Tom Williams

Miller’s writing in good hands with this cast. My only problem is with some of the young women who speak too fast and run their words together making them hard to understand. Craig C. Thompson, Jennifer Mathews, Nancy Friedrich and Edward Kuffert were particularly effective.

Director/choreographer Rachel Rockwell has assembled a cast of 33 (with mostly Equity actors) that features “A” list talents lead by Larry Adams (Father), Cory Goodrich (Mother), Mark David Kaplan (Tateh) with excellent work from the commanding Quentin Earl Darrington as Coalhouse Walker Jr. Valisia LeKae (Sarah), Max Quinlan (Brother), Stef Tovar (Houdini) and Summer Naomi Smart (Evelyn Nesbit) each made major contributions to the show.

It still contains all the wonderful sets, lighting and costumes one would expect of a Disney inspired production. Beauty and the Beast has played worldwide to 35,000,000 folks and it remains a family friendly musical. It has a terrific score by Alan Menken with Howard Ashman and Tim Rices’s charming lyrics.

The problems lie in scenes set in reality. Without giving too much away, it feels as though certain plotlines are left unfinished and scenes start to drag on about facts and social change. It becomes less and less about the characters and more about ideas. I believe that if Gilman had focused solely on how the role of theatre evolved in America and around the world then the production would have been a lot more focused and interesting.

Lovers of swing, big bands and tap dancing will enjoy My Brother’s Keeper. Black Ensemble Theater finally has a first rate dance show thanks to the talented Rueban Echoles and the youthful emerging talent of Rashawn Thompson.

In one of the finest productions I’ve ever witnessed at Court Theatre, director Charles Newell’s passion for Baroque metatheatricality comes across in a splendid, throughly engrossing, production of The Illusion running through April 11, 2010. This is a “can’t miss show!”

By April Smallwood Directed by Toma Tavares Langston Co-Directed by Eileen Tull Produced by Innate Volution Theatre Productions At North

This play-within-a-play has a wealthy banker – J.B. goes from a happy prosperous family man with a fine wife and a hose full of children to a hopeless and desperate man devoid of all family members. It is the ultimate man’s test of faith.

The Lieutenant is faced with a series of grisly murders resembling the work of a dead serial killer. It takes until act two to get us to meet Damien or Sunlight – the essence of true evil nicely played to the hilt by the terrific Scott T. Barsotti.

Trust plays on stage like a screenplay with many short scenes deftly using the video and live stage action to tell the story of a upper middle class family steeped in contemporary technology. We meet Annie (the amazingly truthful Allison Torem) as the 14 year old high school freshman who loves soccer and Internet chat.