Heidi Chronicles, The
Music Box Theater

Can women really “have it all”? More importantly, do we make ourselves miserable if we don’t get the top-notch career, adoring husband, brilliant kids, size-two figure, money, esteem, and everything else we’re supposed to achieve?

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Hamlet
Wilma Theater

The Wilma’s production of Hamlet has been widely publicized for having a black woman in the title role, but this is not color-blind or gender-blind casting. Rather, those elements are used deliberately.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Sotto Voce
Historic Asolo Theater

“Poetry makes nothing happen,” Archhibald Macleish famously wrote. But in Sotto Voce, Nilo Cruz wonderfully proves him wrong. His poetic play unites past and present. It subtly persuades us to uncover and learn from the past, to care about humans seeking asylum from evil, and to act on our knowledge. Poet-of-the-theater Cruz also presents us with romance renewed and, with it, life.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
April 2015
Hamilton
Public Theater

Considering how Donald Trump & the Tea-Party crazies won’t give-up on the un-American-ness of Barack Obama, have they ever given a passing thought to the curious Caribbean origins of one of our founding fathers, Alexander Hamilton? Not only was Hamilton the founder of the New York Post and of our banking system, but he was also one of George Washington’s most trusted fellow officers, rapidly rising to the rank of General. Quite a meteoric trajectory for a male Mulatto whose mother way well have been a whore. . .

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Dinner with Friends
Le Petite Theatre du Vieux Carre

A dinner party becomes the occasion of a divorce announcement as guest Beth tells hosts Gabe and Karen that her husband Tom has left her after a dozen years, which included having kids together. Up to now, the couples have been close friends, but the divorce makes them reconsider their relationships with their friends and each other.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The
Paper Mill Playhouse

Another Disney cartoon film is on its way to Broadway. But this adaptation eschews cuteness in favor of medieval darkness, and its score is more choral and symphonic than others from that source. This is due to the desires of two musical titans, Stephen Schwartz (who wrote words and music for Wicked and Pippin) and Alan Menken (who composed Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid).

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Honeymoon in Vegas
Nederlander Theater

Rob McClure gives such a spectacular performance, he, alone, makes the Broadway Honeymoon in Vegas worth seeing. Aside from his endearing portrayal of a sad-sack Brooklyn schnook who’s about to get married, the show proves a clumsy and tasteless mediocrity.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Picture Imperfect
Athenaeum Theater

The publicity for Picture Imperfect leads us to expect another jeremiad involving first-world families fretting over less-than-perfect offspring, but while its personnel includes a little boy afflicted with autism, the play is not about him. It's about his two patently unfit parents, abusive daddy George and enabling mommy Mary.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Hammer Trinity, The
Chopin Theater

The Hammer Trinity myth is based on two assumptions: First, that what we call "history" is actually nothing more than stories, their adherence to facts determined by the storyteller—ahem, historian—and, second, that the dramatic question of this story is that of how best to govern a country.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Outside Mullingar
North Shore Center for the Performing Arts

Some stories have been retold so many times that they should come with assembly instructions, like IKEA furniture. Before his venture into issue-driven dramas, John Patrick Shanley's reputation rested on romantic comedies recycling the classic dynamic of discordant lovers—usually from urban blue-collar conclaves—bickering until love goes and fuckin' conquers all. Charged with writing a play about his auld-sod kin, what could be more natural for this Bronx-born-and-raised playwright than to revert to formula?

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Genius
Alley Stage

When somebody offers to give you a large sum of money, the prudent response is either, "I'll believe it when I see it," or (more diplomatically), "That's very kind of you." Characters in plays, however, are presumed to proceed with sights riveted unwaveringly on the carrot at the end of the stick, never questioning the motives underlying such a transaction.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Taming of the Shrew, The
St. Stephen's Church

This is Shakespeare on strong espresso, as if to reflect the Italian setting.

Movement is the keynote. All the characters are in constant motion. Every spoken phrase in this Taming of the Shrew is accompanied by multiple gestures and facial expressions. The players project strongly except for one restful moment in the second half where Petruchio softly confesses his plan for making his marriage work.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Insurgents, The
Bank Street Theater

It isn't likely that any of us will ever be visited, or haunted, to be more precise, by the famous and infamous social upstarts from America's turbulent history who pop with regularity into Sally Wright's (Cassie Beck) head.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
King and I, The
Music Hall at Fair Park

Dallas Summer Musicals is celebrating its 75 anniversary by self-producing the Rodgers & Hammerstein classic, The King & I, for the first time in 50 years. The musical had its Texas debut on July 19, 1965 and was produced at the same venue by the late impresario, Tom Hughes, where it received a glowing review by the late John Rosenfield, then the arbiter of all the arts extant in Dallas.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Dunsinane
Wallis Center for the Performing Arts - Brian Goldsmith Theater

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Buyer & Cellar
George Street Playhouse

This amusing and astute play for solo performer by Jonathan Tolins has had quite a remarkable journey beginning in 2013 with its limited run at the Rattlestick Theater off-Broadway and then moving for its many-times-extended, successful commercial run at the Barrow Street Theater before closing last summer. Buyer & Cellar is unquestionably an enjoyable diversion as well as an essentially show-off vehicle for a talented, personable young actor. It is currently a popular choice for our nation's many regional theaters.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Rocket to the Moon
Theater at St. Clement's

A program note for Rocket to the Moon reminds us how the socio-economic malaise that afflicted countless Americans during the 1930s Great Depression Era was not so dissimilar to that which many are facing today. Clifford Odets's play is set in 1938 when there was an early glimmer of light for prosperity for the masses and maybe with it the potential for individual renewal. We may safely assume that Rocket about one timid man's fear of creating a new life for himself is not really all that dated.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Hunchback of Notre Dame, The
Paper Mill Playhouse

Ring out, wild bells! Boldly booming bells ring out from Millburn, NJ, in one of the most be-belled & be-gargoyled visions of medieval Notre Dame ever imagined--even by Victor Hugo, the original imagineer of “The Hunchback of Notre Dame…”

Hugo—who loved the strong contrasts of the hideously grotesque with the miraculously beautiful that are best exemplified by “Beauty & The Beast” and “Hunchback”—would surely be astonished by the great Bourdon bells that are cramming the great wooden belfry of the Paper Mill Playhouse over in far-off New Jersey.

Glenn Loney
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Lady with All the Answers, The
The Bath House

It is a rare treat to attend a play in which the playwright, director, actor, and set, sound, lighting, and costume designers are all on the same wavelength. Such is the case for One Thirty Productions' staging of The Lady With All the Answers.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
When Ya Smiling
Rivertown Theater for the Performing Arts

Subtitled “Remembering New Orleans in the 1950s,” Ricky Graham’s When Ya Smiling is just like what he might have composed for a 1958 high school event. The adoring audience exactly duplicated one made up of relatives and friends of those onstage and back of it. The not-surprisingly uncredited set has wooden house fronts on each side with a nondescript center that has to take on many locales in reality and hero Paulie’s imagination. He (Tucker Godbold, with amazing staying power as a cornball) looks 30 but is 10 and will soon be having a birthday.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Field Hockey Hot
The Adrienne

In the midst of March Madness, the 11th Hour Theater has chosen to premiere a new musical about sports on a campus. But not basketball. Not even baseball (which is in the middle of spring training.) This tribute to school athletes, instead, centers on a girls field hockey team.

Steve Cohen
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Low Down, Dirty Blues
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Stackner Cabaret

When the night is almost over, the musicians come out to play. That’s the theme behind the marvelously constructed Low Down Dirty Blues at the Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s intimate Stackner Cabaret. The nightclub setting is perfect for an evening of fun that threatens to shake, rattle and roll the roof right off the theater.

Big Mama (Felicia P. Fields), a Chicago entertainer, has invited some musician friends to her makeshift jazz club. Three male friends show up to let off some steam after the evening’s performance.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Great Expectations
Concordia University - Todd Wehr Auditorium

Two centuries after his works first appeared, Charles Dickens is still one heck of a storyteller. Such is the case with Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations, a local adaptation of which is being produced by Acacia Theatre.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Sweeter Option, The
Strawdog Theater

There's this big cache of money, you see, or maybe a few people just think there is—it doesn't really make any difference. Once the alleged existence of a fortune in stray cash has been clearly established, it's only a matter of time before guns appear, fugitives flee for the border in the night, betrayal follows on betrayal, corpses pile up and at least one poor schnook is warned "you're in over your head" before succumbing to existential despair.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Glass Protege, The
Theater Wit

The contractual restrictions exercised by the studios over not only the careers, but the private lives, of its employees in the early days of the United States film industry is nowadays universally acknowledged. High-profile cinema celebrities were required by their employers to sign an agreement promising to behave in accordance with moral standards of the time.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Titus Andronicus
Edgwater Presbyterian Church

Long before Quentin Tarantino, David Cronenberg and Mehron Squirt Blood, there was Titus Andronicus, William Shakespeare's attempt to cash in on the fashion for lurid sensationalism selling tickets in 1593.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
One Came Home
Lifeline Theater

What we have here is a historical-environmentalist fable set in Wisconsin as it was in 1871, before the extinction of the passenger pigeon. What we also have is a whodunit mystery, precipitated by the disappearance of a young lady and later discovery of a decomposing corpse wearing her clothes.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Full Monty, The
Theater Wit

Upstarts triumphing over adversity against seemingly impossible odds are a favorite theme of audiences in the United States, a country founded upon just such audacity. Our applause is even greater when the project involves straying outside conventional gender roles, but what we most approve are the empathy and acceptance engendered by venturing beyond comfort zones.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea

(see review(s) under "Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea")

Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea
Strawdog Theater

The late Victorian period was the age of science and industry, all sorts of inventions opening new possibilities for the improvement of humanity. With hitherto unimagined concepts becoming manifest almost daily, each fresh innovation sparked a multitude of visions similarly inclined toward a seemingly limitless future. Tempering this optimism, though, were reminders of the human propensity for being, well, human.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Repairing a Nation
Crossroads Theater

The Tulsa Oklahoma race riots of 1921 devastated the prosperous Greenwood section of the city famously known as the "Black Wall Street." That terrible event, during which the local sheriff and bands of whites destroyed homes and businesses, the alleged result of an assault on a white woman by a black man, lasted for two days. It  provides the historic background and the inspiration for Nikkole Salter's domestic drama Repairing a Nation, now at the Crossroads Theater.

Simon Saltzman
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Musik from the Weimar Republic and Beyond
Florida Studio Theater - Keating

That the lighting is predominantly bright gold with magenta gives you an idea of the aura of Mark Nadler’s cabaret musical, I’m a Stranger Here Myself. It does get blue at times, though, when he’s talking about sad facets of the Weimar Republic era. That is supposed to be the main matter of his songs and patter but, like most of his show, it turns out to be about Mark Nadler.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Leopold and Loeb Story, The
WaterTower Theater

Thrill Me: The Leopold & Loeb Story was one of 21 performance acts that ran as part of the WaterTower Theater's 15th Out of the Loop Fringe Festival. It depicts the story of the 1924 "crime of the century," the brutal murder of teenager Bobby Franks by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two brilliant young men from wealthy families in Chicago.

The "set" consists of a chair, two black cubes, and a piano on an otherwise bare stage. The play opens with some interminable cacophonous music which continued throughout the entire play.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
On the Twentieth Century
American Airlines Theater

On the 20th Century is definitely a show to recommend to your friends from out of town who ask, “What should we see on Broadway when we come to New York?” It’s big, lavish, full of terrific period costumes, and it stars Kristin Chenoweth. This tiny performer with the powerful voice never gives less than 100%, and here, she goes beyond that.

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Beauty and the Beast
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

Once again, the “tale as old as time” returns to Milwaukee, in a limited run of Beauty and the Beast. The last time this enchanting show played in the Marcus Center, as part of its Broadway series, was 2001. And yet, “something old is new again,” as Disney announces casting for a live-action film version of “Beauty and the Beast,” set to open in spring 2017. The film will feature Emma Thompson, Kevin Kline and Emma Watson (of the “Harry Potter” film series), among other “name” performers.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Audience, The
Gerald Schoenfeld

“It is not an obligation; it is a courtesy” for the Queen to meet with her Prime Minister once a week, every Tuesday evening. The parade begins in Peter Morgan's The Audience with the totally unrecognizable Dylan Baker as the weepy John Major, through the immediately identifiable Winston Churchill of Dakin Matthews, and it lingers with the Queen’s obvious favorite, Harold Wilson, as played by Richard McCabe. What is it about the hearty, openly opinionated Wilson that causes the regal Elizabeth II to give him the lion’s share of her time?

Michall Jeffers
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Five Presidents
Milwaukee Repertory Theater - Quadracci Powerhouse Theater

Emmy Award-winning writer Rick Cleveland was a good “candidate” for writing a play about a singular day in American history. Cleveland is well-known for his smart, popular TV shows, which include “House of Cards,” “Mad Men,” and “The West Wing.”

His Five Presidents was commissioned by Milwaukee Repertory Theater as part of its new-play development program. The world premiere initially opened at the Arizona Theater Company, its co-producer, and now, at Milwaukee Repertory Theater. The cast, set, etc. are identical for both locations.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Sight Unseen
Lounge Theater 2

Donald Margulies’s 1990s OBIE-Award-winning play, Sight Unseen, receives a solid and engrossing revival by Wasatch Theatrical Adventures, a company devoted to bringing the work of great American playwrights to L.A. (Previous productions include Moon Over Buffalo and All My Sons).

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
Road to Nirvana
Venice Theater - Pinkerton

How do you get ultra-conservative audiences to buy into a virulently unpleasant, ultra-savage satire? You warn them “this will offend you,” further using the play’s kind of foul language and barbed insults. But if they “Go now!” while slow, provocative music introduces The Road to Nirvana, they will miss a hell of a Venice Theater Stage II production.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
March 2015
I'll Regret This Tomorrow
WaterTower Theater

Tori Scott presents her one-woman show, I'll Regret This Tomorrow, as part of the WaterTower Theatre's 15th Annual Out of the Loop Fringe Festival. She bills her act as "a 70-minute celebration of poor life choices" and bills herself as a "belter and bad decision expert." Her comedic routines consist of events from her childhood in Arlington, Texas, and her humorous and unlucky struggles in New York which segue into her vocal numbers.

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
March 2015

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