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Breaking BREAD in Addison: Half a Loaf

Dallas native playwright Regina Taylor’s new play Bread,  in its world premiere as commissioned and produced by Water Tower Theatre at the Addison Theatre Centre, promises a tasty treat judging by the enticing scents wafting out from its dramatic oven as it opens. It’s a play you hope to sit back with, inhale deeply and … Continue reading →

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Heaven’s Hope: Isabella Ides’ White Monkey Chronicles

An air of mystical eternity permeates northern California’s Humboldt County. It’s not just the heady aroma of eucalyptus or the mist-shrouded sun floating silent over rolling hills at dawn. A pervasive spirit of ageless magic breathes soulful mantras beneath the surface of Humboldt’s every nook and cranny, vista and shady grove, day and night. Small … Continue reading →

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WHEN THE WIND BLOWS, ROCK THAT CRADLE

This opinionated essay constitutes my review of Brick Road Theatre’s educational, politically relevant, soaring production of LGBT composer Mark Blitzstein’s notorious 1937 play with music The Cradle Will Rock. If you value being an educated (and entertained) theatre patron, don’t miss it. It runs through March 18 at The Cox Playhouse in reconstruction-crazed downtown Plano. … Continue reading →

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STIFF in NYC: Straight Up, Texas-style

Dare to tread where death abounds? The Blighted Heart surely killed the critic as he wrote his front row review of this 9-act torchy blunder. The farce it’s part of, Stiff, is simply to die for. Laughing, that is. Find this frenzied, farcical delite at The Barrow Group Theatre (TBG Theatre) through March 3, 2018 … Continue reading →

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Dynamic Dame Creates World of Wonderful

When William Moulton Marston created the fictional Amazonian character Wonder Woman for DC Comics (first appeared in 1941), he probably had no clue of the paradigm shifting, multi-generational impact and popularity she would have. Nor could he have imagined the impact one creative, intelligent, impassioned producer/advocate, a veritable Wonder Woman in her own right, could … Continue reading →

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Guest Spot: Ward on LEAR

Thomas Ward·Saturday, November 11, 2017 Last night I saw Prism Movement Theater’s LEAR. It is a wordless adaptation of KING LEAR focusing on Lear, her Daughters, and the Fool. It was a fantastic piece and I’m so glad I was able to see it. This isn’t a review of the production, I’m just trying to … Continue reading →

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Humanity Flyover: GRACELAND at L.I.P. Service

““I’m a person who doesn’t like summer or sunshine,” said Ellen Fairey, playwright and self-proclaimed melancholic.” opens a February 2010 nytimes.com article about then emerging playwright Ellen Fairey. For a woman with a decidedly pessimistic view of life, good fortune has certainly flooded her creative path. Chicago’s established Profiles Theatre booked her play Graceland before … Continue reading →