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 […]
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, […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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. […]
I was very excited when I heard about the 2019 summer/fall season at the American Shakespeare Center: Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Shaw’s Caesar and Cleopatra. I’m kind of obsessed with Shakespeare’s Roman plays. Due to other obligations and theater-going opportunities, I didn’t end up seeing them until the end of the season. I […]
The first time a friend invited me to see a show at Synetic, I rolled my eyes, but went along. I’ve seen some of my favorite shows by saying yes to invitations I didn’t think I was interested in. This was no exception. The show was Romeo and Juliet, which I had just finished directing […]
It seems like Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Everybody is the play of the year. Theater people will know what I’m talking about–if you are in that world, every year, there’s some play that everyone you know is doing. Last year, it was The Wolves, Men in Boats, and, oddly enough, The Seagull. Nobody seems to know why […]