By JACK LYONS, Desert Local News The Desert Ensemble Theatre Company (DETC) of Palm Springs launched its 2021-2022 season in its new home at Theatre # 3, inside the Palm Springs Cultural Center with the poignant drama The Beebo Brinker Chronicles on Friday, December 10, 2021. The award-winning theatrical company founded by playwright and director […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Coming just a year after the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and Breonna Taylor and last summer’s massive Black Lives Matter responsive protests, the recently-opened revival of Jeanine Tessori and Tony Kushner’s Caroline, or Change by the Roundabout Theatre Company gives Broadway musical audiences a powerful […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Any child of the Sixties or worthy Deadhead would probably bet their monthly Social Security check that Harvard professor Timothy Leary first popularized Lysergic acid diethylamide – LSD-25 – and that its usage was actively pioneered and promoted by rock icons such as Jerry Garcia, Jim Morrison, […]
By EDWARD RUBIN Manhattan Theatre Club’s production of British playwright Simon Stephens’ three-generation memory play Morning Sun runs through Sunday, December 19th at New York City Center. For the discerning theatergoers who live and die theater, and perhaps still remember the dazzling effectiveness of Stephen’s Tony-winning play, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the […]
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI – It may seem unusual for the state’s largest performing arts organization to open its doors after the pandemic with a comedy from the genteel South. Yet, a closer look at this production of Steel Magnolias offers something that the audience has been missing for almost two years. That’s the […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) There is an obvious conversation addressed early in Tootsie, the David Yazbek musical that won Santino Fontana a Leading Actor in a Musical Tony Award in 2019. In the book by Robert Horn that won him the other Tony Award for that show, the question about a […]
By ROY BERKO In 2010 a gay Mississippi high school student was banned from coming to her senior prom by the school’s Board of Education because she wanted to bring her girlfriend as her date. She challenged the ruling, which resulted in the cancellation of the prom. The student and the ACLU sued the district. The federal […]
By ANNE SIEGEL The opening of Zora Howard’s Stew marks a return to the stage for one of Milwaukee’s longstanding companies, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. For the past 20 months, one of the loveliest theaters in the Midwest – the Cabot Theatre – has been dark. Actors, directors, technicians and others in the theater community wondered […]
By ROY BERKO For the last several years more and more attention has been placed on The Black Lives Matter and #MeToo movements, woke language, microaggressions, radical feminism, transgenderism, Critical Race Theory and aggression against Asians. They have become issues for laws, politics, education, media and the arts. After almost two-years of non-live production, the […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) With the opening of The Addams Family musical last week, director Leslie Castay added a new company, the Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS), and a new venue to her repertoire. Castay, a former Broadway performer and cabaret star, had been quite busy directing projects prior to the […]