By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) It seems hard to believe it’s been more than a decade since Tracy Letts won his Pulitzer Prize for Drama, Tony Award for Best Play and a similar Drama Desk Award for August: Osage County. Almost as incredulous is that this heartfelt tale of family dysfunction took […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (‘Steppin’ Out’) Given the interest in country music driven by Ken Burns’ current PBS series, it might surprise some diehard country music fans to learn mega-talented singer and songwriter Dolly Parton had actually penned an entire Broadway score of her own music. Bowing on Broadway in 2009 at the […]
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By ALAN SMASON It’s been more than 400 years since the bulk of the Bard of Stratford-on Avon’s works were written in what is referred by today’s scholars as early modern English. Some 200 years before Shakespeare, Geoffrey Chaucer wrote in a prose described as Middle English, peppered with French idioms. The differences between what […]
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By AARON KRAUSE FT. LAUDERDALE — If you ask most people, they may tell you that they’ve always known their life can change– or end – in less time than it takes an assault riffle’s bullet to reach its target. Even so, before recent years, these folks were able to keep such knowledge out of […]
By ALAN SMASON For her first one-woman show in several years, Dorian Rush has opted to mount a most unusual presentation with producers Jonathan Mares Productions and the Jefferson Performing Arts Society. It’s all about the blues, but viewed strictly from the distaff side – 100 Years of Women in Blues. Supported by pianist and […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) There is little doubt when Thomas Lanier Williams put pen to paper and drafted what became The Glass Menagerie that he was pouring out the poetic words that traced his own tortuous upbringing. Under the guise of his nom de plume, Tennessee Williams, his “memory play” was […]
By ALAN SMASON, Theatre Critic, WYES-TV (“Steppin’ Out“) The Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts has typically pulled out all of the stops for their summer show every year. Last year they had Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast,” while in its most previous years the company produced “Disney’s ‘The Little Mermaid’” last year, a staged […]
By ALAN SMASON For 52 years, Summer Lyric Theatre at Tulane has presented quality productions that can equal or excel what one would expect to find in a Broadway or national touring show. The amazing thing is that they manage to put on three quality presentations every summer at whirlwind speed each with a full […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) In 2013, Joyce Pulitzer realized a dream she had begun some 15 years previous when she and her friend David Seelig first set pen to paper to begin writing Freedom, a piece intended to celebrate America’s diversity as a welcoming haven for immigrants of all stripes. Her […]
By AARON KRAUSE WILTON MANORS, FL. — The senator proclaims his vision for America in a sunny, hopeful voice. However, the audience’s reaction is shades darker. In fact, the groans sound like die-hard fans of a beloved home team reacting with pavlovian jeers as soon as they see the arch-nemesis’ uniforms. Of course, the senator […]