Reviews
Songs for a New World Is A Welcome Return For Theater
Jason Robert Brown’s brilliantly insightful and emotionally powerful Songs for a New World lets you know you’re not going crazy all alone in Slow Burn Theatre’s season opener that would be a triumph even if it didn’t signify a full-throated celebratory return of regional theater.
Miami New Drama Offers Free Season Opener “A Special Day”
What better way to mark the return of live, in-person theater than to celebrate the major role that an audience’s imagination plays in this unique art form? In fact, the professional, nonprofit Miami New Drama (MIND) is offering audiences free admission to a return engagement of the Mexico City and New York-based, nonprofit company Por Piedad Teatro’s production of A Special Day.
Swirling Realities Within Realities In Gay-Themed ‘Twentieth Century Way’
The Twentieth Century Way creates intersecting, overlapping realities in Island City Stage’s celebration of its 10th season by restaging its 2012 inaugural play. This thought-provoker melds questions about people acknowledging their true identity, amalgamating actors in general hiding behind their roles, and gay men hiding their sexuality from a homophobic society and themselves.
Racial Issues Permeate Main Street’ Players’ ‘Shakespeare is a White Supremacist’
The premise: A white director leads a multi-ethnic cast in a Midsummer’s Night as an answer to charges of institutional racism. But with wry humor and painfully incisive drama, Main Street Players’ edition of Andrew Watring’s “Shakespeare is a White Supremacist” examines the intersection of theater and racism as a metaphor for larger problems afflicting society in 21st Century America.
Despite The 10-Foot Star, ‘Mastodon’ Not Just Child’s Play
Yes, there is broad humor, over-the-top characters, cartoonish sets, a fairy tale vibe and a 10-foot tall puppet, but Theatre Lab makes it clear that Rachel Teagle’s world premiere script of The Impracticality of Modern-Day Mastodons is not children’s theater, but an adult evaluation of dreams.
Hilarious, Moving ‘Fuacata’ Returns Even More Relevant
Fuácata! has been tweaked by star Elena Maria Garcia and director Stuart Meltzer with references to non-binary, Uber and “draining the swamp.” But the exuberantly hilarious and moving work from 2017 already had elements echoing the subsequent rise of #MeToo, hardening of ingrained bigotry, explosion of immigration crises, renewed uproar over Cuba and other topics. This production at Actors’ Playhouse is cause for celebration.
Review: In The Room Where Sunday in the Park Happened
It’s almost impossible to accurately depict the guts of the creative process, let alone make its intricacies interesting. But director-librettist James Lapine has not only conquered that task, he and 40 colleagues have produced one of the most compelling and detailed inside examinations of the full process of the creation of theater, covering everything from word choice in a lyric to choosing the theater venue.
Main Street Players’ Wolf & Badger Wrestles With Post-Recession, Pre-Trump America
The ghosts of O’Neill and Shepard creak the floorboards of Main Street Players’ Wolf & Badger, the latest exorcism of filial trauma from New Jersey playwright Michael John McGoldrick. Unfolding in 90 minutes of real time, MSP’s first production since the pandemic is a story of brotherly conflict as old as Cain and Abel as well as a contemporary portrait of late capitalism in decline,
Area Stage’s Inventive Rethink Of Annie Is Fresh and Engaging
Young, visionary director Giancarlo Rodaz’s winning approach in Area Stage Company’s current unorthodox, yet triumphant production of the classic musical Annie features eight adult actors playing all roles in a stripped down environment in the round.
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