How rewarding to watch a young playwright develop his voice, talent blossoming more lucidly with each new work that he produces. Dallas needs to sit up and take notice of one such talent in the expressive, perceptive Jonathan Norton and realize we knew him when, before he moves into the national spotlight he will surely … Continue reading »
Nothing melancholy about Sarah Ruhl’s Melancholy Play. It’s mostly exuberant. Billed as a contemporary farce, this whimsical fairytale romance for adults with a hint of mystery rolls merrily along in dreamy absurd-ville. What a relief to realize it exhibits none of the pretentious gimmickry of Ruhl’s highly praised and uninteresting domestic device dramedy The Vibrator … Continue reading »
With all remaining performances of The Diary of Anne Frank completed sold-out, they have added a Sunday 1/29 show at 7:00 pm. All tickets are just $20 (no discounts/special offers/coupons permitted). Please call the box office today at 972-450-6232 or purchase online at www.watertowertheatre.org Attending a stage performance of The Diary of Anne … Continue reading »
That radical Baruch de Spinoza, on trial at Stage West…. And now, from the brave folks who brought the Dallas-Fort Worth region Frayn’s Copenhagen and Mamet’s November, comes another spell-binding brain-teaser of theatrical invention: David Ives’ New Jerusalem. Deepest bows to Stage West in Fort Worth for continuing a tradition of producing plays that challenge … Continue reading »
Added Performance due to sell-out crowds: January 29, 6pm!!!!! “One day I must write a farce from behind,” exclaimed British playwright Michael Frayn in 1970, while watching a light comedy he wrote for Lynn Redgrave unfold from backstage, where “it was funnier.” In 1982 his celebrated farce Noises Off emerged, its title referring to offstage … Continue reading »
Every January Kurt Kleinmann’s Pegasus Theatre “defies gravity” at the Eisemann Center by inaugurating the new year with an original play from its unique niche – the trademarked In Living Black & White production style. In 2012 Pegasus delights its established audiences and charms new ones with a revamped, refreshed version of a production drawn … Continue reading »
The subject: abortion. The play: multi-dimensional and respectful. One in 3. A challenge to undertake? You bet, given the red-hot emotional charge. Under the measured, focused direction of Raphael Parry, Project X Theatre offers a carefully orchestrated, thoughtful, clinically analytical perspective on an abortion clinic’s daily realities. It’s not sensationalized, judgmental or exploitative in the … Continue reading »
Nibroc rocks. It soars. It beguiles. It buries sweet memories in a real gentleman’s proffered hankie and restores faith in the values of character and integrity, in the promise of true love…. Continue reading »
This isn’t an easy play to stage, given its dated message and apparent reworking of the novel’s core characterizations by the adapter. The full house on opening night seemed to sincerely appreciate the performance. When Ken Kesey died in 2001, his son read this statement at the memorial service: “If there is one thing he would want us to do it would be to carry on his life’s work. Namely to treat others with kindness and if anyone does you dirt forgive that person right away. This goes beyond the art, the writing, the performances, even the bus. Right down to the bone.” Remember that sentiment when you see this production. Continue reading »
Finally! A US president recognizes the positive impact of the arts on our nation’s economy. “Innovation” and “creativity” were welcome words in President Obama’s speech in Denver. Unfortunately, not everyone gets the picture, from elected officials to puzzled citizens…. Continue reading »
There’s a brazen confidence herein, born of endless dribbling of ink on paper and much time spent clamoring to earn and keep the attention of maddeningly fickle audiences. These boys got it down to a science. Continue reading »
Caraballido’s play Orinoco! merits performance. Even with Teatro Dallas’ production’s shortcomings, it provides thought-provoking, spine-chilling theater. For more Dallas stage reviews, go to http://sjamaaka.wordpress.com or www.examiner.com. Continue reading »
Who will win the competition’s $1000 and airline tickets? I cast my vote, and I’m not telling. I promise it wasn’t as easy a choice to make as last November’s presidential election. The one-act performances end this Saturday the 28th. Dallas’ Bishop Arts District is the place to go and TeCo Production’s The Best of Political Theater is the scene to make. Time for real change…. Continue reading »
The results are in from the 7th Annual New Play Competition: The Best of Political Theater, sponsored by TeCo Theatrical Productions (www.tecotheater.org) at the Bishop Arts Theater Center in Oak Cliff. By popular acclaim, Paula J. Sanders, local author, teacher, performer and UT Arlington graduate won for her entry The Valiant Never Taste of Death But Once, in a tough field of six diverse, competitive one act plays. Continue reading »
Musical theatre a dying art form? No one in Richland College’s auditorium opening night would believe that. Urinetown is definitely NOT your granny’s musical, portrays issues and relationships through searing satire that could hurtle a rightwing xenophobe into an apoplectic snit of outrage. Continue reading »
Successful Showtime, Fox and ABC TV screenwriter Jason Schafer wrote the stage thriller i google myself as a topical ‘what if’ that descends into nightmarish levels of garishly intertwined relationships between three men, all of whom share names and connect through the google search engine. Featured on opening night of WaterTower Theatre’s 8th Annual out of the loop fringe festival and playing to an enthusiastic near capacity crowd, the short thriller helps kick off the diverse, creative festival in high fashion. Continue reading »
Kitchen Dog Theatre’s mission statement says the company chooses plays that invite audiences to be “provoked, challenged and amazed.” Complimented by a reverberating rock score as sound, sallow-hued, soul-draining lighting effects and a set that unfolds like a hot pillow house hide-a-bed, this production of Dennis Johnson’s Psychos Never Dream is resoundingly awesome in its ability to do all three. Continue reading »
Larry Randolph, Gene Ray Price, Cliff Stephens Some well-kept secrets need to take a front and center seat on a sunny bench…. For example, at The Bath House Cultural Center, One Thirty Production’s A Bench in the Sun fits that category. A charmingly wry piece of theatrical fluff, it makes for an appealing afternoon’s entertainment, … Continue reading »
The folks at Rover Dramawerks are gutsy, to say the least. First, in tight economic times they move their production to the Courtyard Theater in Plano, a medium sized proscenium theater, twice the size of their usual performance space nearby. Second, when they can’t get the rights to a tried and true stage adaptation of … Continue reading »
If playwright Lonergan were firing up the metaphorical grill to barbecue for his drinkin’, partyin’ buddies from the 1980’s, he’d marinade the bloody meat in a liberal dose of angst-ridden narcissistic nihilism with a liberal salt shaker’s worth of misogyny. Master playwright David Mamet he is not, bludgeoning the audience with fine-tuned balance of savagery and cunning in imagery and character. Yet this initial stage endeavor shows the promise that filled his coffers with later film ventures. It also affords a young company like Upstart Theater nuanced fodder to sink their artistic teeth into, particularly under the wise guidance of a seasoned director like Rene Moreno. Look for more high caliber performance from these “upstarts.”
Rate this dish? Medium rare to extremely well done. Continue reading »
Here’s yet another play about despondent, spoiled, well heeled malcontents. They puff cigarette smoke in each other’s faces, spout the f and c words liberally, occasionally take a swipe at each other and obsess about sex and broken relationships, sobbing out their sullied dreams in oceans of self-pity. Enter Stage Left’s mission statement says the company “seeks to…explore current and timeless human issues.” Hope for more artistically satisfying results in the company’s future productions. Ouch. Continue reading »
When Lorraine Hansberry selected the line from Langston Hughes’ poem as the title of her 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun she had no clue she had written one of the most important American plays of the 20th century. In fact, when the play previewed on Broadway to mixed reviews, she didn’t know if it would succeed at all, much less break so many barriers so completely…. Continue reading »
“I’d seen news stories and movies and books about dating violence, but I’d always been able to separate myself from it. Being in this show has made me realize that it is a real issue. It’s really happening and it’s a dangerous way to live.“ Continue reading »
Asked how she feels about Dont u luv me, Lauren Rosen exudes enthusiasm: “ It’s one thing to talk about these things, and a completely different thing to see it happening right in front of you. That’s why theater is such an important medium. It brings the issue to life and you get to see the consequences unfold right there. It can happen to you, your best friend or anyone. I think everyone should bring their kids, family, friends, everyone!” Continue reading »
Quick: what Broadway show did Time Magazine name as the “best musical of the 20th century” in its 1999 “Best of the Century” list and composer Richard Rogers describe as his all-time favorite in his autobiography Musical Stages?
Carousel. Surprised? If you had the good fortune to attend Denton Community Theatre’s recent production at The Campus Theatre in downtown Denton, you‘d understand why. The music takes your breath away. How it’s naturally interwoven into the dialogue with a nod to classical opera recitative weaves an auditory magic unrivalled by many other musical theatre shows. Continue reading »
Gut-wrenching pain and resentment, soul-deep and gunny-sacked for years, pervade True West by Sam Shepard and drive its characters to sub-human acts of desperation. Support these folks at Sundown Collaborative Theatre. Donate time and money- free pizza coupons, intermission refreshments and certificates to local thrift stores. (They’ll destroy a lot of furniture before the run’s end.) It’s okay. Their art’s in the right place. Continue reading »
It naturally followed that when Dallas-based Undermain Theatre selected Rabe’s adaptation of The Black Monk for inclusion in its 2008-2009 season, music would become a major part of the production. Resident Composer Bruce Dubose made sure that music is central to the ambience and sustained breathless quality of mystical doom that permeates Undermain’s production. Continue reading »
It’s all Greek to me. Why is it that people are afraid of attending classical theatre — Shakespeare and the Greeks? Their plays offer some of the best writing, plots and characterizations ever seen on stage. Clear, logical, illuminating. Illustrating this is MBS Productions‘ current offering Oedipus Rex, a famous Greek play about a man … Continue reading »
Based on a Totally True Story. High on style, shy on substance. There must be a discount on royalties for less than compelling plays about 20-something malcontents and their relationship challenges; why else would companies choose to produce them often? In its studio theatre space Water Tower Theatre presents a gay romance with attempts at … Continue reading »
SEAGULL. When all you really want is to give life the bird. The play’s over! It’s over! ALL OVER! Well done, Mom. You totally fucked up my play. SATISFIED?— Alex What are you so angry about? — Maria Sans overpowering costumes. Sans rubber ferns. Sans foamcore scenery. Sans cheesy recordings of gunshots or train whistles. … Continue reading »
Shakespeare. Still relevant? And how. When a Supreme Court justice weighs in about Master Will and makes the front page of the Wall Street Journal with his thoughts (April 18/19, 2009), The Avon Bard is definitely still relevant. Reflect upon the eerily modern themes of his Titus Andronicus, currently in performance at Dallas’ Kitchen Dog … Continue reading »
Isn’t there a law of physics that says for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction? I’m no science geek, but Matthew Posey’s Bunraku-based puppet comedy Coppertone II: The Pope of Chili Town uses this law to re-balance Dallas theatre’s humor quotient. Lately an unseemly number of self-indulgent, pompous, belabored “relationship dramas” about … Continue reading »
+++EXTENDED THROUGH SUNDAY MAY 17TH+++ There’s nothing funereal about Ivan Menchell’s The Cemetery Club, now on stage at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas–nothing slouchy about it, either. Director Susan Sargeant has a real talent for teasing out comic moments from deep within dramatic scenes and illuminating humorous elements within revelation of universal truth, with genuine flair. … Continue reading »
Sarah, Plain and Tall makes a powerful visual impression. It’s a family friendly musical based on Patricia MacLachlan 1986 Newberry Award-winning novella. Dallas Theater Center Artistic Director Kevin Moriarty chose to mount it as the company’s final production at the Kalita Humphreys venue, before the huge move to the new Dallas Performing Arts Center. The … Continue reading »
Well before Tom Lehrer, That Was the Week That Was, Laugh-in, the Smothers Brothers, Sonny and Cher and SNL mixed variety show entertainment with political and social commentary to the delight of satire-hungry contemporary audiences, composer/ lyricist Irving Berlin hunkered down with creative writer Moss Hart and came up with a fresh-seeming concept revue requiring … Continue reading »
Seize the day. Brighter than any star and living often in larger than life terms, barely into their twenties, the Greatest Generation possessed an intangible and incomparable grace. Courage, vision, honoring one’s word, a pro-active work ethic: they not only understood the importance of integrity and character, they seized every opportunity presented to live lives … Continue reading »
Attending a production of Shakespeare’s Othello is like watching a high profile match between two of the world’s greatest prizefighters. Its success depends on the relationship of its two main characters, no matter who else exists in the play or how it’s produced. Othello v. Iago: a classic battle between the soul of integrity and … Continue reading »
Attributing human thoughts and emotions to feline or canine animal companions can become a suspect and saccharine endeavor. But not always. The folks at Water Tower Theatre should be grinning like Cheshire cats with the regional premiere of Kenny Finkle’s engaging domestic short hair romance Indoor/Outdoor in their main performance space. It’s got them sitting … Continue reading »
1960 was a banner year for spectacular Broadway shows with stars at the top of their game. Camelot opened, with Richard Burton and Julie Andrews. Bye Bye Birdie brought a first rock n roll score to Broadway musicals. The Sound of Music, featuring Mary Martin, won the Best Musical Tony. The Fantasticks thrilled off Broadway … Continue reading »
Head down to Greater Tuna for a dose of impeccably timed comedy and the gentle revelation of universal human truth. The show runs through June 7 at the cosy FMPAT performance space at 830 Parker Square in Flower Mound, just west of Lewisville on FM 1171.
Tickets: www.fmpat.org 972-724-2147
Make it an entire evening. Dine ahead of time at one of the finer Parker Square restaurants: http://www.parkersquare.com Continue reading »
During the music-filled stage fantasy about a fan’s encounter with country/pop singer Patsy Cline, the fan reports Patsy told her: “I don’t want to get rich; I just want to live good.” Maybe Patsy Cline did make that remark, but there’s no question about her estate raking in substantial bucks based on audience attendance and … Continue reading »
Wow. A two act infomercial, relentlessly torchy, about the nightmare of alcohol abuse and the shining hope Alcoholics Anonymous offers. Stage-worthy entertainment? “You’d be surprised how much fun you can have sober” exclaims newly sober drunk Joe, clutching his little red book, to remorselessly plastered wife Kirsten near the end of Act II in Days … Continue reading »
“Let’s give this another try….” The Receptionist at Water Tower Theatre delivers a mind-bending paranoia punch, and I don’t mean the saccharine kind served from a crystal bowl. It’s a wallop you don’t see coming. This one act play gives the idea of “being present and accountable” startling new meaning. During the 2007-2008 New York … Continue reading »
It’s time to leap for joy, fans of classical theatre. This past week Fort Worth’s revitalized Trinity Shakespeare Festival sprang forth fully formed, like Athena from the head of Zeus. It’s a bold birth, ready to make dynamic artistic statements and enliven the words of Western culture’s leading playwright with a vision that connects the … Continue reading »
“Time is precious and there’s no accounting for it.” So sayeth the writer iconoclast Hunter S. Thompson who suicided at his Colorado retreat on February 20, 2005. Pretty mild comment for a guy who hung out with Hells Angels, was a liberal poster child for the NRA and regularly pissed off the media establishment with … Continue reading »
Like falling in love at first sight…within the first couple of minutes of the entrances of Mrs. Anna (Luann Aronson) and The King of Siam (Joe Nemmers) in Lyric Stage’s The King and I, the audience finds itself smitten. Good thing, too. This is an unforgettable production, resplendent with a wide array of vocal power, … Continue reading »
Bonanza, Blazing Saddles, Dallas, Deadwood…and Shakespeare Dallas, all in one ten-gallon mental picture? Yeehaw. Shakespeare Dallas turns on the heat this summer with fetching Western-style stagings of two of the Bard’s best: The Merry Wives of Windsor TX and The Taming of the Shrew. Theatre companies across the country spend considerable energy and time re-imagining … Continue reading »
A folk song is what’s wrong and how to fix it or it could be who’s hungry and where their mouth is or who’s out of work and where the job is or who’s broke and where the money is or who’s carrying a gun and where the peace is. – Woody Guthrie On the … Continue reading »
I am not much of a fan of Neil Simon’s plays, but I try to remain open-minded if I review one. Contemporary Theatre of Dallas’ current production of Simon’s Chapter Two should thrill true-blue Neil Simon devotees. Don’t let my ambivalence deter you. Simon wrote this two couple comedy with dark overtones in 1977 after … Continue reading »
The good folks who run the show at Dallas Children’s Theatre must have their very own Luck Dragon. Americans for the Arts, the national non-profit that advocates for the arts in Washington DC, just announced the 2009 recipients of National Endowment for the Arts grants from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. Close to $30 … Continue reading »
Absolute Johnny on the spot! Consider it a sin of omission to not attend MBS Productions‘ narrative drama John XII. A unique interweaving of historical fact and torchy romance, the former never lapses into dry and dull while the latter piques the prurient keyhole voyeur in all who attend the enactment mass. Bless me, father, … Continue reading »
July in Dallas means it’s time for the Festival of Independent Theatres at the Bath House Cultural Center by White Rock Lake. Cooperative groups of artists without permanent performance spaces unite to bring to life unique, forgotten, overlooked or original one-act productions. Some are plays, others hard to define. All tend to the “edgy”, whether … Continue reading »
Week Two at the Festival of Independent Theatres held annually at White Rock Lake’s Bath House Cultural Center—here are reviews of three of the four remaining shows. ECHO Theatre’s Overtones Often taking on controversial political and social issues of the day and producing them with the savagery of a moose cow in heat, ECHO Theatre … Continue reading »
There’s nothin’ you can do To turn me away Nothin’ anyone can say You’re with me now And as long as you stay Lovin’ you’s the right thing to do Lovin’ you’s the right thing… I’ve got a prediction and a lament. I’ve seen some fine productions this summer around the DFW region. I predict … Continue reading »
Remember back in your halcyon pre-teen days when you were sent to some mosquito-infested summer camp and had to write and perform a skit with your cabin mates at the session’s “last” campfire, to show off how much fun you’d had? You didn’t have time or incentive to perfect the humor or script, devise believable … Continue reading »
“In the arts, the critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising.” Pauline Kael Pity the poor theatre critic. More often reviled than revered. Seen by some as an unqualified evil scourge inflicting him or her-self on innocent artists of unquestionably high principles and spreading base lies to bolster an inflated, … Continue reading »
Why do some playwrights think it’s a good thing to people their works with selfish, unpleasant, generally repellent characters? Even Edward Albee and David Mamet, masters of creating malevolence and unadulterated nastiness in the folks that fill their texts, give their reprobate characters redeeming qualities and balance their vitriol with more sympathetic types. It’s not … Continue reading »
Kitchen Dog Theater hosts a benefit for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation on Friday, September 25, in honor of our nation’s fallen firefighters. Benefit performance tickets to Noah Haidle’s Vigils will be sold for $25. $10 of every ticket sold will be donated to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. The performance begins at 8 PM … Continue reading »
Does a company producing the classic political tragedy Julius Caesar leap heart and soul into emphasizing its current cable news event parallels at risk of losing touch with the classical text, or does it focus on classical interpretation, ignore modern relevance and risk boring and losing today’s audience? I prefer Shakespeare Dallas’ productions of the … Continue reading »
Can you spell PREDILECTION? That’s what the nearly full house audience demonstrated tonight at the opening of Theatre Three’s production of the Tony award winning, internationally produced, Broadway play turned musical OPUS The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. They loved what they witnessed and gave it a rousing standing ovation at FINIS. PREVARICATE: that’s … Continue reading »
Everybody suffers with Grey Gardens, now in production at Dallas’ WaterTower Theatre. Endlessly! The characters suffer; the actors suffer; the audience suffers. Most of all, the play suffers. This musical is a perfect example of a prevalent malady in today’s theatre—it exhibits promise, an intriguing plot, dynamic characters, and memorable music in Act I. Then … Continue reading »
She defies definition and breaks the rules. She’s a real live wire with an abundant, overactive imagination. Too big for her britches? Definitely. Junie B. Jones is a vibrant character with charm and energy to burn, and kids love watching her get herself into scrapes and back out again. Unscathed! Regional theatre audiences are fortunate … Continue reading »
T’is the season for the macabre. At theatres throughout the metroplex, a bizarre witch’s brew of overblown, melodramatic slasher tales with sloshing buckets of stage blood compete for audiences with camped up singing trans-gendered dancing maniacs sporting layers of black eye-liner and fishnet stockings. Gleeful ghouls and goblins will emerge by the hundreds to celebrate … Continue reading »
“We want you to write musical. How much?” Stephen Cole didn’t take it seriously when he received e-mail from Dubai. An award-winning New York musical theatre writer with international production credits, theatre awards, definitive books on theatre and major screen options in his life, he shrugged it off. The inquiries persisted. The Dubai interests hired … Continue reading »
The 2009 Bioneers Conference bumped Rachel Carson to the back of the bus, a puzzling faux pas. It relegated the award-winning film A Sense of Wonder, adapted from acclaimed actor Kaiulani Lee’s internationally celebrated one woman play about Rachel Carson (mother/catalyst of the modern environmental movement) to last day screening at its 20th annual eco-conference … Continue reading »
S. African playwright Athol Fugard must be one heck of an optimist. The son of an Afrikaner mother and a father of Irish Huguenot descent, he began writing plays in 1959, plays that took direct exception to the bigotry and repression of the apartheid regime ruling S. Africa at the time. After his first play … Continue reading »
Cedric Neal (Puck), Matthew Steven Tompkins (Oberon) Dallas Theater Center embarked October 30 on its new venture at the Wyly Theatre in Dallas’ Arts District with a visually stunning, hyper-kinetic take on William Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mostly an adaptation that uses the Shakespeare classic as a launch pad, it sometimes felt like … Continue reading »
Check out the audio interview with featured actor Elias Taylorson on This Week in the Arts. Tough to find a DVD of Oliver Stone’s 1988 screen adaptation of Eric Bogosian’s Pulitzer-nominated play Talk Radio. A cult favorite flick featuring Bogosian and a fresh-faced Alec Baldwin, it’s not filed by the hundreds on the local Blockbuster … Continue reading »
Like most theatre-loving folks in Dallas and as a regional theatre critic, I was very curious to see what the experience of attending a performance the new Wyly Theatre would be like. I got my chance this past Friday night, October 30, when Dallas Theater Center inaugurated its use of the Wyly Theatre with the … Continue reading »
A Lie of the Mind. I want to call it “LIES of the Mind”. All the characters in this play inoculate themselves from life’s painful realities with lies. Layers of ‘em. That’s only one aspect of Sam Shepard’s dramatic masterpiece about spousal abuse, family dysfunction and the path of self-destruction his despondent, degenerate characters crawl … Continue reading »
Rock music mantra “free your head,” echoed across the late 60’s-early 70’s, when our nation’s repressive government pitted a frightening arsenal of mind control techniques against the drug and free spirit ideology-induced revolutionary paradigm shift of a rebellious generation. SDS, the Weathermen, Socialist Workers Party members, Earth First-ers and the artists and musicians who crystallized … Continue reading »
Sci-fi thrillers make perfect viewing for autumn nights. Undermain Theatre sweeps into Fall 2009 with the world premiere of Port Twilight: or A History of Science (A Chronicle of Folly, Wisdom and Madness). It’s a sci-fi fantasy/ thriller by Len Jenkin, one of the nation’s most distinguished playwrights, directed by Lakewood resident and Undermain Theatre’s … Continue reading »
Slasher is way too bold and bright to pity as a whore. Kitchen Dog Theater’s production of Alison Moore’s national stage hit is more of a bright-eyed, new ‘recruit on the street’ type of play, a saucy tart oozing charm and redemptive qualities in flashing neon-lit burn. Moore’s high dudgeon farce weaves two close-hooked themes … Continue reading »
Watch a small child get lulled to sleep by a fantastical tale that concludes in total peace and quiet. As the final moment of Undermain Theatre’s production of Port Twilight: A History of Science wound down to a silent, “zen-ergized” finale on opening night November 14, I could feel most of the audience join me … Continue reading »
What a technical delight. Jeffrey Schmidt directed as well as designed set and sound for Theatre Three’s current production of Lanford Wilson’s 1980 Pulitzer Prize-winning play Talley’s Folly. His creative juices and resourcefulness shine in assembling the derelict boathouse set for the play. It’s simple and effective–all elements recyclable, re-used lumber, found objects, masses and … Continue reading »
Good things come to those who wait, or so the saying goes. Walking out of a performance of Scottish dramatist and poet Liz Lochhead’s play Good Things at Stage West, I realized I was still waiting. I have tremendous respect for the wide-ranging body of creative work created by Stage West artists. Earlier this year … Continue reading »
So much holiday fare leaves a flat taste in the mouth like last year’s store-bought sugar cookies. It’s got all the razzle-dazzle of tinsel, shiny ornaments and consumerist frenzy but misses the true heart and soul of the holiday by a country mile. Hitch your team of mules to your buckboard and trot on over … Continue reading »
A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol? What sort of high carb Minnesota goulash casserole is Stage West serving up for its holiday entrée? A cheery one, with a Waring-style blender mix of farcical high-jinks, zany, hug-able characters, and a romantic story loosely crafted (as in goose) on Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, set in a … Continue reading »
The show begins in complete darkness, silence. When the curtain rises, a simple wooden cradle rests upstage on a small raised platform strewn with straw. The women enter, slowly, decisively, tall and short, clad in colorful, flowing robes reflecting their African–American heritage; and their music inhabits the space. “Go Tell It on the Mountain.” Earth-born … Continue reading »
Romance and realism can make entertaining bedfellows. What could be more entrancing than to watch two realistically depicted people fall deeply and believably in love on stage? Getting to watch them do so as they sing Rodgers and Hammerstein’s melodic, romantic songs with impeccable vocal styling, talent and a gorgeous production enveloping them evokes euphoric … Continue reading »
Magic on stage in the Dallas-Ft. Worth region. A wealth of creative theatrical endeavor: satisfying, dignified and quirky, heart-warming and spine-chilling, thought-provoking and side-splitting, high art to lowly farce. Performance ritual reveals truths of the human condition through magical transformation. Or we hope that happens. Here’s what wove that special magic for me this year, … Continue reading »
Sir David Hare, internationally honored actor, playwright, stage and film director, is considered one of the finest British playwrights living today. Earning a BAFTA Award (1979), the New York Drama Critics Circle Award (1983), the Berlin Film Festival Golden Bear (1985), the Olivier Award (1990), and the London Theatre Critics’ Award (1990), he has seen … Continue reading »
“I call upon Persephone and the Furies: bring back my brother. My life is a river, it floods with grief….” Seattle Shakespeare’s Electra, in Sophocles’ play of that name, tells it like it is and screams and wails her raging sorrow. No holds barred, she bears her ravaged soul, her desperate anguish, her longing to … Continue reading »
Sci-fi fantasy makes perfect viewing for chill winter nights. Undermain Theatre Company swept into November 2009 with the world premiere of Port Twilight, or A History of Science (A Chronicle of Folly, Wisdom and Madness). Thanks to wide critical acclaim and high audience demand, the company now extends the production through January 30. Penned by … Continue reading »
Gimme dat LUV! Dallas’ sweetest, funniest on stage romance springs back to life, this time at Teatro Dallas’ space off I-35. Audacity Theatre Lab’s Hello, Human Female regales its audience with farce, drag performance, true love, weird science and a hilarious twisted plot as the trials and tribulations of 37 year old virgin Tamela (Arianna … Continue reading »
“Whatever was disappearing had already disappeared, and no one saw it go. This country. This experiment. This hubris. And no one saw it go.” A hurricane force gale cycle of illusion, delusion and half-forgotten truth sweeps over the Westins of Oklahoma, a large dysfunctional family depicted in Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County. It envelops the … Continue reading »
Why laughter, why on the 23rd floor? Neil Simon’s comedy, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, which opened on Broadway in 1993 starring Nathan Lane, is a love letter in play form about Simon’s days as a comedy writer on the 1950’s Your Show of Shows. Simon portrays himself as the youthful narrator Lucas Brickman, the … Continue reading »
Dallas audiences, are you ready for some bloody, jolly good fun? The national tour of twice Tony and Drama Desk winner The Thirty Nine Steps, adapted from Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 film thriller, blesses the Dallas Summer Musicals‘ Majestic Theatre with a fast, furious performance you won’t want to miss. A loose adaptation of the Hitchcock … Continue reading »
OMG, they’ve done it again. The Dallas Theater Center has just mounted another peppy world premiere musical full of attractive, dancing, singing, and casually attired youths under the guise of classical adaptation. This time it’s an even looser nod to Aristophanes’ Lysistrata than their last Fall’s production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It’s set … Continue reading »
Evolving into its twenty-sixth year of presenting leading edge, intelligent, entertaining theater for loyal Dallas audiences, Deep Ellum’s Undermain Theatre presents the internationally acclaimed performance artist/ playwright Taylor Mac in a two week run February 3 through 13 of his one man show, The Be(a)st of Taylor Mac. The New Yorker describes Mac as “the … Continue reading »
“The revolution will not be masculinized….” Taylor Mac unleashes the beast within, or is it his best? You decide; I’m not going to tell you. In fact, I can’t tell you what he’s like, as he defies comparison. Pouting petulantly, glitter-encrusted eyes flashing, he stamps a dainty foot encased in faux- leopard skin platform heels … Continue reading »
A play for boys, and it’s not about sports? Imagine that! Nationally recognized Dallas Children’s Theatre takes on a wide range of topics and challenges every year in its programming. Right now it’s running a swash-buckling, high energy, funny-bone tickling musical adaptation of Melinda Long’s best selling book How I Became A Pirate, in a … Continue reading »
Take a short trip back to the future. The 8th Annual All Star Playwright Festival and Annual New Play Competition sponsored by TeCo Theatrical Productions at the Bishop Arts Theater Center in Oak Cliff launched seven new one-acts this past weekend, penned by promising playwrights from across the metroplex. This year’s competition displays an 80’s … Continue reading »
Ache is the sorrow of the soul… That finds in its path a fragrance Of burnt acorns and emptiness forlorn. The view from the land of the crow Is that of bitter peace. For desolation is the home Of my traveling soul. Love is a battlefield and a counterfeit and an inspiration and a conundrum. … Continue reading »
Four chairs make a first class string quartet, five gifted musicians scheming and vying to fill them…who gets no chair, and the broken heart, when the music stops? Learn the truth watching Circle Theatre’s southwestern premiere production of Michael Hollinger’s elegant, heart-stopping Opus, running at the Sundance Square venue in downtown Ft. Worth through March … Continue reading »
“Life is short, and it’s up to you to make it sweet.” Sadie Delany When lights come up on Having Our Say at DeSoto Corner Theatre, resident venue for African American Repertory Theater, a curious audience finds two kindly looking elderly African American women inviting it into their comfortably appointed home to share a cup … Continue reading »
“Peter Sinn Nactrieb’s play flips from pants-around-the-ankles comedy to hipster Twilight Zone takeoff… boom is imaginative and easy to like.” –The New Yorker Boom. Boom, boom, boom goes Kitchen Dog Theater. Inspired by ominous percussive cascades played by an on stage actor assaulting a drum machine with gusto, the focal characters in Peter Sinn Nactrieb’s … Continue reading »
Is Peter Shaffer’s 1973 psychodrama Equus really just one more overblown horse-opera? Contemplate Dallas’ Uptown Players’ visually stunning production of the convoluted, highly symbolic work, and decide for yourself. Running through March 21 and directed by Bruce R. Coleman, the play kicks off the company’s ninth season and inaugurates its use of the Frank Lloyd … Continue reading »
Can’t mistake Pulitzer-winning playwright Wendy Wasserstein’s voice for anyone else’s. There’s a rich liquidity and a mature intelligence to her dialogue, no matter the play. She distilled, honored and validated women’s voices in a way few playwrights had prior to her time. Her death in 2006 at age 55 due to lymphoma complications struck a … Continue reading »
The Dallas Theater Center attacks Neil LaBute’s 2001 drama The Shape of Things with fiendishly razor-sharp vigor at the Wyly Theatre’s Studio Theatre black box space. An outrageous, amoral love story with gross betrayal, the role of art in society, loss of innocence, and boundaries between intimacy and manipulation at issue, the play revolves around … Continue reading »
Feel like getting sucker punched by a velvet-gloved fist? Watch Upstart Productions’ subUrbia, Eric Bogosian’s 1994 dystopia drama about a group of slackers malingering outside a Pakistani owned convenience store, and you’ll get so caught up by the curiously engaging drama you might just miss its hard cold facts. Don’t worry—they’ll grab you when the … Continue reading »
Suburbia by Eric Bogosian Presented by Upstart Productions Inaugural review for Emerging Rants & Raves by UNT Senior and Broken Gears Theatre producing partner R. Andrew Aguilar Alienation, apathy, ambition, despair, disillusionment, racism, competition, envy, social myopia, decay, and the American Dream are all themes which are present within Eric Bogosian’s whirlwind of a play … Continue reading »
Call me a pompous old fuddy-duddy, if you will. I am not particularly impressed by the national touring production of Steven Sater and Duncan Sheik’s Spring Awakening, playing currently at the Winspear Opera House as part of AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Lexus Broadway Series. More teen angst? Sexual awakening erupts again in the theatre with … Continue reading »
Fat pig. What a nasty way to describe someone. Leave it to Tony-nominated Neil LaBute to work it into his body of mean-spirited, largely misogynist work. Dallas Theater Center’s Kevin Moriarty spikes up the spite in his fast-paced realization of Fat Pig, the second entry of Dallas Theater Center’s LaBute trilogy, known as The Beauty … Continue reading »
Conference sponsored by The Honorable Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, TX-30 The Women’s Museum 3800 Parry Avenue, Dallas, TX Saturday, April 24th, 2010, 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM 2010 Conference Panelists The Honorable Bisera Turković – Former Bosnian Ambassador, United States Sherry Mueller – President of the National Council for International Visitors Elizabeth Kucinich – Human … Continue reading »
Are they dead? Not once Act II kicks into gear. Water Tower Theatre tickles Spring’s fancy with an unusual farce offering, playwright David Ives’ adaptation of the Mark Twain next to forgotten play Is He Dead. Chock-full of some of the region’s brightest, most versatile comic talents, some of them delivering hilarious performances, it’s worth … Continue reading »
Coretta Scott King, American peace, social justice, women’s rights, anti-apartheid and LGBT activist, author and civil rights leader, recipient of the International Gandhi Peace prize, passed away on January 30, 2006. On Feb. 7, 2006 a reverential, multi-ethnic, multi-generational crowd of over 115,000 people filed past the open coffin of Coretta Scott King, during a … Continue reading »
“Don’t bring in anything to the theater that doesn’t make the play clearer.” Anton Chekhov What I like most about Kitchen Dog Theater is the intense way the company normally enlivens a script, its bold exploration of plays through physicality, emotion and relationship connections. These artists can transform an average play into a rich, exciting … Continue reading »
What dreams! Those forests! (Pause.) Enough, it’s time it ended, in the shelter, too. (Pause.) And yet I hesitate, I hesitate to… to end. Yes, there it is, it’s time it ended and yet I hesitate to— (He yawns.) —to end. Hamm, Endgame I expect an entertaining evening of performance at deep Ellum’s Undermain Theatre, … Continue reading »
Get your permed platinum blonde bump and grind mojo on. Ft. Worth’s Circle Theatre and its trashy troupe of trailer park troubadours and trollops will learn ya how to scratch that darn itch real fine. I’m talking about the one that aches hard to have a grand ol’ time enjoying the rowdy, howdy-y’all hijinks and … Continue reading »
“I thought Leenane was a nice place when first I turned up here, but no. Turns out it’s the murder capital of f***ing Europe.” So comments the mournful, young, alcoholic parish priest Father Welsh as he introduces himself in acclaimed playwright Martin McDonagh’s hard-hearted comedy The Lonesome West, running through May 9 at Ft. Worth’s … Continue reading »
“Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Want to bet? Hard truths. Interpersonal dysfunction. Devastating betrayal. Neil LaBute explores relationship abuse overlaid with a heavy dose of misogyny from a variety of perspectives in three of his plays presented as a trilogy by the Dallas Theater Center. The first … Continue reading »
“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions”, or so they say…. I applaud the energy, commitment and audacity with which young theatre companies in our local scene, on limited budgets and with limited directorial wisdom and experience, launch themselves into productions of plays that require a high degree of theatrical artistry. Sometimes the … Continue reading »
If you haven’t yet attended a stage performance by One Thirty Productions at White Rock Lake’s Bath House Cultural Center in Dallas, take advantage of a wonderful opportunity to do so. Named One Thirty Productions because it always performs matinees at 1:30 pm Wednesdays through Saturdays, this quiet company of well-schooled professionals is earning quite … Continue reading »
For every child star that has gone on to a successful performance career as an adult, be it in theatre, music or film, there are fifty who have tried to make the transition and failed — some more miserably than others. Such a performer is Melissa Gilbert, currently headlining Dallas Summer Musicals’ Little House On … Continue reading »
With Mozart’s Don Giovanni as the opening salvo in its 2010 Festival, Ft Worth Opera’s creative guns were loaded and they came out blazing. Saturday night’s opening performance at Bass Hall was as vital and pumped full of youthful vigor and masterful artistry as any a Mozart lover could hope to see. Forgive the company … Continue reading »
Everyone come together, let us work hard; the grave is not yet finished; let his heart be perfectly at peace. Thwarted ambition. Dancing chickens, ancient African funeral chants, slave-era spirituals, voodoo ritual and Old South mountain ballads. Perception of authenticity. Cultural exploitation. Racism. Sexism. Intellectual property. Friendship forged out of mutual need. In a performance … Continue reading »
Care about illegal immigrants in Phoenix? Go down the long way in blood and bigotry. Go the rough, violent way down. Or choose tolerance and love and rise up in grace. Some get sacrificed because they can’t adapt. Others endure the hell that life offers, bare their souls and survive because they can change. Headlining … Continue reading »
What’s a nice girl like Molly O’Leary doing performing in a Terrence McNally play about a gay Jesus? She’s reaching out with a message of love and tolerance and entertaining her audience with lively, varied characterizations, that’s what…. Corpus Christi, the controversial “gay Jesus play” comes to Dallas courtesy of Los Angeles based 108 Productions … Continue reading »
Heads or tails? Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, John Savage, Kenneth McMillan, William H. Macy, JT Walsh, William Petersen, Tracy Letts, Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Franz: names of some of the toughest, most charismatic, versatile and well-versed actors on the modern stage or screen who have performed in David Mamet’s gritty, profanity-laced, iconic working class drama American … Continue reading »
Hey, y’all: it’s the Trinity Shakespeare Festival! Audiences and critics alike have eagerly anticipated the arrival of the 2010 Trinity Shakespeare Festival in Ft. Worth at TCU (Texas Christian University), given the resounding success of the inaugural festival in 2009. Its initial productions of Romeo and Juliet and Twelfth Night received positive accolades from the … Continue reading »
If music be the food of love, cry me a river until another hundred people get off of the train…. It’s Summertime so musicals start bustin’out all over like raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, which makes the livin’ less easy for busy reviewers. Another opening can be trouble with a T, but many … Continue reading »
Neil Simon’s Brighton Beach Memoirs pulls back a magical nostalgic curtain. It reveals a slice of life moment, in a 1937 Brooklyn flat, told from the perspective of a mature man reliving that moment through the experiences of the young boy he once was. It’s not a documentary; it’s not a drama. It’s not pure … Continue reading »
Remember how great Christopher Reeve made you feel when you watched him play Superman with his crooked, toothy grin in the corny 1970’s movie of the same name? He was so strong and wise and confident and beneficent, everything an all-American guy aspired to be and all any all-American girl wanted to date. He radiated … Continue reading »
Roleplay unfolds like Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy on steroids. A titillating trifle with a surprisingly stiff kick like a single malt scotch served neat, it represents what British playwright Alan Ayckbourn does so well across his span of seventy plays. It sets up a massive comic relational disaster that delights its audience in its final … Continue reading »
As fascinating as it is in concept, there’s something slightly, tangibly, askew in Circle Theatre’s current production of Bruce Graham’s Something Intangible. Maybe it’s the text or in elements of execution? Circle’s second major production of the year dealing with the creative milieu, its process and the relationships it affects (Michael Hollinger’s Opus ran through … Continue reading »
Putting the right director in charge can make a less than stellar show sparkle like the 4th of July. Opening night of Grapevine’s Runway Theatre production of Once Upon A Mattress lit up like a first-class fireworks display, thanks to the creative vision of clever director Andy Baldwin and his versatile cast of comics with … Continue reading »
The Festival of Independent Theatres 2010 : http://www.dallasculture.org/bathHouseCultureCenter/fitFestival.asp Artist/production interviews on This Week in the Arts: http://thisweekinthearts.com/ Glide your silver Prius, red Ford or Pontiac of any color, on down to the Bath House Cultural Center, where the Festival of Independent Theatres is now taking place, July 16-August 7. Overlooking White Rock Lake, the Bath … Continue reading »
Seldom seen, new or avant-garde works…. “The Festival of Independent Theatres continues its commitment to exploring new theatrical work and encouraging diverse voices within the independent theatre scene. FIT was created as an outlet for smaller companies without a permanent performance space to give them an opportunity to produce seldom seen, new or avant-garde works. … Continue reading »
“The Festival of Independent Theatres continues its commitment to exploring new theatrical work and encouraging diverse voices within the independent theatre scene. FIT was created as an outlet for smaller companies without a permanent performance space to give them an opportunity to produce seldom seen, new or avant-garde works. FIT exists to promote awareness and … Continue reading »
Oh, look! It’s an unmarked warehouse garage theatre on a back alley in Grapevine, replete with chirping crickets under foot and dive-bombing moths. Don’t tune out, please! Before you point the Lexus to the underground parking of some looming,sterile glass and concrete edifice next to major freeways, consider this: you might be in for a … Continue reading »
When Bach at Leipzig premiered at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater in 2004, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel commented, “Imagine the Marx Brothers and Tom Stoppard collaborating on a play.” Who wants to be a star Baroque organ-meister? Clawing, coercing and conniving their way to the revered top organist position at the prestigious Thomaskirche (St. Thomas Church) … Continue reading »
What culinary dish does Ed Graczyk’s comedy The Blue Moon Dancing, currently baking in the premiere oven at Contemporary Theatre of Dallas, evoke? Lead character Connie, a dipsomaniac, pill-popping actress tired of playing big catfish in the crawfish pond while romanticizing Dallas, bewails the fact that the local McCarthy, TX, newspaper sent the food critic … Continue reading »
(il)logical, “a play on love” ran at the Green Space Arts Collective in Denton TX through August 29, 2010. Marjorie Hayes’ guest review of Sundown Collaborative Theatre‘s production follows. The ambition of Sundown Collaborative Theatre’s latest offering displays the primal urge to create that rests in us all. Where does that come from? Love. To … Continue reading »
Think the arts have positive financial impact, but don’t know how to prove it? In July and August, the 13th Annual Festival of Independent Theatres at Dallas’ Bath House Cultural Center, featuring eight different, viable companies and a myriad of regional performing artists, directors, playwrights and support staff, drew in close to 2000 attendees, record … Continue reading »
Theatre Three kicks off its subscription season with Tony nominated Paul Giovanni’s The Crucifer of Blood, billed as a steampunk Sherlock Holmes production, awash with dark, brooding visuals and cranked along with creaking, hand-turned set changes that thrust out from unexpected nooks and crannies at a-kilter angles. ALL very elemental and imaginatively pleasing, Dr. Watson. … Continue reading »
Spirited conversation and congenial laughter, give and take, sober observations and impassioned advocacy over a tasty potluck lunch at Martha Heimberg’s stately Lakewood home made two hours simply fly by. Here’s the consensus of what worked well in regional theatre since September 2009, what we critics saw of it. DALLAS-FORT WORTH THEATER CRITICS FORUM AWARD … Continue reading »
What is it with live stage comedy in Ft. Worth? There must be something in the water. When Ft. Worth based theatre companies produce dramas, they do fine work. When they take on comedy, they launch into supersonic dimension. Running through September 26, Stage West presents a fearlessly funny production of Alfred Hitchcock’s The 39 … Continue reading »
“Cigarettes And Chocolate Milk” by Rufus Wainwright “cigarettes and chocolate milk these are just a couple of my cravings everything it seems i like’s a little bit stronger a little bit thicker a little bit harmful for me if i should buy jellybeans have to eat them all in just one sitting everything it seems … Continue reading »
Ooh my little pretty one, pretty one. When you gonna give me some time, Sil-via? Ooh you make my motor run, my motor run. Gun it comin’ off the line Sil-via Never gonna stop, give it up… My my my i yi woo. M M M My Sil-via…! Director Raphael Parry and Shakespeare Dallas just … Continue reading »
“I dare say if it wasn’t for Joan’s death, I would not be writing.” William Burroughs Don’t get caught unaware. Step into Matt Posey’s private lair The Ochre House on Exposition and realize you’re in for a mind-bending experience. No Dallas stage venue offers more with such pure imagination. Posey shares the tiny, unassuming space, … Continue reading »
“We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars . . . everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling … Continue reading »
August: Osage County. “It can be argued that this is the most significant theatrical work to come out of Oklahoma since a little musical you might have heard of, “mused Oklahoma City Repertory Theatre’s artistic director Don Jordan in an October 6 interview with ‘Oklahoma Gazette’ writer Eric Webb. Playwright Tracy Letts may have written, … Continue reading »
33 Variations at Theatre Three is a clumsy and puzzling production. Inspired by Ludwig Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations (all thirty three of them), Moisés Kaufman’s dual-themed mystery romance/drama débuted on Broadway in 2009 (starring Jane Fonda) and won substantial accolades: in 2007 the Edgerton New American Play Award and in 2008 the Steinberg American Theatre Critics … Continue reading »
Any critic worth his or her salt should thrill with delighted anticipation to get to view works written by any of America’s most recognized playwrights, no matter the scale or caliber or success of the productions. These works form an integral part of the artistic web of American culture. Eugene O’Neill, Arthur Miller, Thornton Wilder, … Continue reading »
The Night of the Hunter lyricist Stephen Cole shares about the production with Alexandra Bonifield on This Week in the Arts. The Irving-based Lyric Stage production opens 10/29 with full orchestration….. http://thisweekinthearts.flowercast.net/2010/10/28/stephen-cole-lyricist/ Go to www.lyricstage.org for information and tickets
Attention classical theatre-lovers and intrepid, versatile actors: The Trinity Shakespeare Festival under the direction of Texas Christian University professor Thomas Walsh announces its 2011 Season—- Macbeth & As You Like It The Festival will produce for its third season Shakespeare’s most compelling tragedy, Macbeth and the delightful comedy As You Like It. The plays … Continue reading »
With PINTER: Art, Politics, Truth, Upstart Production’s three one-act evening by celebrated British playwright Harold Pinter, the company sprouts wings and soars into uncharted artistic ether. Three challenging one acts, spanning twenty years of the playwright’s creative life — three young directors, none with extensive directing credentials, each attempting to establish their third of the … Continue reading »
“If there’s one thing I learned from Martha Stewart, you do not poison the guest.” Bright Ideas, Eric Coble’s dark comedy now playing at Ft. Worth’s Circle Theatre through November 20th, explores success-obsessed parenting, embracing a broad palette of characters in hyperbolic situations with occasional satirical nod to Macbeth. That pesky poison pesto just won’t … Continue reading »
Charm enchants. It beguiles with a gentle, literate universality. Playwright Kathleen Cahill weaves a gripping tale of transformation and self-expression through the life experience of 19th century transcendentalist writer Margaret Fuller. Based more in the magic realm of Isabelle Allende than in the mannered containment of Jane Austen, Charm vividly portrays the societal, personal challenges … Continue reading »
Ten Top Productions: Literary merit. Imaginative staging. Sophisticated direction. Cohesive ensemble performance. Comprehensive technical vision and execution. Delightful, viable realities. Our Town (Water Tower Theatre) August: Osage County (Oklahoma City Repertory Company) Much Ado About Nothing (Trinity Shakespeare Festival) The Dog Problem (Undermain Theatre) Umlauf’s Bicycle (The Ochre House) The 39 Steps (Stage West) Charm … Continue reading »
“It’s incidents like this that does put tourists off of Ireland.” So whines lazy slacker Donny in Martin McDonagh’s celebrated award-winning black Irish comedy The Lieutenant of Inishmore, featured main stage at WaterTower Theatre through February 6, 2011. Hard to disagree with him after the play’s action strews voluminous gobs of blood, gore and severed … Continue reading »
The Sound of Music. You Can’t Take It With You. Fuddy Meers. Steel Magnolias. None of these plays have anything to do with Will Eno’s Thom Pain (based on nothing), other than the fact that they get presented inside performance halls (usually) and have actors in them pretending to be other people who create imaginary … Continue reading »
In his 2009 New York Times review, Charles Isherwood wrote that with her play This, Melissa James Gibson “graduates into the theatrical big leagues with this beautifully conceived, confidently executed and wholly accessible work.” Please consider this. Take some of the DFW region’s most talented, experienced, versatile actors and cast them as a tight 2011 … Continue reading »
Theatre Arlington’s clever folks realize that January’s slump is the perfect reason to mount a rollicking romantic production to usher in the New Year. In Don’t Dress For Dinner, directed by regional actor and DFW Theatre Critics Forum honored director Andy Baldwin, they found the ideal vehicle to launch 2011 in fine style. A cheery … Continue reading »
Come with me to the theater? Play productions are beginning to sprout like colorful weeds all over the region. Here’s what’s opening soon or playing now: THE EXECUTIONER’S SONS by Catherine Bush Directed by Terri Ferguson Runs February 5-19, 2011 Echo Theatre Bath House Cultural Center Dallas TX www.echotheatre.org www.bathhousecultural.org The Executioner’s Sons, Photo by … Continue reading »
As strains of Willie Nelson’s plaintive tune Stay All Night (Stay a Little Longer) strum in the dark, lights come up on an almost bare three quarter thrust stage. Tad off center left, a tall, raw-boned woman with a full mane of tawny hair rears back in a grey utilitarian rolling office chair behind a … Continue reading »
“A theatre that is missing the work of women is missing half the story, half the canon, half the life of our time. That is the situation we have now.” Dallas’ opinionated ‘butch bluestocking’ critic is up on her soapbox again. What’s it about now? Plays. By. Women. Holy Goddess. Hey, Dallas and Ft. Worth … Continue reading »
The Dallas based Baker Idea Institute in conjunction with Dallas Children’s Theater presents a groundbreaking, comprehensive Teen Scene Festival February 4-20 at its Rosewood Center on Skillman Road in Dallas. Cornerstones of the Festival are two dynamic professional dramatic productions that explore high profile issues of teen dating violence (don’t u luv me? by Linda … Continue reading »
An opinion from Terry Martin, Producing Artistic Director of WaterTower Theatre: Today many area arts organizations continue struggling with the decision of whether to cancel or go on with performances during this unusual snowy weather, cancellations that will result in the loss of much needed income; a situation that surely cannot be helped. However, we … Continue reading »
“We have brought down the regime”, chanted the Cairo Tahrir crowd , while many were seen crying, cheering and embracing one another. Mohamed El Baradei, an Egyptian opposition leader, hailed the moment as being the “greatest day of my life… The country has been liberated after decades of repression.” (AP Press) As Egypt sheds a … Continue reading »
Snuggle up tight, lover, and pay your debt. When Alan Rickman directed the 1888 play Creditors in London and New York in 2008, he described it as “three characters dragged through a hedge backwards in 90 minutes,” Make that a humongous holly hedge with sharp barbs. Creditors is a rank, double-dip dose of double cross … Continue reading »
“Who is really running the asylum?” asks Director Tom Parr in his program notes to Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure, the play inaugurating Nouveau 47 Theatre into the N. Texas thespian scene. The question might be applied to the logic behind selecting this complicated “problem” play and its resulting uneven production. A new company in an … Continue reading »
Moliere and Mamet had to start somewhere, right? For nine years TeCo Theatrical Productions has honored the endeavors of regional and aspiring playwrights by hosting a New Play Competition at its welcoming gem of a venue, the Bishop Arts Theater Center on Tyler Street in Oak Cliff. For the past three years, I have functioned … Continue reading »
From TeCo Theatrical Productions: Jonathan Norton (GRAND PRIZE WINNER) walked away $1,000 richer this afternoon for his one-act play The Last Supper at the culminating performance of TeCo Theatrical Productions’ 9th Annual New Play Competition. He is currently a graduate student in the Liberal Studies program at SMU and the recent recipient of the Diaspora … Continue reading »
I am woman, hear me roar…. There is something so satisfying about watching four gorgeous, deserving women get exactly what they want from two conniving, exploitative men who think the world is their oyster. Seeing it performed as stage farce, by a fine acting ensemble with an daring female director at the helm, makes it … Continue reading »
Where is 2010′s Mike Daisey when we really, really need him? On stage fare at the 2011 Out of the Loop Fringe Festival at WaterTower Theatre in Addison leans towards the peculiar, superficial and unfinished as opposed to the substantial, relevant and artistically thought provoking. C’est dommage. Maybe if we reviewers trying to critique the … Continue reading »
One Thirty Productions has a real knack for finding and producing lesser-known theatrical gems. It’s that wee, spunky theatre company tucked into an odd corner of the Bath House Cultural Center and managed by a tight-knit, congenial group of professional artists with at least 200 years’ worth of genuine theatrical knowledge and experience between them. … Continue reading »
So often stage productions that incorporate elements of video do so in a manner that fails both media. The film aspect feels tacked on as additional exposition (distracting and boring) or as gratuitous, self-congratulatory tech expertise (“See, we can use a camera!”). It interferes with the play’s plot and character development to the point that … Continue reading »
North Texas’ iconic Horton Foote Festival established itself on solid ground this past two weekends with entirely different productions opening at Stage West in Fort Worth and at the Dallas Theater Center’s Wyly Theatre. Running the full gamut from intimate to epic, these productions demonstrate eloquently why Foote’s work is worthy of a celebration festival … Continue reading »
Some stage productions get directed, others just blocked. In the case of Diana Son’s 1998 comic drama Stop Kiss, now playing at Art Six in Denton, a project of Sundown Collaborative Theatre, it’s the latter. Produced Off-Broadway in 1998 at New York City’s The Public Theater to critical acclaim, the play weaves themes of coming … Continue reading »
Mount a region-wide performance festival honoring the diversity and depth of a native Texan, national playwright’s oeuvre? What a fantastic undertaking in cooperation and arts advocacy. I applaud the endeavor undertaken in north Texas with the Horton Foote Festival and hope the theater companies involved will work together again on similar projects. Amazing strength found … Continue reading »
As published in April 2011 issue of Arts & Culture Magazine: Meet Tre Garrett, Jubilee Theatre’s new artistic director. He’s a short, stocky man with a direct gaze and firm handshake. His gregarious laugh echoes like it wells up from a deep spring. He may be only 30 years old, but he’s packed a lifetime … Continue reading »
The Greek playwright Sophocles wrote his most famous tragedy, Oedipus Rex, first performed in Athens in 429 BC, as part of a Thebes-set trilogy rampant with death and destruction. Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone have never received the attention nor varied, frequent production that the singularly impacting Oedipus Rex has. As perfect a tragedy as … Continue reading »
Win free tickets to Dallas Theater Center‘s production of Kander & Ebb’s Cabaret, opening night Friday 4.29.2011 at the Wyly Theater in Dallas. Three pairs to give away! First three people to answer the following Cabaret questions correctly, with responses posted on my facebook status announcement, win. Which star of television’s Hogan’s Heroes was featured … Continue reading »
One should not own anything that binds one to earth. Go out on the stony highways and wander with bleeding feet, for that way leads upwards….”—Eleanora Heyst in August Strindberg’s Easter Undermain Theatre’s production of Easter floats up from the chill depths of the North Sea, a timeless, many-chambered nautilus, luminescent with otherworldly imagination and … Continue reading »
Director/ choreographer Joel Ferrell just unleashed a hair-raising Cabaret that provokes intense primal response, entertains with original creative interpretation and inspires somber reflection about man’s capacity for evil. Roiling with multi-sexual erotica and drug-laced hedonism, Dallas Theater Center’s production smokes with choreographed throbbing, pulsating groins (male, female, tranny) while revealing fascism’s gain of insidious domination … Continue reading »
Red Light Winter has extended due to popular demand. Folks must like to see hot sex and rape enacted up close. Not gettin’ any at home? Extra performances are scheduled for May 10, 11 and 12 at 7:30 pm and Friday May 13 at 8 pm. Celebrate Friday the 13th here with someone you love … Continue reading »
2011 A Space Odyssey meets It’s A Wonderful Life in walkabout dream-time. Doors open unexpectedly, physically, metaphorically, virtually and otherwise…. Pretty, average, twenty-something Joyce has a bad case of the blah-blahs and whines about it in no uncertain terms: her job, her life, her friends, and her boyfriend Karl, especially. Average, intellectual, not too hunky … Continue reading »
What career path might a well-crafted college paper inspire? During screenwriter Patricia Resnick’s last year as a USC film student, well before she co-wrote the film 9 to 5, she penned an academic paper about film director Robert Altman. He read it and gave her an internship when she graduated. One day while Resnick was … Continue reading »
As its 2011 festival season commences, Fort Worth Opera cashes in on the “exotic allure” and ever-ready adaptability of Gilbert and Sullivan’s most famous operetta, The Mikado, with mixed results. Traditionalists may quibble over liberties taken (and frown at one non-script based scene of questionable taste) while modernists may chafe at its static quaintness straining … Continue reading »
TRINITY Festival 2011 COMPANY VIDEO: http://youtu.be/MvDxhYa5-Rw When the ghost of William Shakespeare softly rose from the cold ashes of Ft. Worth’s Shakespeare in the Park in 2009 and blessed his new performance incarnation like the proverbial phoenix, Trinity Shakespeare Festival at TCU, who knew what to expect? With Harry Parker as Managing Director and TJ … Continue reading »
In rounding out an article about the 2011 Trinity Shakespeare Festival for the regional Arts & Culture DFW Magazine, I sent e-mails to a range of festival company members asking them to share their perceptions and feelings about the festival. So impressed by the impassioned responses I received, I post them below in their entirety … Continue reading »
Eric Steele is a man with plans and vision. Actor, playwright, arts venue entrepreneur – he’s a savvy partner with film industry consultant Barak Epstein’s Aviation Cinemas. Them’s the folks that took over the lease of the Oak Cliff Foundations’ historic Texas Theatre on Jefferson Boulevard in 2010 and are making giant strides in turning … Continue reading »
Whether your politics are to the right of Donald Rumsfeld or far left of Cindy Sheehan, you may appreciate Aaron Kozak’s The Birthday Boys equally. In two acts spanning less than twenty-four hours, it portrays a horrible experience that strengthens the bond between three Marine grunts taken captive by Mahdi Militia in Iraq, one that … Continue reading »
Airport terminals provide great settings for iconic teary send-offs, nostalgic peaks of unrequited love torn asunder; revisit the movie classic “Casablanca” to reach for the Kleenex box. In a quirky one-night spin that brushes up against elements of romantic nostalgia and the realities of time’s passage, Steven Dietz’s Shooting Star offers WaterTower Theatre the opportunity … Continue reading »
Ever come out of a play as it’s “blossoming” its way across the country garnering admiration and accolades and suspect you have just seen a serious Tony and Pulitzer contender on its pathway to artistic glory? Circle your wagons at The MAC. If you don’t make it over to the McKinney Avenue Contemporary Sunday night … Continue reading »
Get your chill on with Chicago at Bass Hall: a steam-punkish (?) moody 1920’s Chicago meets smooth jazz supper club presentation. Based on the 1996 City Center Encores! Series concert-style revival of the 1975 Kander and Ebb Musical Chicago: A Musical Vaudeville, the Broadway Specials national tour of Chicago thrusts its razzle-dazzle of gyrating hips … Continue reading »
UPDATE: Extended run –through July 17, 2011 After all, most women – frivolous, vain, superficial creatures that they are – exist simply as purely decorative amusement for men’s fickle carnal desire, waste lots of money on uncomfortable shoes and lingerie and worry non-stop about selecting the proper shades of lipstick and fingernail polish, right? Alan … Continue reading »
Ready to get FIT? Every summer for the past twelve years an array of intrepid theatre artists from all across north Texas converge on White Rock Lake, but it’s not to bike its perimeter or run a marathon. They meet to create, invent, percolate, explore, perform and produce some of the region’s most unusual, seldom … Continue reading »
Guest review by Robert Neblett I love The Wiz. It is one of my all-time favorite musicals. I think that its finale number “Home” is one of the top five best Broadway numbers ever written. When I heard that this show would conclude Dallas Theater Center’s 2010-2011 season, I felt more excited than I have … Continue reading »
Theatre critic and advocate Alexandra Bonifield fell and broke an ankle in mid-July. She is scheduled for reconstructive surgery on 7/25 and will be out of commission while recuperating for some time. A few kind, articulate friends from the professional and academic arts community will submit guest reviews for her while she is indisposed. If … Continue reading »
Hose that critic! Ever wanted to get even with one of those smart aleck, opinionated, unsympathetic, party-pooper theater critics who stick irritating burrs under the sweaty saddle blanket of your treasured, perfectly crafted and exquisitely executed production? Today, 7/23, two regional theatre artists got the chance to work out some symbolic frustration on regional theatre … Continue reading »
Guest Review by Robert Neblett For a B-movie science fiction musical comedy about a bloodthirsty man-eating plant from outer space that threatens to take over the Earth, WaterTower Theatre’s current production of Little Shop of Horrors offers relatively little bite. Little Shop of Horrors is based upon a low-budget 1960 cult film by Roger Corman … Continue reading »
Guest Review by Robert Neblett Stroll into Jubilee Theatre‘s playing space for its current production of the Caribbean-flavored musical Once on This Island, and the cast greets you with warm smiles, firm handshakes and tender hugs before you reach your seat. A wonderful, welcoming feeling of community pervades the performance of the final show of … Continue reading »
On Wednesday morning 8/10/2011 volunteers from Bonifield’s Badly Broken Ankle Brigade will pack up sidelined theatre critic Alexandra, her donated accoutrements, bits of clothing and grocery items at the M street transitional location and head back to the east side of White Rock Lake to get her set up at her own home near the … Continue reading »
It’s no secret that Dallas’ Wingspan Theatre has a smaller production season than many companies: one full-scale stage production, participation in the Festival of Independent Theatres at the Bath House Cultural Center, one staged reading of a new work. Entering its fourteenth season, the company has earned a sterling reputation and a loyal audience for … Continue reading »
How does one go from Zurich, Switzerland to a celebrated thirty-one year international career as an actor, singer and recording artist to portraying Mama Rose in Lyric Stage’s upcoming production of Gypsy? Tuneful dynamo Sue Mathys shared revelations about her life path with criticalrant.com’s Alexandra Bonifield, with passion and clarity. Asked if she likes to … Continue reading »
“You’ve come a long way, baby.”This congratulatory advertising slogan from 1968 endeavored to sell gender-tailored cigarettes to young professional women, capitalizing on their expanding roles in the non-menial workforce and enhanced personal and sexual freedoms due to the Pill, revealing attire and popularity of women’s lib. Aside from wondering how truly far today’s women have … Continue reading »
Everything does seem to be “coming up roses” for Irving’s Lyric Stage these days, where mounting one fully orchestrated classic musical theatre production after another gives regional and national artists and audiences alike the chance to experience the shows in fully restored auditory splendor. The current offering, Gypsy, (music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Stephen … Continue reading »
“I shall be resolute in preserving my incognito.” It’s 1858. Marian Evans’ mind is driving her crazy. Women aren’t supposed to think much, or develop analytical faculties, or move to London to pursue careers as editors and rent housing from men of questionable reputation and moral standards. But that’s just what she’s done. It’s driving … Continue reading »
Chamblee Ferguson is Dallas Theater Center’s Marathon Man. Is there any style of stage performance he can’t master with skill, dedication, depth and passionate lyricism? As brimming over with detailed, ornate stage settings and effects as DTC’s current production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest may be, Ferguson negates the need for any of it and would … Continue reading »
Success balances easily on the well-muscled shoulders and nimble feet of New York City based professional dancer/actor/choreographer Dean Andre DeLuna as he warms up to perform in the Dallas Summer Musicals‘ State Fair of Texas performances of West Side Story. It’s one stop on the beloved, classic musical’s national tour. DeLuna feels particular excitement about … Continue reading »
“A sprawling, somewhat old-fashioned family entertainment that floods the stage with actors and scenery”: that’s how New York Times critic Stephen Holden described a 1991 production of a version of Christopher Sergel’s To Kill A Mockingbird, adapted from the Pulitzer prize-winning 1960 Harper Lee novel of the same name. He might have been describing the … Continue reading »
Theatre Arlington grabbed the spotlight for a double note of sweet success with Forever Plaid. Fifteen years ago four talented artists crooned well- harmonized tunes over 500 times to enthusiastic acclaim at Fort Worth’s Casa on the Square in Stuart Ross’ 1990 Off Broadway hit musical fantasy revue featuring a “guy group” modeled after the … Continue reading »
Unleash Your Inner Ghoul or Goblin & Benefit the Arts UNT’s Department of Dance and Theatre Costume & Accessories Sale RTFP Building Friday, October 21, 2011 – 2:00pm – 7:00pm Saturday, October 22, 2011 – 10:00am – 2:00pm Costumes and accessories for sale from all different time periods! Come find the perfect Halloween costume! Items … Continue reading »
The bevy of dancers dazzle – shimmy, boogie, leap and slide – beyond expectation and imagination, from balletic jetés to rumble rhumba. Disciplined, talented, energetic, attractive, perfectly matched, the ensemble makes Dallas’ official 2011 State Fair musical, the national touring revival of the Broadway hit West Side Story presented by Dallas Summer Musicals, pure joy … Continue reading »
Hullo, Hamlet: you dashing, dizzy, doomed Dane. Wherefore did your intrepid Shakespeare Dallas director Rene Moreno deign to dilute your dimensional drama by employing a stuffy, flat version of your life’s demise? Whitewashed by conventionally prudish Victorian actor/ adaptor Edwin Booth, this version eliminates the politics and most of the conflict and passion in the … Continue reading »
Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, A Trivial Comedy for Serious People premiered in London in 1895 and marked the pinnacle of the Irish writer, bon vivant and irreverent wit’s often scandalous career, also precipitating his shameful downfall. Considered by some the funniest comedy of the age, by many the funniest of any age, … Continue reading »
Any play that draws inspiration from Virgil’s Aeneid perks my ears up. One of GB Shaw’s early commercial “hits”, Arms and the Man, first produced in 1891, plucks its title from the opening lines of The Aeneid (Arma virumque cano: literally, I sing of arms and the man, meaning “I sing of the deeds of … Continue reading »
Seen something narsty in the woodshed? Missing that ol’ esprit de corpse? Sprinkle a thimbleful of witchy dust on your favorite broomstick and jet over to Theatre Arlington to enjoy an internationally celebrated seasonal delight, Corpse! Gerald Moon’s 1983 darkly comic thriller takes place in December 1936 on the day of Edward VIII’s abdication, when … Continue reading »
Nothing ragged about Lyric Stage’s current production of the 1986 Tony nominated Rags, created by the top-flight musical theatre trio Joseph Stein (Fiddler on the Roof, book), Charles Strouse (Annie, music) and Stephen Schwartz (Wicked, lyrics). A visually elegant performance placed within an austere but evocative setting with strong acting and superb singing in compliment … Continue reading »
I can out-Scrooge just about anyone with bah humbug cynicism as THAT end-of-year season, replete with commercial hype, gluttony and conspicuous consumption, draws near. But today I stepped through a portal ringed with holly sprigs, mistletoe and pine bough I haven’t walked through in a long, long time. I’ve been resting on the sofa, listening … Continue reading »
University of North Texas presents a beautiful dreamer through November 13…. In a wise, daring move UNT’s Department of Dance and Theatre offered its drama students the opportunity to mount the non-linear, surreal, sophisticated Lorca In A Green Dress by celebrated Pulitzer-winning playwright Nilo Cruz as a major Fall production. Why wise? Why daring? Wise, … Continue reading »
What I like best about most of Matt Posey’s original plays and how he produces and directs them is the uncanny way he gets inside the minds, psyches and souls of the characters he creates. He doesn’t rely on linear structure or follow a pre-set “paint by numbers” narrative, even when bringing non-fiction characters to … Continue reading »
I attended John Michael’s performance of sections of his original one-man show “Would You Like Guys With That? And 0-69” at Nouveau 47′s Theatre Appresh at The Magnolia Lounge on 11/14 and found it focused, fresh and engaging. Dallas native and Jesuit High School graduate John Michael Colgin defines himself as a Queer performance artist … Continue reading »
A teen-ager’s frantic plea for help due to a queasy stomach upsets the cozy familial status quo applecart. Quiara Alegria Hudes’ popular 2009 domestic dramedy 26 Miles evolves into a rapid-fire twenty-six-scene journey of exploration from a blue collar Philadelphia suburb to Yellowstone’s pristine peaks. Feeling sometimes like drawing source material from the films “Kramer … Continue reading »
A blank canvas. Isn’t that where life begins? But an obscenely–priced, unframed “blank” canvas with a few ghostly hints of lines traced on a wash of white? Is that disturbing enough to cause a close friendship of fifteen years between three upper class big city gents to deconstruct, as in total meltdown? Yasmina Reza’s masterful, … Continue reading »
There was always a muddle of cheesy/glitzy in the television Holiday Music Extravaganzas from the 60’s and 70’s: kind of like Hamburger Helper – maybe not all that classy but very satisfying and filling. That’s how WaterTower Theatre’s Christmas season stage offering, the ebullient Rockin’ Christmas Party, by Austin’s Dave Steakley, feels. It will take … Continue reading »
The God of Carnage: live in Austin! Farce on a Molière scale with projectile vomiting and passive aggression of Wagnerian proportion. It’s a vulgar, non-PC comedy with overly civilized ACLU card-carrying bluebloods, “nice people”. Tony-winning French playwright Yasmina Reza (Art, 1998) spells it out simple enough for Tea Party hoi polloi to comprehend. For all … Continue reading »
Watch out, Grandma! The Cold War is getting waged this weekend in Plano, TX. Santa’s nuclear disarmament reindeer are on a rampage. Don’t fret — Jeff Swearingen, clueless, spelling-challenged Dan Quayle, nostalgic Ronald Reagan serenading Margaret Thatcher and a bumbling trio of rapping Ruskies who make prank calls to the White House in a cast … Continue reading »
My seeking has been to explain and illuminate the Negro condition in America and obliquely that of all human kind.” Langston Hughes (1902-1967) Christmastime at TeCo Theatrical Productions means a rich, unique performance experience, based in a yearly, expressive tradition. Adjacent to the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff, TeCo entertains, educates and serves over … Continue reading »
I submitted this short article to examiner.com, nominating TeCo Theatre’s Artistic Director Teresa Wash for their national “America Inspired” contest in honor of her dedication to theatre for disadvantaged youth. If the article receives enough “hits”, Teresa and Teco Theatrical Productions could win up to $40,000 to expand and support programming. Please visit the link … Continue reading »
Reflecting on North Texas’ stage performance in 2011, I take pride in recognizing the region’s senior directors. They bring immense creative vision and studied, practiced, pragmatic understanding of their craft to the arts community. They inspire performers, critics, advocates and patrons, alike, to “keep after it”, even as we have less than a 9% share … Continue reading »
New blog post: Circle Theatre: Secrets of a Soccer Mom – Kathleen Clark has had several plays produced by the presti… http://ow.ly/1h0dUF
Kathleen Clark has had several plays produced by the prestigious Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center, starting back in 1986. Her 2003 play Secrets of a Soccer Mom is not one of them, for good reason. It’s a cliché and stereotype driven hodge-podge of superficiality, presenting three women’s attendance and participation in their children’s soccer game as … Continue reading »
The Shoppers Guide! Worth printing before you hit Tom Thumb, Raley’s or Albertson’s! Greenpeace puts out list of Non-GMO food companies
“Deep within my heart lies a melody….” The lyrics from Texas Swing icon Bob Will’s famous 1940 song “San Antonio Rose” sum up the essence of the tribute musical “A Ride With Bob”, now playing at Richardson’s Eisemann Center through New Year’s Eve. As much as the two-act show portrays key events in the West … Continue reading »
