Tom Williams

The strength of this production comes from musical arrangements by Doug Peck has been sculpted to stress the soulful, Klezmer qualities of Bock and Harnick’s sumptuous score. The ensemble work was excellent.

We meet Sam (Tom Hardy), a nasty drunk whose life is through the bottle and occasional sex with his live-in girl friend, Annie (Greta Honold). Sam is drinking himself to death as we painstakingly learn, after a long and snail-paced first act, walked away from his injured wife and dead daughter nine years earlier

Called “The Funniest Farce Ever Written” by the New York critics, Michael Frayn’s 1982 British farce, Noises Off is a wildly wacky and mind-boggling mayhem of a comedy. It is a cleverly structured play-within-a-play told in three acts using a set that rotates allowing us to see action straight at us and from backstage.

The Building Stage, under the splendid direction by Blake Montgomery and Joanie Schultz, specialize in stretching the boundaries in storytelling through unique adaptations from various media. Their staging of Wagner’s opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung–is NOT an OPERA–but a thrilling, totally engaging re-imagining drama (non-singing stage play).

Each person’s bias comes rushing out through their statements. Racial, anti-police and sensational news reporting make the truth a sort of bias. Prejudice, hidden agendas, deceit as well as anonymous threats against Investigator Mahnaz filled this fast-paced drama with questions and suspense as we try to sort out the facts.

The folks at Lights Out Theatre Company sure have loads of chutzpah for mounting the world premiere of Joe Tracz’s Song for a Future Generation. This is a weird play that tries to be many things and comment on several themes–and–it almost succeeds.

You know a show is in trouble when the high points of a show are the two short scenes that find the real Dalmatians running across the stage and performing dog tricks!

This cocktail party is a vehicle for the opinionated , manipulative Beverly to both express her warped views of society, marriage and contemporary living-but as fertile grounds to nag, insult and harass her husband. Beverly is bored with her life, especially with her frigid husband.

This refreshing and thoroughly enticing drama is part magical realism, part fable and part fantasy. It plays out like a blend of science fiction and contemporary minimalistic realism. The real and surreal blend into a chilling tale.