Tom Williams

Eventually, Kani, Ntshona and Fugard settled on a powerful script that, through storytelling, humanized the torturous living of blacks in South Africa from apartheid policies of the white government.

When Iowa passes a law forbidding a registered sex offender from living within 2, 000 feet of places where children congregate …the Deputy must enforce the law by evicting and transporting the sex offender away from those places.

Bertolt Brecht’s plays challenge the most talented theatre troupes and his 1919 first full-length play is a particular difficult work to stage. But leave it to the genius of director Zeljko Djukic to allow complete artistic collaboration from all parties including actors, musicians, lighting, set designers to explorer the subtleties and nuances in Brecht’s initial work, Baal.

Unfortunately, Kristian O’Hare’s play is a dud. The Gay American is an uneven hybrid that tries to be a farce and a docudrama but only delivers a series of short scenes that only succeeds as an offensive, foul-mouthed insult to gay men.

Last August, I saw Ka-Tet Theatre’s production of Road and I liked the work from those Purdue grads. Their new show is a fine production of Steven Gridley’s Sun, Stand Thou Still.

I must state up front that I was never a fan of the Rolling Stones so a play with music like Signal Ensemble’s Aftermath has a tough time getting me to like it. Actually, the audience, made up of many old rockers, at the performance I attended seemed to love this show

From the beginning Stanley (in a believable ultra-intense magnificent performance by Matt Hawkins) is less than pleased to have this woman in his home, and even more distracted by what he feels is her “belle of the ball” act, which ultimately results in a major confrontation. As Williams himself remarks, “the play is about the ravishment of the tender, the sensitive, the delicate, by the savage and brutal forces of modern society.”