-
It hardly seems fair to comment on Hale Centre Theatre's hyper-cheerful Annie Get Your Gun. In a better world, a community theater production of the Irving Berlin perennial...
-
It's late to be further bemoaning the state of the American musical. Like it or not, staged musicalizations of popular motion pictures have become a genre of their own, and a...
-
The zombies in Evil Dead: The Musical never die, and neither, it seems, will the subgenre to which this campfest belongs. But if the postmodern musical must go on — and...
-
A naked septuagenarian stuffs a boiled egg into his left armpit. A woman wearing plastic butterfly wings reads a dour poem, then torches a five-dollar bill. Three drunk guys...
-
The debate raging through John Pielmeier's Agnes of God concerns the veracity of miracles and the possibility of virgin birth. In a series of monologues and flashbacks, it...
-
The timing, of course, couldn't be better. A show that spoofs the profundities of Arizona's many weaknesses — our weather sucks for about half the year, our sheriff is a...
-
Audience members who attend Stray Cat Theatre's current show can buy $5 ponchos before entering the playhouse. The ponchos are meant to protect the clothing of those sitting...
-
When I was 13 years old, I had very long hair and braces. I was skinny and effeminate and favored garish clothing. My brother David, who was forever trying to wean me off the...
-
I hesitate to describe the staging tricks that make Arizona Theatre Company's production of The Glass Menagerie so magnificent, for fear that detailing the ways in which...
-
It's a pity there aren't more play scripts like Taylor Doherty's Indivisible. If there were, one might have the opportunity to watch Steven J. Scally perform in a fine drama...
-
Theater queens are no doubt rejoicing that [title of show] is playing now at the Herberger. Others, though they may see and enjoy Jeff Bowen and Hunter Bell's charming homage...
-
A door slams. A man in a black unitard angrily stalks onto a bare stage, carrying a bar stool. He sets the stool down, then spends the next several minutes moving the stool...
-
I found that if I squinted, I could pretend I was watching a master acting class led by thespian Debra K. Stevens, and not a failed production of David Lindsay-Abaire's Fuddy...
-
Those of us who get our kicks collecting recordings of people who can't sing (my current fave: Telly Savalas' 1975 vinyl opus Who Loves Ya, Baby?) already knew about Florence...
-
Things were not going well.
I was at a holiday party, and people were doing that thing where they try to get me to talk about theater. Mostly, when this happens, it's because...
-
The irony in the failure of Stray Cat Theatre's current production of Speech & Debate is that it falls short largely because its lead actors are so adept at playing...
-
Oh, dear. And I was so looking forward to seeing Elaine May's new comedy, too.
Most of the rest of you — those of you unfortunate enough to have gone to see this dismal...
-
The Smell of the Kill is an awful name for a play, especially one as smartly written as Michele Lowe's tart black comedy, now on display at Algonquin Theater in Peoria. The...
-
Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's creationist comedy about the end of the world is, excuse the pun, built for disaster. Apocalyptic commentaries on theories of evolution tend not to go...
-
The Kite Runner has finally received the adaptation it deserves. Its Arizona Theater Company production, now flying high at the Herberger, trumps the inferior 2007 film...
