By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“). Playwright, author and poet Tennessee Williams wrote his one-act play 27 Wagons Full of Cotton in 1946. He was still living in New Orleans in the 600 block of St. Peter Street, only two buildings down from the present site of Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré. […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) By the time Lorraine Hansberry died in 1965 at the tender age of 34 from pancreatic cancer, she had already made history. Her award-winning play, A Raisin in the Sun, about an African-American family attempting to move out of a redlined slum and into a well-to-do white neighborhood was […]
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI. – A small but energetic theater company, Off the Wall Theatre, has produced a memorable production of one of Tennessee Williams’ later works, Small Craft Warnings. This rarely-produced work received lukewarm response when it opened Off-Broadway in 1972. At that time, Williams was 60 and feeling very aware that he […]
By AARON KRAUSE CORAL GABLES, FL. — “They say America is free? What do you know here is free?” The above line is from Paula Vogel’s popular biogaphy play with music, Indecent, now running in a mostly strong, creative production at GableStage on the grounds of the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables. The work is about a […]
By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI LAKES — Parts of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts’ Superior Donuts are as sweet as a sinful confection in the shop bearing the play’s title. Indeed, these moments will make you grin from ear to ear like the ambitious Franco Wicks, one of the main characters. The scenes, which for the […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The Big Easy Boys, the inspiration of Rich Arnold, have returned to New Orleans and the Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts just in time for Christmas. This time they are laden with a sleigh full of holiday songs to be given out by them with their […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) No one can ever claim that Michael McKelvey is an underachiever. Following his triumph at the Jefferson Performing Arts Society’s massive production of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, the artistic director at Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane returns to JPAS with a fresh and lively holiday production […]
By ROY BERKO Jeanine Tesori (music) and David Lindsay-Abaire (books and lyrics) developed the creative Shrek: The Musical from DreamWorks Animation’s film and William Steig’s book of the same name. The script, which tells the tale of Shrek, who on his seventh birthday is sent out by his parents into the “Big Bright Beautiful World,” […]
By ALAN SMASON New Orleanians need little excuse to have a party. They can do so at the drop of a hat and frequently do. But as quick as they celebrate Mardi Gras and revel with October’s Halloween, there is little to connect them with a modern celebration of Christmas. That is until now. Leslie […]
By AARON KRAUSE BOCA RATON, FL. — A director mounting an evergreen such as Annie doesn’t have to dig deep to unearth modern relevance. After all, the beloved musical theater classic contains practically every ingredient necessary to keep an audience emotionally invested. And in The Wick Theatre’s current funny, sunny and touching production, director Norb Joerder and […]