Author: Tom Williams

MUST SEEREVIEWSREVIEWS BYTheatre ReviewsTom Williams

The Magnificents

Dennis Watkins is a fabulous and fearless magician as evidenced by his underwater in a locked crate Houdini trick performed in a House show a few years back. In The Magnificents, Watkins pays tribute to his grandfather, Ed Watkins, the man who taught Dennis the magic of magic. This is a warmly human story of the aging magician (played by Dennis Watkins) and his loyal wife (Tien Doman).

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MUST SEEREVIEWSREVIEWS BYTheatre ReviewsTom Williams

Successors

As the story unfolds, we see how each character’s foibles and personality traits that make them both human and unappealing as a successor to the quirky longtime mayor. After much banter and several arguments, the question of succession takes a wild turn as the 18 year old Tyler emerges as a potential candidate after Kenton bluntly states that none of his children are to his liking as mayor . Tedesco tries to “spin” why Tyler would be a viable candidate to keep the DeKoven dynasty intact.

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REVIEWSREVIEWS BYTheatre ReviewsTom Williams

The Whipping Man

The time is April 14, 1865, the Civil War has just ended and Caleb (Derek Gaspar) is staggering into his bombed out house in Richmond (terrific set design by Jack Magaw). The place is in ruins and everyone has abandoned it but for two former slaves. Simon (Tim Edward Rhoze) is the older, very loyal ex-slave who stays in the house as he waits for his wife and daughter to return from their exile from war-the war-torn city.

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La Boheme

Puccini sets the mood for his proverbially adored opera, La Boheme in the very first bars; a pungent, disarming motif outlining the first three pitches of a minor scale in descending order that leads directly into the action without an overture. It is modern, and life affirming, in a jazzy nonchalant sort of way, with a definite tinge of melancholy.

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REVIEWSREVIEWS BYTheatre ReviewsTom Williams

Other Desert Cities

Played out on a stunning Palm Springs art-deco home set (designed by Thomas Lynch), Ron Robin Baitz’s Other Desert City is a family drama filled with politics that becomes an embroiled debate between the conservative ex-film star father, Lyman Wyeth (Chelcie Ross), now an ambassador with close Republican Party roots and his ultra-conservative wife, Polly (Deanna Dunagan) and their New York liberal writer daughter, Brooke (Tracy Michelle Arnold).

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