By ROY BERKO Doubt: A Parable, which is now on stage at Beck Center for the Arts, won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and the Tony Award for Best Play. It ran for 525 performances in its Broadway run and was adapted into a much-heralded feature film. The plot centers on the conflict between Sister […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Author Mark Haddon created a best-selling novel 20 years ago in Great Britain with “The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,” a book whose narrator is a 15-year-old savant boy with autism. The simple premise of the work is to transport the reader into the […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Despite its having won a Tony Award for scenic design, The SpongeBob Musical appeared to be a lightweight entry on the season for Rivertown Theaters for the Performing Arts. It was, after all, based on a rather inane Nickelodeon Cable TV show that gravitated to mostly puerile interests. […]
By ROY BERKO The setting in which a musical production takes place, often affects the pleasure one gets from the experience. A perfect case in point is Ain’t Misbehavin’ presently being staged by Great Lakes Theater (GLT) in its intimate Hanna Theatre home. Ain’t Misbehavin’ is a musical tribute which celebrates Fats Waller and his music. […]
By ROY BERKO It’s always exciting and challenging to see a “new” play script come alive in a staged production, especially by a creditable performance company. What We Look Like, now being presented at Dobama, Cleveland’s self-proclaimed off-Broadway company, is a case in point. Written by B. J. Tindal (they/them) a Black queer playwright, the script […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) In 1851, in an article written for DeBow’s Review that was published in New Orleans, Dr. Samuel Cartwright, a physician, created a pseudoscientific term he called “drapetomania.” He crafted drapetomania, from two Greek words drapetes (“runaway slaves”) and mania (madness) to explain the reason why Southern slaves […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Brian Egland wears many hats in the theatrical world – stage and film actor, singer, songwriter, photographer and director among them. But when it comes to writing, he may have established himself in very rarefied air with his most recent play Where the Suga Still Sweet, part […]
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By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) The final production for the Jefferson Performing Arts Society’s 2022-23 season is Misery, the play written by the late scriptwriter William Goldman, who also famously wrote the scripts for the movie of the same title and is also favorably remembered for penning the cult classic “The Princess […]
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) One could argue that T. Lawrence Shannon, the defrocked Episcopal priest who is the central character of The Night of the Iguana by Tennessee Williams, should be slovenly and out of shape. The play suggests he was quite at home with those potent potables – the rum-cocos […]
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By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) For the second time in less than six months, The Play That Goes Wrong, the hit West End and Broadway award-winning comedy is on the boards in the Greater New Orleans area. Written by Henry Lewis, Jonathan Sayer and Henry Shields, the comedy is the only one […]