By AARON KRAUSE MIAMI –A black mother expresses a chilling, yet valid concern in American Son, Christopher Demos-Brown’s unflinchingly honest and heartbreaking play about race, set in present-day Miami. The woman implies that what happened to Emmett Till in 1955 could happen to her teenage son today, 65 years later. The mother’s worry is not that far-fetched. […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) With its current production of Something Rotten!, Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré has set the bar so incredibly high that even they may never be able to duplicate what they have now achieved. With the blessing of artistic director Maxwell Williams, Michael McKelvey is at the […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) With a cast of 68 performers – 38 of them children – the current production of Lionel Bart’s Oliver! at Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts is not only their biggest, but certainly their most elaborate show. It’s an opportunity for youngsters to carry much of the […]
By AARON KRAUSE BOCA RATON — There isn’t necessarily an art to dealing with difficult life situations. Rather, different people have their own way of coping with, for instance, a void in their existence. Some individuals might pretend everything is just fine. Admitting that something valuable or someone dear to them is missing might prove too […]
By AARON KRAUSE BOCA RATON — Before Lin-Manuel Miranda there was Meredith Willson. Sure, Miranda’s bold use of non-traditional musical genres in Hamilton may have changed the way writers create musicals. But in the late 1950’s, theater audiences and professionals probably thought that the late, multi-talented Willson’s creative use of song in The Music Man was just as revolutionary. […]
By BILL HIRSCHMAN For even those who only knew Herbert Simpson in passing, likely what they remember was his voice – usually deep and sonorous, a bit scratchy, but brimming with passion. They remember his voice because Simpson, the critic and educator who died Sunday, November 24, never passed on a chance to hold forth […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) Smartly and deftly written by Karen Zacarías, Native Gardens is a dark comedy, but one that is at its very core, extremely funny. Given the particularly volatile political climate in contemporary America, Zacarías scores by highlighting specific areas where differences in cultures and age clash most. She […]
By ANNE SIEGEL It has been a long wait, but the people of southeast Wisconsin finally get to be in the room where it happens. Hamilton has arrived. And what a reception it’s getting. The mostly sold-out performances in this three-week run offer a top-ranked professional tour, which is also visiting two other Wisconsin cities […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) There’s a point late in David Mamet’s script for November, a comedy written more than a decade ago, when the “i-word” is mentioned. It’s spoken by the character of President Charles Smith as he muses that he always thought he would be remembered for something. The line […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) NEW ORLEANS – It has become almost fashionable for many in the theatre world to find disfavor with the final collaboration between Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, The Sound of Music, The almost antiseptic manner in which the vile anti-Semitic Nazis are addressed in the book […]