May
Our Dinner with Andre
In which I gather round the Zoom for a watch party.
May
May
Side Show at James Madison University Theater
I feel extremely lucky that I happened to see an unusually large number of shows in the couple weeks before everything shut down. I’m slowly getting around to writing about them. Side Show, at JMU Theater, was a lovely show. I don’t love this score or this script particularly much, but I was curious about […]
Apr
Book Report: An Acrobat of the Heart
When I was at the Shakespeare Theater Association conference in January (back when one Went To Things), three different people recommended Steven Wangh’s An Acrobat of the Heart to me. When something like that—something that isn’t new and trendy—pops into my world a number of times, I pay attention. So as soon as I got […]
Apr
you & me at Mummenschanz
I luckily saw a fair amount of theater right before everything shut down. As usual, posting my reflections late, but it’s nice to have those memories of live performances to sustain me through the current drought. Like many Gen X/Millennials, my first experience of Mummenschanz was through the delightfully weird Sesame Street of the 1980s, […]
Apr
Cry It Out at City Theater
I’ve been hearing about Molly Smith Metzler’s Cry It Out for ages. It’s the story of two dissimilar neighbors who have babies at the same time and navigate the challenges of new motherhood together, becoming unlikely friends in the process. I hadn’t been able to get to a performance, but I was curious about the […]
Mar
Teenage Dick at Theater Wit
For once, I didn’t see a show on closing night. You can still check this out! It runs through April 19. As we move into this strange human experiment in containment, all of my performing arts colleagues are struggling. Shows are, of course, being canceled. Lots of people’s day jobs, if they have them, are […]
Mar
The Empty (Virtual) Space
Like many theater artists, I’m finding myself at loose ends, with a project more or less dissolving in my hands, getting less likely with each news break. Future projects are getting less certain as well. I’m trying to look on the sunny side; while I’m mourning the projects that might not happen or might be […]
Mar
Hairspray at Harrisonburg High School
When my local high school announced it was slating Hairspray as its spring musical, I was terribly skeptical. Although the school, like the city, is extremely diverse, I had only rarely seen a non-white kid in their productions. At that school, as at many schools, theater is for white kids. Ken Gibson, the theater teacher […]
Mar
KCACTF Region 2: Festival 52
So, I wasn’t supposed to even be at KCACTF this year. But I got a call from a friend who needed a favor, and I went to help out for a few days. I’m so glad that I did. I love the festival—all the students fluttering with nervous excitement in line for Irene Ryans at […]
Mar
Vinegar Tom at James Madison University
I saw this show a while back, and when I didn’t write about it in a timely fashion, I figured I would skip it. But I can’t stop thinking about it, so here we are. The show, directed by Ben Lambert, was an all-female production of Caryl Churchill’s 1976 play about a 17th-Century witch hunt. […]