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With his new play, The Color of Stars, Dwayne Hartford offers fulfilling, adult entertainment that doesn't pander to kids. Much as I did with Hartford's gorgeous adaptation of...
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Caridad Svich's theatrical translation of Isabel Allende's bestselling The House of the Spirits arrives on the stage as a mere shadow of its former self. Which isn't to say...
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When one writes of her here, she is "Broadway's Kathy Fitzgerald." In New York, for which she left us more than a decade ago, she is one among a few: a character actress who's...
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Desert Stages Theatre artistic director Terry Helland clearly is mad. Onto the tiny black box stage of his Actor's Café, he continues to wedge dark, offbeat plays that...
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Theater fans are anticipating Nearly Naked Theatre's upcoming production of Spring Awakening, but I'll venture that nothing else the company does this year will surpass its...
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Not far from where I sit typing this, theater people are wringing their hands. That's what I picture, anyway: The folks at Actors Theatre, pacing and moaning and occasionally...
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Tolstoy was right: It's more fun watching people be miserable. And so we have David Mamet, the American playwright who has brought us the delightful anguish of Oleanna (in...
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In Bill Harris' Stories About the Old Days, an elderly man and woman stand in an old church and recount their lives. They bemoan the passing of time and the ways in which the...
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Stray Cat Theatre has kicked off its 10th season with a meandering mess of dramatic devices masquerading as a play. A murder mystery of sorts, The Sparrow has broken wings....
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We were, as we do most Saturday nights, dressing for theater.
"Why does this shirt look so nice on the hanger," I asked my spouse, "and so dumpy on me?"
"I don't know," he...
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Things were looking up, even before Nearly Naked Theatre's Oedipus for Kids! commenced on opening night. It's always nice to open a playbill and read that Johanna Carlisle is...
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My visit to Hale Center Theatre last week marked the fifth production of Little Shop of Horrors I've seen in a decade — no surprise there, as this show is a musical...
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The nice people at Arizona Broadway Theatre sent someone to lecture me about the way I review theater. Apparently, my last review of an ABT show included a fart joke and the...
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Mark O'Donnell and Thomas Meehan's Hairspray is, I've decided, made of Teflon. It would appear that nothing can hurt this oft-produced musical version of the 1988 John Waters...
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Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella has an interesting pedigree. Originally seen as a live television broadcast in 1957, this three-act musical was viewed by the largest...
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As we were leaving for a matinee this past Sunday, my spouse said to me, "This has got to be the low point in your career." It was hard to argue with him, but I was hopeful...
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Paul Bartel's musicalization of his 1982 black comedy, Eating Raoul, is a blast. This is an excellent example of a musical theater subgenre that has dogged the stage ever...
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My friend Ruth Beaumont often says, "If the play is boring, you can always just stare at the stage décor." Unfortunately for me, the set for Stray Cat Theatre's Abraham...
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You know the economy's in the toilet when the state's largest professional theater is presenting a rerun. The Mystery of Irma Vep, the rather beautiful and amply staged...
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In Venice, I've looked for evidence of movies I've seen that are set there. I'm always peeking into shop windows, looking for the timepiece Capucine brings to Rex Harrison in...
