Pop quiz: What does it take to score? High school basketball star Joe Marks (Hunter Hoffman) says it’s about physical stamina, devotion to team, and impeccable strategy. For his world-weary English teacher Mrs. Edwards (Sarah Holt) it’s about intellectual rigor, patience, and inner curiosity. So when the dry-witted teacher picks up a raunchy note, soaking […]
Archives for July 22, 2010
War and Therapy
Three scenes and thirty minutes, War and Therapy barely scratches the surface with its subject material. More of a spark to encourage discussion, the short play shows audiences the issues with therapy and war veterans, and it warns against the dangers of labeling “mental illnesses” in vets. Writer Paula J. Caplan is clearly an expert […]
Salem! The Musical
Annoyance Theatre may not be an East Coast tribe (they hail from Chicago) but, wouldn’t you know it, they’ve gone and made something I’ve seen many a local theater fail at creating: a historically accurate musical retelling of the founding of Salem, Massachusetts, penetrating in its commitment to research and fact.
The Grubrag’s Ballad
With a charming smile, Marc Spiegel captivates his audience with rhyming couplets and animated voices. The Grubrag’s Ballad is an epic poem, but it doesn’t read anything like Beowulf. Instead, Spiegel enchants his audience with tales of mythical creatures, carrying a musical-like rhythm throughout the piece.
The Grand Manner
Not many who are around today ever saw the legendary Katharine Cornell on stage, for she retired in 1961. At that time, her husband Guthrie McClintock passed away, and she would not work without him, as he’d directed everything she’d done on the New York stage. I, however, did catch her act on several occasions, […]
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur
A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur is a tough play to produce, and for that reason most theaters leave it alone. Williams wrote it in 1979, four years before his death, and like many of his later pieces, it studies character across a limited event horizon. Notwithstanding the work’s challenges, Quotidian Theatre Company delivers an […]
The Perfect Chocolate Milkshake
Playwrights frequently knock down the fourth wall between the stage and the audience, but in The Perfect Chocolate Milkshake, playwright Lee August Praley knocks down the first wall – the one between the playwright and the stage. Some guys can do this successfully – Pirandello, certainly, and probably Stoppard – but Praley, at least at […]
Favorite 2010 Fringe Musical Performances – Part Two
The second week of the Capital Fringe Festival brought ten musical performances that I enjoyed immensely. Many were by local artists who I have never seen or heard before. I am hoping that many of our directors and casting directors will audition these incredible actors/singers. I look forward to seeing them in future performances.
Running:AMOK
I’ve been trying to decide what to name it. Help me out, sweetie, what do you think? I’m considering something classic, like “Portrait of the Artist as a Bewildered Mother-To-Be.” Or, “How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Embryo.” As it stands, the name “Running:AMOK” implies a sort of chaos and intensity that […]