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 Theatre du Vieux Carré produced the regional premiere in September 2010 and Jefferson Performing Arts followed with their production two years later in 2012. Both of […]
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 founded in 1916 and nestled in the heart of the French Quarter. Friday night, September 6, was Le Petit’s annual fundraiser, […]
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, Die!, which is not for children, is keeping the laughometer as high as current temperatures in hot and humid South Florida. In its intimate black […]
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 collision occurs in the moving, humorous, and invigorating new musical, A Shonda. It’s a clash that can hopefully, in the long run, begin to heal long festering ills […]
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 intricately constructed of their namesake playwright’s works, A Streetcar Named Desire, the first to garner him the coveted Pulitzer Prize for Drama. This latest […]
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 City Players’ (NCP) small scale, yet heartfelt, haunting, heartbreaking, and sizzling current professional production of Tennessee Williams’ classic, sultry, poetic, Pulitzer Prize-winning 1947 tragedy, A […]
By ROY BERKO Confession: 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, mostly with no real reason, into an often soap-opera-like story. Reality: MJ: The Musical, now on stage at the Key Bank State Theatre […]
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 the Empire State Building during the early days of the Great Depression and the men and women who literally bolted it into place, has finally bowed in […]
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. Some of these groundbreaking shows include Hair, A Chorus Line, Fun Home and Hamilton. Add to that list Suffs, which premiered at The Public […]
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 Santa Fe’s Center for Contemporary Arts, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, the list is significantly different. The first rule for Exodus Ensemble’s immersive, […]