Featured

Succulent Smorgasbord of Song: GHOST QUARTET

I believe works of performance art should stand alone, sans explanation. I should not need to research them before attending a performance to understand them. I don’t usually read the show program before viewing a show. I want to experience it just as it unfolds. This can lead to delightful experience as much as total … Continue reading →

Featured

Sizzle and Soul: TCTP’s Righteous SUMMER AND SMOKE

People tend to associate Tennessee Williams plays with pedantic required reading for high school English classes or as suitably relegated to university production where students “learn to act” through staging fusty, outdated Classics. How unfortunate. A worthy stage experience can transport an audience into an invented world of wonder and illumination, providing unanticipated insight into … Continue reading →

Meet Maigan McPherson

There’s a dynamic, new stage director in town: Maigan J. McPherson! She would love to meet you at her Stagedoor Performing Arts’ inaugural, all woman-created production of George Brant’s award-winning Grounded, running this weekend, April 19-21, at the Margo Jones Theater Magnolia Lounge in Fair Park. https://stagedoor.booktix.com.   Starring sensational regional professional Robin Clayton, you’re … Continue reading →

Featured

Take The Leap: ON THE VERGE with WingSpan Theatre Co.

Jules Verne meets L. Frank Baum meets Steve Martin? Eric Overmyer’s 1980’s comedy On the Verge or The Geography of Yearning charms its audience into traversing across time and place with a prolific immersion of fanciful linguistic invention. Part proto-feminist manifesto, part visionary crossword puzzle from an Escher-like perspective with a droll hint of Burnsian … Continue reading →

Featured

FIT 20: Duelling Duos Disarm with Delight

A disarming duet of duos….FIT20, the Festival of Independent Theatres, opened this past weekend with a dynamite pair of two person shows that emerge from separate ends of the universe but make an entirely simpatico evening of theatrical whimsy for audiences into experiencing sensory immersion perched on the edge of daring. Catch this pair together … Continue reading →

This Cherry Orchard: Mostly the Pits

When I critique a stage play, I consider both the work and the production. A worthy play may get a mediocre or problematic staged treatment. A clumsy or dated, predictable play sometimes surprises with a wonderful enlivenment. It’s not often I see shows that balance out both aspects, for better or for worse. The productions … Continue reading →

Featured

Winning Serendipity Roulette: Trinity Shakespeare 2018

William Shakespeare was dead for forty-four years before any woman was allowed to perform any role in his plays, proclaims Theatre Unbound, a Minnesota women’s theatre company that mounts live stage productions “conceived and created” exclusively by women. Since 1999 this unique company has given opportunities to 137 female directors, 435 female actors, 109 male … Continue reading →