REVIEWS BY Archives - Page 50 of 215

Cinderella is, by far, the finest National Touring Equity musical to grace a Chicago stage in years! It is a wonderful, beautifully staged and a gorgeously presented musical. It has all the elements of a fabulous family experience: a marvelous, lush score by Richard Rodgers with the smart lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II. It has eye-popping sets and costumes (set design by Anna Louizos, costumes by William Ivey Long). It has a new book by Douglas Carter Beane that updates and adds heart to Hammerstein’s fable.

MUST SEE REVIEWS BY Theatre Reviews

Tom Williams

Burning Bluebeard

How does theatre tastefully memorialize its losses? That question haunted author Jay Torrence when he was writing Burning Bluebeard, which is about the December 30, 1903 fire at the Iroquois Theatre on Randolph Street in Chicago in which over 600 people died. It’s an amazing story, but The Ruffians and The Neo-Futurists are clown troupes. However, since the fire occurred during a performance of a pantomime, a humorous fairy tale for children, it’s a better fit than it first appears. Burning Bluebeard is now in its third annual run, and it’s a sad, frightening, and yet often delightful piece.

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Tom Williams

Airline Highway

Upon entering the theatre, you’ll be amazed by the set designed by Scott Pask, a longtime collaborator of director Joe Mantello. Before you is the façade and parking lot of the Hummingbird, a faded New Orleans hotel. It looks like a nasty place; there’s a rotting Honda and beer bottles strewn around the lot, a gutter pipe is cracked, the vending machine’s lights are out. But on the upper level there is a hanging potted plant, a strand of mini lights, and wind chimes. People actually live here.

REVIEWS REVIEWS BY Theatre Reviews Tom Williams

Tom Williams

Newsies -National Tour

The story pits the Newsies against the publishers as the poor versus the rich in a classic struggle for survival. Alan Menken has penned a rousing score befitting the exciting choreography deftly designed by Christopher Gattelli (a Tony Winner for his work here) and superbly danced by the tireless cast of 16 talents who are fine actors and singers to boot!

REVIEWS REVIEWS BY Theatre Reviews Tom Williams

Tom Williams

Twist Your Dickens or Scrooge You!

The Second City’s twist on Dickens has sprinkles of accuracy with a few comic zingers added with appearances by George Bailey, Charlie Brown, and hecklers from the audience to add to the fun. The audience also has their say in several skits as well as pre-show written comments from the audience on the worst thing you ever di

London Reviews MUST SEE REVIEWS Saul Reichlin Theatre Reviews

Tom Williams

Madame Bovary

When it was first serialized in La Revue de Paris in 1856, Gustave Flaubert’s scandalous masterpiece was attacked for obscenity by public prosecutors. Flaubert was acquitted, but the trial made Madame Bovary a notorious bestseller, now considered a seminal work of realism and one of the most influential novels ever written.

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Tom Williams

The Clean House

Her 2004 play, The Clean House, now produced by Remy Bumppo, is an excellent example of both her thematic interest and her playful, though not uproariously funny, imaginative style. It’s a work that resists logical analysis, instead making rhetorical gestures and sometimes heavy-handed emotional appeals. Audience members should go into it with patience to get the most out of it.

MUST SEE REVIEWS REVIEWS BY Theatre Reviews Tom Williams

Tom Williams

The Santaland Diaries 2014

For years The Santaland Diaries has been a staple of holidays shows. it is how Mitchell Fain both commands the stage and how he personalizes the story without making drastic changes to David Sedaris’ script. One only has to witness Fain’s opening to see a master comic and a terrific actor doing his craft. Fain’s skill at engaging and audience with his crude but very human honesty. There may be others who can play “Crumpet, the elf” but no one humanizes the cynical character as does the sharp-tongued Mitchell Fain. He is a major comic talent at the top of his craft.

Music Reviews MUST SEE Opera REVIEWS REVIEWS BY Tom Williams

Tom Williams

Anna Bolena

Not produced at the Lyric Opera since 1985 when Joan Sutherland soared in Anna Bolena, this new production reaches the heights of the bel canto style (beautiful singing) with matching register and tonal quality of the voice to the emotional content of the words. Led by the powerful and stylistic soprano Sondra Radvanovsky as Ann and the smooth mezzo-soprano from Jamie Barton as Anna’s rival for the affections of King Henry, this melodic production of Donizetti’s Tudor-inspired 1830 opera is a major triumph for the Lyric!

Classical Music MUST SEE REVIEWS BY Theatre Reviews

Tom Williams

The Nutcracker (Joffrey)

The story is minimal but allows Joffrey to establish a tone of vaguely holiday related fancy. A family is hosting a Christmas party. The older child, Clara, is calm and well-behaved, while her hyperactive little brother Fritz is everywhere at once. A magician, Dr. Drosselmeyer, arrives and produces mechanical dolls to delight the guests. Gifts are exchanged; some genius gave Fritz a bugle. Dr. Drosselmeyer gives Clara a figurine nut cracker in the shape of a soldier, which Fritz breaks within two seconds. That night, the dolls come to life and battle against mice trying to eat them. Clara saves the nutcracker by bonking the mouse king with her slipper, and in gratitude nutcracker, now a handsome prince, takes her and Dr. Drosselmeyer to a magical kingdom to be entertained for the night.