Tagged with broken gears project theatre …

Best of 2011: On Stage in North Texas

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 →

The Hand: Dining Lite at BGPT

If only there was more substance to German Madrid’s short one-act play The Hand than turning on a grisly gimmick to make a political statement about have’s and have not’s, I might find myself more intrigued. I found it curious as an acting exercise at Broken Gears Project Theatre, but not satisfying as a full … Continue reading →

Sudsy Hubris: Broken Gears’ Oedipus the King

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 →

Broken Gears’ CREDITORS: Debt Paid in Full

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 →

Best on Stage 2010: criticalrant.com

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 →

Gint, the Universal Man @ Broken Gears

Gint. This spooky, unsettling play, part romance, part fantasy, part anti-hero’s journey, presents a challenging undertaking for Broken Gears Project Theatre as the company’s second production in its hidden Oak Lawn venue. It possesses quite a heritage, as second cousin to a great work, several times removed. Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen embarked on writing Peer … Continue reading →

The Disgusting Mr. Ridley @ Broken Gears

“Fitness has got fuck all to do with it. It’s survival of the sickest.” High points of The Pitchfork Disney by Philip Ridley as produced by Broken Gears Project Theatre: 1)   Joey Folsom’s unique entrance as surreal character Cosmo 2)  the play’s lead characters Cosmo and Prestley eating cockroaches 3)   Clay Wheeler’s amazing memorization feat … Continue reading →

2009-10 Honorees: DFW Theater Critics Forum

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 →

Of Wooden Nickels & Fort Knox Gold: American Buffalo

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 →