By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) With seven seasons under its belt, the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans, superintended by the diligence of producing artistic directors Augustin Correro and Nick Shackleford, has succeeded in its founding premise: to present authentic works by Williams – especially infrequently produced and rarely-seen pieces – […]
By ROY BERKO Alison Bechdel is a cartoonist who came to national attention via her long-running comic strip “Dykes to Watch Out For.” She combined her life story and her comic strip style in the graphic memoir “Fun Home.” It is the adoption of this book that went on to become the musical which was […]
By ROY BERKO “Guilt, the gift that keeps giving.” “Marriage has no guarantees. If that’s what you’re looking for, go live with a car battery.” “Encourage independence in your children by regularly losing them in the supermarket.” “Never go to a doctor whose office plants have all died.” What do these quotes all have in […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) With its undercurrent of racism, statutory rape and threatened castration, Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth is not a play for the meek. Set in the 1950s, it is a story of two desperate characters seeking salvation in the fictional town of St. Cloud, Mississippi. The first […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Many fans of Tennessee Williams know of the feelings of anguish he experienced when dealing with his sister Rose Isabel Williams. Rose, who had suffered mental instability and had outwardly expressed her own sexual desires, was the victim of a botched prefrontal lobotomy authorized by her domineering […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Christopher Durang’s Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a very funny work. That much has been clearly established in the decade since the original one-act play premiered Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center, was expanded into two acts and later transferred to Broadway quite successfully more than a […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Meredith Wilson composed what may have been the most iconic of American musicals with his The Music Man that took home five Tony Awards including Best Musical, ran for 1,375 performances and received the very first Grammy Award for an original cast album. In that same year […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) In a town famous for launching its most famous celebration on Twelfth Night, one might think the connection to the self-named Shakespearean comedy would be a given. But, alas, the title selected by the Bard for this memorable work has absolutely nothing to do with the promise […]
By ROY BERKO Doubt: A Parable, which is now on stage at Beck Center for the Arts, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. It ran for 525 performances in its Broadway run and was adapted into a much-heralded feature film. The plot centers on the conflict between Sister […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Author Mark Haddon created a best-selling novel 20 years ago in Great Britain with “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” a book whose narrator is a 15-year-old savant boy with autism. The simple premise of the work is to transport the reader into the […]