, it is dripping with double entendre and crowd-pleasing innuendo.
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Fun, fun, fun. What a most enjoyable way to welcome spring to the Forest City. Get to see this “Mamma Mia” before it returns to the Charlottetown Festival.
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Taking us back to those uncomfortable holiday dinners, this new play by Gabi and Eva Mor, tells the story of homophobic, racist, and all around bigoted, Jim. Jim’s narrow views and downright offensive language make him a very hard person to be around. Even his own son, Seth (played by Dana Watkins) is exhausted with trying to get his father to understand just what is wrong with some of the things he says. Yet, with his father’s health waning and Seth the only one to take care of him, he hopes that he can use his time with his father to try and open his mind a little. Seth, along with the help of Jim’s next door neighbors, Paula and Aysha,(Played by Jaimi Paige and Faiven Feshazion) whose romantic relationship Jim has expressed extreme distaste for, attempt to open up Jim’s eyes to a world beyond his narrow understanding.
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It is difficult to separate “Be More Chill,” currently running at the Lyceum Theatre, from the hype surrounding what has become a teenage cult musical since its 2015 run at the Two River Theater in Red Bank, New Jersey and its recent off-Broadway run at The Irene Diamond Stage at The Pershing Square Signature Center in 2018. This hype has been heightened by a cast recording and an extensive marketing campaign. What is this musical about and how successful is its current Broadway incarnation?
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