REVIEWS BY

The Tall Girls: A Play About Playing Basketball

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This well-stage fable explores class, gender, and the history of women in sports, and asks just who can afford the luxury of playing basketball? The Tall Girls is a most entertaining stage play about the early days of women playing sports. I must confess that I was a high school and college basketball referee for over twenty years in Chicago and South Florida and I worked hundreds of women’s college games yet I was not familiar with the early days and rules of women’s basketball. Director Louis Contey has his cast delivering fine renditions of the skill level of those pioneering players.

The Dining Room

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This is the story of WASPs, who lived throughout the 19th Century, with serious cultural norms of how life should be and the stability this lifestyle offered in the well-to-do households. About this dining room- A real-estate agent and his client discuss the possible uses of the dining room in a house that is for sale. Brother and sister argue over which one will get the dining room table left behind. A daily breakfast, a birthday party, a Thanksgiving dinner with a mother who does not recognize her family, there are many moments that make memories around this table.

Prelude To A Kiss

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Prelude to a Kiss is a 1988 play by Craig Lucas that was first performed in 1990. It tells the story of a couple that falls in love despite the girl’s pessimistic outlook on life. Shortly after their wedding, a supernatural event tests the strength of their love and commitment to each other. This fantasy is a dated attempt to be an indirect commentary about the AIDS epidemic.

What of the Night?

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I had mixed response to this work. At nearly three hours, the work is a test for audiences as well as the disjointed action and the strange dialogue. Despite movingly dedicated performances by the cast of 13 and a dark atmosphere of raw sex and violence, What of the Night? will captive some, bore others while impressing others. This show is not for those who demand clarity or coherence. Poverty, man’s cruelty and sexual deviations together with avant garde motifs render this epic an ode to human survival. The craft and dedication of the actors and the “what will happen next” structure will keep audiences involved.

Her America

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Fueled by playwright Brett Neveu’s brilliant writing and Kate Buddeke’s riveting performance, this solo show tells a horrible story about an unremarkable woman forced to deal with the powerful forces that have shaped her destiny. Her secret from the time she placed something in the steamer trunk she finds in the basement. This heart-braking story speaks to the events that changed her identify and controlled her choices.

The Sundial

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City Lit Theatre has mounted another world premiere of another Shirley Jackson novel, The Sundial adapted for the stage and directed by Paul Edwards. Billed as a mystery thriller and a darkly Gothic gem, The Sundial is a disaster of a play! According to the press notes, this work is suppose to be a “philosophical and frightening ghost story set in a haunted mansion.” However, the play I saw was a mixture of Gothic eerie family conflict with stupid silliness disguised as humor with hints of a mystery which was never solved and evolves into an doomsday eventually. Nothing works here,

Salute To Vienna New Year’s Concert 2017

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Salute to Vienna celebrates more than 21 years of New Year’s concerts, rounding off the holiday season with entertaining, light-hearted performances in 23 North American cities this year. More than 60,000 concert-goers will party like it’s 1899 between December 27 and January 3, when Salute to Vienna will kick off 2017 in the 81-year old tradition of Vienna’s world famous “Neujahrskonzert”

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