By ROY BERKO Kenneth Jones, the author of Alabama Story, now on stage at Ensemble Theatre in its Ohio premiere, stated in an interview, “In May 2000, while reading the New York Times, I came across the story of Emily Wheelock Reed, the former State Librarian of Alabama who had been challenged by a segregationist…
By EDWARD RUBIN Most famous people long in the tooth, if they are not dead, quietly retired, or resting on their well-earned laurels, tend to keep a very low profile. You rarely even hear about them. But not the indefatigable 85-year- old Renée Taylor, an Energizer bunny whose funny and bittersweet autobiographical one-woman-show, My Life On…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) Producers of Broadway shows oftentimes wait for the passing out of coveted Tony Awards before determining whether they will pull the plug on a production. Receiving one or more awards typically will guarantee that a weak show at the box office will get a second or third…
By EDWARD RUBIN I did not see Joshua Harmon’s Bad Jews, which, by general consensus, is said to be his best play to date. But the last three Harmon plays that I did see, Significant Other, Admissions, and the still-running Skintight – were each a familiar mixture of comedy and drama containing everything and the…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) There is a point in the resolution of Garson Kanin’s Born Yesterday when the character of Paul Verrall blurts out “I know you. I’ve seen your kind down here for years. What the hell do you guys want, anyway? You’ve got all the oil and all the lumber…
By EDWARD RUBIN Edgar Rice Burroughs’ fictional character Tarzan was a cultural sensation when it first appeared on the scene more than a century ago in 1912. Published first in serial form, the popular character leaped from magazines into “Tarzan of the Apes,” the first of many popular novels. A big hit with the public,…
By ANNE SIEGEL American Players Theatre, located in rural Spring Green, Wisconsin, has added Ionesco’s rarely-performed 1962 absurdist comedy, Exit the King, to its current line-up. Playing alongside a half-dozen other shows (that focus on Restoration humor and follies, Shakespeare’s timeless themes and a hilarious rendition of Garson Kanin’s Born Yesterday), Exit the King may…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) One of the most misquoted of Shakespeare’s lines is “Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” The actual line from Henry IV, Part Two is “uneasy lies the head that wears the crown,” but in the New Orleans Shakespeare Festival’s latest production of the Scottish play,…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The current production of My Fair Lady at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre at Lincoln Center garnered both plaudits and boos from those familiar with the original work because of several changes made to embolden the downtrodden character of Eliza Doolittle. The producers got special permission from the…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The national tour of Waitress, the Sara Bareilles musical that established her as a viable Broadway figure in 2016 (the year that Hamilton swept the Tony Awards), has finally made it to a local stage. Now running at the Saenger Theater through Sunday, the musical with a…
BEST PLAY MORE INFO Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts One and Two The eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. Author: Jack Thorne BEST MUSICAL MORE INFO The Band’s Visit MORE INFO BEST REVIVAL OF A PLAY MORE INFO Angels in…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Three years ago, Jim Parsons donned the heavenly robes of the Almighty and made comedy history at Studio 54 when he starred in the Broadway premiere of An Act of God, the irreverent David Javerbaum-penned vehicle. A year later in 2016, Sean Hayes, revived the show at…
