Tom Williams The combination of having all the players and musicians performing (and looking like clowns) utilizing the physical gesture and practices of European Clowning techniques together with ample use of Quezada-Perez’s invention of “la mise en clown” style of theatre makes for a special theatrical experience.
This show uses silly humor, parody, and loads of music to re-write history while also containing a subtext about how and why we select our leaders. The 100 minutes are fun, often exhilarating. While I’m not a fan of punk rock music, I found those numbers cute and appropriate to the material and style of the show.
The energy and talent of these woman was quite apparent. Echoles uses the standard BE playbook that utilizes the music of favorite entertainers, here: Aretha Gladys, Tina, Patti with a special tribute to Whitney within the framework of a contest reality show to exhibit the fresh young talent. The result is a story based musical that has us engaged in the process of helping select one winner for the “One Name Only” reality TV show framework.
Richard Strauss’ music is avant-garde, grandiose, and dissonant. The power and emotional range of the tragedy is heard in the strength of the moving musical tones. They work marvelously with the tour de force performance by Christine Goerke in the title role
Kudos to the creatives at Light Opera Works for creating a revue of the finest songs from Viennese, Berlin, London, and American operettas. These wonderful songs can easily stand on their own devoid of plot. They range from waltzes, ballads, polkas, and marches contain lush music and fine lyrics; romance, frivolous encounters, often satirical, and sentimental tones prevail.
These three short plays demonstrate Robert Holman’s immense talent as a writer as he weaves a subtle glimpse into the damage that war can make in unexpected ways on common folks. Holman’s clarity and depth of character is rich in compassion and truth. The Steep ensemble, led by Josh Salt, as Eric, Patricia Donegan, as May, and Lorraine Freund, a Helene, contained strong character studies. This is a moving glimpse into the consequences of war.
Frankenstein is part Gothic novel, part romantic novel, and now, is considered one of the first science fiction novels. The name “Frankenstein” has become associated with “creature,” “monster”, “fiend”, “wretch”, “vile insect”, “daemon”, “being”, and “it.” The novel influenced all horror stories to follow.
Director Brenda Didier and music director Jeremy Ramey have mounted a fabulous musical revue of the songs of Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller prolific composers of 60- 70’s pop, rick, R & B. blues and gospel tunes
Zimmerman’s take on the Ovid poems necessitates being stage in water – here a square two foot deep pool as a universal symbol of transformation. Featuring many of the original cast and veterans of past productions, the 2012 production has a zest and polish seldom witnessed on stage. Metamorphoses is a vivid, often funny, and totally engaging and fluid theatrical piece of storytelling
Playwright Lewis puts a human face on the contradictions facing scientists as they treat emotional scares from memories. This is a cautionary tale that resonates today as actual scientific research on editing memories is taking place