By LOU HARRY After a few days at the Stratford Festival, I stopped in at the Shaw Festival for the first time in a dozen years. Visiting the festival and the charming town made me regret those years I missed (although I certainly won’t be returning to the bed and breakfast where I stayed. Ask […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) When Company by Stephen Sondheim (and a book by Mark Furth) opened on Broadway in 1970 it was such a breath of fresh air and so unlike anything else he or anyone else had done previously that it took a notably short period of time for it […]
By LOU HARRY You don’t need to go to an amusement park to have the feeling of riding a roller coaster. In Stratford, Ontario, you can acquire something akin to whiplash at a festival where you can see a brutal, biker-based Macbeth, an austere, and a spirit-lifting Annie in the same weekend with a garden […]
![Leighton Samuels - Mari Blake[5]](https://www.theatrecriticism.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/Leighton-Samuels-Mari-Blake5-1024x575-300x225.jpeg)
By SCOTTY BENNETT A famous line from the John Ford film “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance” is spoken by the newspaper reporter character, Maxwell Scott, near the end of the film, after hearing the true story about the death of Liberty Valance. When asked if he will print the facts, Scott replies: “When the […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) In Pirates! The Penzance Musical, Rupert Holmes proves he knows how to take a popular hit, re-set it in an improbable location and adapt and reshape it for modern audiences. Based on the time-honored operetta The Pirates of Penzance or A Slave To Duty by William S. […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) There are times when a local production company attempts to put on a treasured musical theatre piece and it collapses under the weight of the requirements of the work. It’s easy to make excuses and state the budget just couldn’t accommodate a full-blown rendering that might be […]
By: SCOTTY BENNETT A Letter to Lyndon B. Johnson or God: Whoever Reads This First is a gem of a play written, directed, and performed by Xhloe Rice and Natasha Roland. This two-hander makes a connection between a couple of Boy Scouts in the early 1960s and grunts in Vietnam at the end of the […]
By SCOTTY BENNETT One of the most famous opening lines of a novel is “Call me Ishmael.” It is from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, a book many people are aware of but have never read. It is not the actual opening line, as two sections of prologue set the stage for what is to follow. […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Chicago –the longest running show now on Broadway and the second longest running show in history – made its way to the Saenger Theater in New Orleans a week ago to thunderous ovations and to the enjoyment of many who had never seen this fabled musical previously. […]
˘By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) Fats Waller, the very talented American singer and songwriter, lived an unfortunately short but prolific life, dying in 1943 at the age of 39. Born when ragtime was still the rage, Thomas Waller was a noted jazz innovator and his music still has a way of making […]