By LOU HARRY I had the honor of representing the U.S. as a delegate to the International Association of Theatre Critics congress in Craiova, Romania in late May. The fringe benefit of that was the chance to attend productions at the wildly ambitious and wide-ranging Craiova International Shakespeare Festival. Of the four productions I witnessed,…
By MEGHAN LOVELACE The Book of Mormon is a familiar buddy comedy with satirical flair. The jumpy choreography and dopamine disco lighting had me sitting back in my seat thinking I was going to be watching Comedy Central in a cocktail dress. But much like our lead, Elder Price (Ethan Davenport), I was reality-checked by…
By AARON KRAUSE There’s a moment in the much-loved musical Les Misérables during which the theater feels more like a hushed house of worship than a conventional performance space. It comes when the protagonist, Jean Valjean, prayerfully asks God to keep student revolutionary Marius Pontmercy safe from the battle at the barricade. These days, as…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The national tour of Back to the Future: The Musical materialized onto the stage of the Saenger Theater this week and left wakes of laughter and positive vibes throughout the venue just in time for the holidays. With state-of-the-art video projections and an extremely well-designed set that…
By LOU HARRY Based on a documentary, The Queen of Versailles, the new Stephen Schwartz and Lindsey Ferrentino musical on Broadway at the St. James Theatre concerns an amoral, in-it-for-herself character with no regard for the impact on others who allows her own ambitions to blind her to the needs of her children. None of…
By LOU HARRY Musicals tend not to be humble. With rare exceptions, they announce themselves whether with well-known performers, high-profile source material, energetic dance, or visual spectacle. Occasionally, though, a low-key musical finds its way to the stage, one that seems to say “pardon me” instead of “HERE I AM!!!!” Such is the case with…
By LOU HARRY Thanks to its notorious David Merrick-produced/Patti LuPone-starring died-on-the-road 1976 tryout, the Steven Schwartz/Joseph Stein musical “The Baker’s Wife” landed a reputation as being a lost cause. But like many musical theater lovers, I fell hard for its score – or, at least, the songs for the leads that were the only ones…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) At the beginning of Bess Wohi’s play Liberation, the character of Lizzie breaks the fourth wall to greet the expectant audience. She makes some quick, almost anxious banter to calm everyone down. That’s because just before they had taken their seats, they had turned their cell phones…
‘By LOU HARRY Instead of praising our goulash, They’re appraising the plays of Willie Mays. In the original production of Dawn Yankees, that’s a lyric sung by Meg Boyd and other neglected wives lamenting the lack of attention paid to them by her husbands during baseball months. It’s just one of many lyrics and lines…
By ROY BERKO The Notebook: The Musical tells the heart warming, and often heartbreaking life-long love story, of Allie and Noah. It is based on a true tale inspired by author Nicholas Sparks’ wife’s-grandparents, who shared a love story which started as a summer-romance and endured separation, renewal and Alzheimer’s Disease. It is filled with loving…
By AARON KRAUSE A social media influencer learns from a DNA test that she is among the 40 percent of individuals who can smell asparagus in their urine. An otherworldly being tells two zoo-goers that ants, not humans, are among Earth’s dominant species. A woman aboard a spacecraft sometime in the future is murdered because…
By ANNE SIEGEL SPRING GREEN, Wis. – There’s no better time for out-of-state visitors to head towards Wisconsin than right now. Some people might stay at campgrounds, others may find a secret fishing spot, and some will be searching for the latest antique finds. Avid theatergoers, however, know that satisfaction awaits in the verdant landscape…
