By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Capturing the wit and destructive lifestyle of humorist Oscar Levant is a daunting task for any actor attempting to portray the tortured genius, but in Douglas Wright’s Good Night, Oscar, there is an additional skill set required: the actor must be able to perform flawlessly at the […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The biggest problem Broadway has with so-called “jukebox musicals” is they always seem to get mired down by the exposition of the story regarding the person or persons whose music is oftentimes represented. In the case of bookwriter Rick Elice, he drafted what is widely considered as […]
By ALAN SMASON There are a lot of people capable of taking a beloved film soundtrack and adapting it faithfully into a theatre piece for presentation on the stage. There are also a lot of people capable of directing such a work and bringing out the actors’ very best performances that are faithful to that […]
By ALAN SMASON Of all the holiday-themed shows that make their way onto stages in December, Elf: The Broadway Musical may be the one most resistant to the Grinch, Scrooge and other humbugs. Based on “Elf,” the 2003 holiday classic that starred Will Ferrell as Buddy the Elf with the late James Caan and Bob […]
By SCOTTY BENNETT Consider, if you will, a blizzardlike night, a cozy inn on the brink of closing forever, suddenly brought back to life by the arrival of two very different groups of travelers who crashed into one another. One was a group of men dressed as women, flamboyant in their actions and dress, and […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) Thirty-seven years after the scandal-ridden story of televangelists Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker and their popular PTL Club made headlines, an unlikely musical on Broadway tells the tale in song. An improbable venture to say the least, the music is being furnished by none other than Sir […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The dark days of the COVID shutdown brought the theatre community to its knees. Unable to perform in front of live audiences or to connect to one another due to health restrictions, some performers kept themselves occupied by baking, writing or, in James Monroe Iglehart’s case, watching […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Jamie Lloyd has made a reputation for himself as a visionary minimalist director, winning a remarkable collection of Olivier Awards on the West End. His inspirational production last year of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Sunset Blvd. garnered major buzz for its sleek and slimmed staging and his improbable casting […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) There are a few Off-Broadway shows that rise above the fray even though they are silly in concept or lack the kind of production values that won’t pass muster among Broadway producers. The current production of Little Shop of Horrors is the latest of these kinds of […]
By AARON KRAUSE Forget ghosts and goblins. Deborah Zoe Laufer’s frightening and moving drama, The Last Yiddish Speaker, centers on a real horrific scenario. Specifically, the playwright imagines that the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection attempt at the U.S. Capitol was successful. As a result, a white supremacist regime came into power. Under its rule, authorities enforce ethnic, ideological […]