Boys Next Door, The
The Players

It’s hard to categorize The Boys Next Door except as a play that ends happily--though in a bittersweet way. Jack, a social worker assigned to four mentally challenged young men in a semi-independent living set-up, presents the action from his point of view. He’s as important as Tom in The Glass Menageriebut participating in the moment, not recounting from memory.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
July 2013
Mary Stuart
Stratford Festival - Tom Patterson Theater

Friederich Schiller’s beautiful, poetic history play, Mary Stuart, is forever timely in its picture of the struggles between opposing forces, each representing conflicting religious beliefs, national entities and alliances, ruling ambitions, and, above all, feminine control. The play is set in 1587 at the time of Queen Elizabeth’s reign before the attack of the Spanish Armada and the execution of Mary, Queen of Scots.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
July 2013
Devil and Billy Markham, The
Three Clubs

The actor Aaron Lyons brings to life Shel Silverstein's The Devil and Billy Markham in rousing and memorable fashion. The monologue, adapted by Silverstein from a Playboy article of his, concerns a blues musician -- no doubt patterned after Robert Johnson -- who must grapple with the devil to keep playing the music he loves.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
July 2013
Unvaoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin
Harold & Miriam Stenberg Center - Laura Pels Theater

The Roundabout production of Steven Levenson’s The Unavoidable Disappearance of Tom Durnin, starts after Tom Durnin, played by David Morse (How I Learned to Drive),finishes his five-year jail sentence for financial fraud in a minimal security facility. His jail time left his wife and children homeless and bitter. Now he returns home expecting to resume the life his arrest forced him to give up. He believes he has paid his dues and should be welcomed back to his family. Unfortunately, no one agrees with him.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
July 2013
They Call Me Mister Fry
Lounge Theater

Jack Fry is a young actor who started teaching to support himself, only to find his true calling in that profession. It took a baptism of fire in a 5th-grade classroom in south-central Los Angeles for him to undergo such a metamorphosis. In his riveting and deeply moving monologue, They Call Me Mister Fry, Fry relives his first-year experiences in a No Child Left Behind school, a place where problem kids have their last chance at an education.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Rapture, Blister, Burn
Huntington Theater Company - Calderwood Pavilion

To paraphrase Helen Keller, an early 20th century, American feminist, what is life if not an adventure? Gina Gionfriddo indirectly explores this idea in her sharp, funny, bittersweet play, Rapture, Blister, Burn, currently at the Tony Award-winning Huntington Theater Company in Boston.

Scott Bennett
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Underpants, The
Florida Studio Theater - Keating Mainstage

Louise Maske, a young woman on tiptoe, watched her King parade by her porch in Germany, 1910. From under her long skirt, her pantaloons fell to her feet. Her husband Theo, a self-important and self-absorbed prig, considers himself humiliated. What will everyone think of him, of the couple?

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Modern Terrorism

In the opening scene of Jon Kern’s Modern Terrorism, or They Who Want to Kill Us and How We Learn to Love Them, the darkest of comedies having its first regional production at the Contemporary American Theater Festival in West Virginia, Rahim (Omar Maskati) the cutest and most endearing suicide bomber you are ever likely to meet, or the remains thereof, is standing there in his skivvies. Quite intently Qualaase (Royce Johnson), a Yemen-trained bomb maker and Fagin of youthful zealots, is feeling around in Rahim’s shorts to wire powerful explosives.

Charles Giuliano
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Tommy
Stratford Festival of Canada - Avon Theater

I never saw the 1993 smash-hit Broadway musical of The Who’s Tommy,though it ran 900 performances in New York and then had a great success in London and Toronto. But long before it was a musical show, I saw The Who perform their “rock opera” of “Tommy” live twice, and I loved the music.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
title of show
Theater Asylum

title of show[sic] is a vest-pocket musical (four characters, one keyboardist) that was originally produced at the 2004 New York Music Festival. An Off-Broadway run followed, topped by a Broadway transfer in 2008. Now the show has been revived at the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival, in a resoundingly successful way.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Painting Churches
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Cook Theater

Gardner Church is a famous poet in decline professionally, mentally, physically. Fanny Church is his wife -- devoted, somewhat ditzy, dismayed by the reduced income and health that dictate they must move from Beacon Hill to a beach home. Daughter Mags completes their dysfunctional family.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
City of Angels
Theater Three

Dallas’s Theater Three opened City of Angels at the Norma Young Arena Stage. Set in Los Angeles in the late 1940s, this musical comedy by Cy Coleman (Sweet Charity, The Life), David Zippel (The Goodbye Girl) and Larry Gelbart (A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum),ran on Broadway from December 1989-January 1992 and won Tonys for Gelbart (Best Book of a Musical) and Coleman (Best Original Score).

Rita Faye Smith
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Around the World in 80 Days
New Theater

Around the World in 80 Days is a wonderful evening of entertainment that is antic, inventive, imaginative and with the pacing of a farce. It’s masterfully designed and directed by Rachel Klein, who guides six terrific performers through 39 roles and 40 scene changes in a play that gives everyone a workout, including the audience, and still leaves you smiling.

Scott Bennett
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Listen...Can You Hear Me Now?
Complex Theaters

Gloria Rosen was a hearing child who grew up in a deaf household. Her autobiographical account of that singular experience, Listen…Can You Hear Me Now?, just closed at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Comedy of Errors, The
Delacorte Theater

Daniel Sullivan’s take on Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors, now at Shakespeare in the Park, is a hoot. Set in New York in the 1940’s, the show is filled with the music and lindy-hop dancing of the time, with lovely choreography by Mimi Lieber, that gives a contemporary grace to the sharp angular steps of the old dance.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Billy's Unspeakable Acts
Mainstage Theater

In Billy’s Unspeakable Acts, Billy the Mime is unquestionably at the top of his art. He has clean, clear mime technique in his definition of character and place, as do the best of professional mimes, but nobody in the world gives us the depth of contemporary social satire that he reaches, the laughs he gets from contemporary depravity. His subject matter, including Thomas Jefferson & Sally, Priest & Altar Boy, Whitney Houston’s Last Bath, World War II, 9/11, a profound History of Art, San Francisco 1979, is stunningly absurd.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Little More Than You Wanted to Spend, A
Drilling Company Theater

Actor/director Chris Clavelli was struck by tragedy ten years ago -- his six year old son, whom he saw as a reflection of his own youth, died. A Little More than You Wanted to Spendis Clavelli’s one-man autobiographical play about events and characters in his life.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Measure for Measure
Stratford Festival - Tom Patterson Theater

This is a top-level production of a great play, but William Shakespeare’s dark, complex, late comedies always present some problems to make even their best presentations slightly unsatisfying.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Interview, The
Open Fist Theater

The history of authoritarian-sanctioned torture goes back to the Roman magistrates who used it on the first Christians. Then the Christians systematically tortured thousands of so-called heretics during the long period of the Inquisition. They were followed in later years by the sadists of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia...and the United States of America.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Sunny Afternoon
The Complex

The interrogation of Lee Harvey Oswald is the subject of Christian Levatino's docudrama, Sunny Afternoon, now in a workshop production at the Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Wicked
Marcus Center for the Performing Arts

After a three-year absence, Wicked once more swoops down on Milwaukee. Alighting again at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, the touring production ably demonstrates why Wicked has become the 12th-longest running show in Broadway history. It opened at Broadway’s Gershwin Theater in 2003, one of Broadway’s largest houses, where it continues today.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Bobbywood: The Longest Death Scene
The Complex - Ruby Room

Fans of “I Love Lucy” might remember him -- he played the popular character of Bobby the Bellboy. His name was Bobby Jellison, and his bittersweet life has been recalled by his nephew, Bill Ratner, in Bobbywood, now at the 2013 Hollywood Fringe Festival.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Fiddler on the Roof
Stratford Shakespeare Festival - Festival Theater

This is a production of Fiddler on the Roof worth treasuring; I hope they film it. I have sat through some wrong-headed productions of this musical that ranged from laughable to insufferable; and I have seen probably the most admired productions; but I have not seen a Fiddlerthat even approached the perfectly balanced artistry of this one. The opening night audience didn’t just seem to be delighted: many of us were awestruck.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Tommy Tune - Steps in Time: A Broadway Biography in Song and Dance
The Town Hall

The house darkened, the footlights clicked on, and across the dark stage, Tommy Tune strode to take his place before the audience. When the lights came on, there he was, the familiar lanky song-and-dance man of our time, elegant in black with a red vest. Wide white sleeves billowed from his jacket sleeves. Looking down, Tune pointed out his scarlet cowboy boots, custom fitted with taps. On and off stage, Tune remains an eye-catching figure, statuesquely theatrical with a down-to-earth grin.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Heart Song
Fountain Theater

The Fountain Theater has long been the home, not only of new drama, but of the fiery dance known as flamenco. Since 1990 the Fountain has produced more than 500 flamenco concerts on its intimate stage, plus seven seasons at the 1200-seat Ford Ampitheater. The theater's involvement in flamenco is also highlighted in a new documentary film, “Kumpania,” much of which was shot at the Fountain's continuing “Forever Flamenco” series.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Nikolai and the Others
Claire Tow Theater

Richard Nelson’s Nikolia and the Othersstarts in total confusion with a lot of Russian people speaking (in English) in Westport, Connecticut, in 1948, and noisily moving props and furniture, talking trivia, eating and clinking silverware on plates as they discuss the upcoming Balanchine dance preparation of “Orpheus,” with music by Igor Stravinsky. They’re all there: Stravinsky (John Glover), his wife (Blair Brown), set designer Sergey Sudeikin (my old mime teacher, Alvin Epstein) and Michael Cerveris as Balanchine – as part of a huge cast.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Scottsboro Boys, The
Ahmanson Theater

”History begins in tragedy and ends in farce.” The saying pretty much sums up the essence of The Scottsboro Boys,the slick new musical by Kander & Ebb which just opened at the Ahmanson after productions in New York, San Francisco and San Diego. Based on the 1931 true story of nine young Black men wrongly accused and convicted of raping two white girls in Scottsboro, Alabama, the musical dramatizes the event by poking fun at it, in a savagely satirical way.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
June 2013
Caucasian Chalk Circle, The
Classic Stage Company

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956) and I are in total agreement that mankind, not us but them (as I like to say to avoid argument), is populated by liars, killers, cheats and self-serving louts. One only need to look around, listen to the daily news, or for that matter attend any one of Brecht’s more popular plays to meet these people. Serving up a dish of rotten folk, with one or two good ones thrown in for good measure, is the Classic Stage Company’s production of Brecht’s The Caucasian Chalk Circle, nicely directed by CSC’s artistic director Brian Kulick.

Edward Rubin
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Romeo and Juliet
Stratford Shakespeare Festival - Festival Theater

This Romeo and Juliet was the opening production of Canada’s great Stratford Shakespeare Festival for 2013, and it would be an epic understatement to say that it was a disappointment. The rest of Stratford’s opening week for its 61st season ranged from first-rate to dazzling, and I was pleased to have brought a friend, a longtime New York City writer on theater and art who had never been to Stratford, to see why I attend their openings every year as the overall best theater I see.

Herbert M. Simpson
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Ionescopade
Odyssey Theater

Ionescopade had its West Coast premiere at the Odyssey back on August 7, 1982. Now the revue, which is based on bits and pieces of Ionesco's plays, poems and even journal entries, has been revived by the same theater, this time with William Castellino directing and choreographing.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Musik from the Weimar and Beyond
York Theater Company at St. Peter's Church

I’m a Stranger Here Myself - Musik from the Weimar and Beyond,written and performed by Mark Nadler and directed by David Schweizer at The York Theater, is a really well-produced show. Fascinating projections illustrate Nadler’s narrative and songs that bring to life the atmosphere of an era of free artistic, sexual and personal expression in Germany’s history between WW I and Hitler.

Richmond Shepard
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
World Goes `Round, The: The Songs of Kander & Ebb
Florida Studio Theater - Gompertz Theater

Musicians play John Kander’s catchy music upstage against a dark-blue background. The set has wings and floors that are dark black and printed with many primary-colored words like family, friends, love, comedy, joy. They come from or describe the subjects and emotions of Fred Ebb’s lyrics.

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Musik from the Weimar and Beyond
York Theater Company at St. Peter's Church

"I don't know who I belong to; I believe I belong to myself, all alone." This message in Friedrich Hollaender’s ironically tender melody weaves through Mark Nadler’s I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Music from the Weimar and Beyond.This musical foray explores the explosive creativity of the Weimar era, the years after WWI and the rise of Hitler in 1933.

Elizabeth Ahlfors
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Kinky Boots
Al Hirschfeld Theater

Kinky Boots is a certifiable hit. This show, with book by Harvey Fierstein and music and lyrics by Cyndi Lauper blows the doors off the Hirschfeld Theater. The show is filled with the type of energy and flash that is quintessentially Broadway. Jerry Mitchell's direction and choreography add to the overall impact of the book and music.

Scott Bennett
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Good Television
Atlantic Theater

Rod McLachlan’s Good Televisionat the Atlantic Theater Company is a play worth making the effort to see. It is Mr. McLachlan's debut as an Off-Broadway playwright, and with a few minor issues, he’s done a superlative job of writing. Bob Krakower's direction is nearly flawless and draws us into the struggles of a family dealing with addiction through the eyes of a supposedly detached "reality television" show.

Scott Bennett
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Dying City
Theater Theater

Christopher Shinn’s Dying City, now in it L.A. premiere at Rogue Machine, is a kind of ghost story. One of the ghosts in this dark, tautly-written drama is Craig, a young man who volunteered to fight in Iraq because he thought the cause was just, only to become so bedeviled by the brutality of battle that he eventually committed suicide. Iraq -- and by extension 9/11, the root cause of that war -- are additional spectral presences in the play.

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
To Begin the World Over Again: The Life of Thomas Paine
Lillian Theater - Electric Lodge

Writer/performer Ian Ruskin masterfully impersonates Thomas Paine in his new solo show, To Begin the World Over Again, which will be seen at two different L.A. venues over the next few weeks (in rep with another solo show of his, From Wharf Rats to Lords of the Docks,about Harry Bridges).

Willard Manus
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Pulse: The Beat of Song and Dance
Florida State University Center for the Performing Arts - Mertz Theater

The subtitle of Pulse: The Beat of Song and Dance, accurately conveys the heart and soul of Noah Racey’s show. His “Pulse” is mostly rapid, conveyed in motion (mainly tap) and sound backing it or created by it. Musicians upstage support the dancers, who in turn deliver mini-autobiographies pegged to why they love what they perform. All are heart-winning.

A much-heralded, special floor grounds dance and is used in percussion (notably Iving Berlin’s “Drum Crazy” featuring drumsticks down front). The rest of the set is, literally, high-lighting!

Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Last Five Years, The
Second Stage Theater

The Last Five Years,with book, music, and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown premiered off-Broadway in 2002 and starred Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Rene Scott and was directed by Daisy Prince. It has had numerous productions internationally and has recently been revived by The Second Stage Theater Company, where it’s directed by its composer.

Scott Bennett
Date Reviewed:
May 2013
Porgy and Bess
Broadway Theater Center - Cabot Theater

Milwaukee’s Skylight Music Theater has a tradition of offering something special as its season finale. Last year brought a stunning Sunday in the Park with George, which featured laser effects to rival anything Broadway could offer. This year’s entry is no less than The Gershwins’ Porgy & Bess, which was acquired after long years of negotiations with the Gershwin Estate. This Porgywas worth the wait.

Anne Siegel
Date Reviewed:
May 2013

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