Gleam

Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s masterpiece, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” Gleam hits a glorious stride at Centerstage in Baltimore, mainly because of the well-tuned script by Bonnie Lee Moss Rattner in the capable hands of  director Marion McClinton.  [Read more...]

New year, big deal for Baltimore

I started writing this article as a retrospective of Baltimore theatre in 2011. But I couldn’t help thinking a little bit about what Baltimore is looking at in 2012. In Baltimore, thanks to the Orioles, (and in DC, thanks to the Nationals), we’re sick of hearing that next year Could Be the Year. But things are changing fast. It’s the year of the Apocalypse, true enough. But even so, before doomsday arrives (early Spring) Baltimore is going to be making a serious play to become a nexus for theatre in the DC region.   [Read more...]

A John Waters Christmas

Who better than the Prince of Puke to put you in the Christmas spirit? Forget that weenie Michael Buble or heartwarming holiday pageants. The true spirit of the season is embodied by filmmaker and author John Waters, clad in a poinsettia-red velvet Issey Miyake suit, his trademark licorice-whip moustache firmly in place, putting the filth in “Feliz Navidad” during his one-man show at the Lyric Performing Arts Center in Baltimore. [Read more...]

Baltimore and Bulgarian theatremakers meet

Nathan Cooper, the artistic director and actor for Baltimore’s Single Carrot Theatre, recently returned from the Festival for Independent Performing Arts in Sofia, where he spent four days with Lola Pierson (playwright and founding member of Baltimore’s UnSaddest Factory Theatre Company) on a grant from the Trust for Mutual Understanding. [Read more...]

The Lion King

When one mentions The Lion King, a succession of impressive numbers may come up, if the crowd is right. Take, for instance, 7, as in the 7th longest running Broadway musical in history. Or 70, as in 70 global theatre awards won. Fifty-four million audience members. Two hundred puppets. Twenty five types of wildlife.  One very dedicated cast and crew. [Read more...]

American Buffalo

CenterStage’s American Buffalo hits its high point when Teach (Jordan Lage), a bald guy with a mustache who sports a leisure jacket and bellbottom highwaters, pulls out a shiny silver gun and starts to load it. He’s sort of trying to hide it from Don, the other guy in the store. In other words, he’s trying to hide it, but hide it in a way that makes Don notice that he’s hiding it. And then Don (William Hill) asks what’s going on. [Read more...]

Private Lives

Like the character Amanda Prynne’s (Deborah Hazlett) heart, Private Lives is jagged with sophistication. Noel Coward’s oft-produced 1930 play—which he starred in with his great friend and co-conspirator Gertrude Lawrence—combines Brit wit, class and style in its wicked laceration of upper-class manners and unconventional mores. [Read more...]

Russian play about judicial corruption comes to the Capitol

The City of Baltimore has recently found itself under the harsh gaze of the Russia Today: in a 500 word piece, shaped by an hour or so of immersion in Baltimore’s one-block red zone, and many hours evidently spent watching “The Wire,” a Russian reporter dutifully described Baltimore as a war zone of economic imbalance. A few days later, Russia Today parroted a Baltimore Sun piece describing Baltimore’s homeless problem. [Read more...]

La Cage Aux Folles

You’d kill for those shoes. And those legs.

That’s your initial impression of the touring production of the Tony Award winning 2010 Broadway revival of La Cage Aux Folles. [Read more...]

Strand’s Jayme Kilburn takes us to the dark side of producing in Baltimore

It Ain’t Easy Being a Founder, Director, Treasurer, Official Greeter, Artistic Director, and Ticket Seller for a Small Startup Theater in the Middle of Baltimore in the Middle of a Recession:
An Interview With the Strand’s Jayme Kilburn. [Read more...]