A near-weekly ritual has embedded itself in the news cycle since the beginning of social distancing measures. Following each weekend, photos of beachgoers crowded together on the shore will plaster CNN and social media feeds as angry commenters gawk and express outrage at this wreckless recreational activity. The romantic idyll of the beach has soured […]
About Mercedes Hesselroth
Review: The Amateurs, a survival comedy of the 14th century plague
As the novel coronavirus continues to spread COVID-19 across the globe, large scale gatherings across the world face postponement or outright cancellation. But this is hardly the first time, The Amateurs reminds us, that humankind has been thrown into a worldwide emergency. Playwright Jordan Harrison draws a line between the Black Death of the 14th […]
Review: Dominique Morisseau’s Pipeline at Studio Theatre
Playwright Dominique Morisseau has had a whirlwind last few years since her play Pipeline premiered in 2017. In that span of time, she’s managed to begin her tenure as a Residency 5 playwright at Signature Theatre in New York City, earn a MacArthur “Genius” Grant, and pick up a Tony nomination for writing the book […]
Review: The Dead, musical based on James Joyce’s story gets rousing production from Scena Theatre
Irish author James Joyce unfairly gets a bad rap for being “too difficult” to read. His first draft of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man was rejected with a note from the editor saying “I can’t print what I can’t understand.” Joyce’s last and most ambitious work, Finnegans Wake, is often said […]
Review of the live streamed SpongeBob Musical: Live on Stage!
Over the course of its 20-year run, Nickelodeon cartoon SpongeBob SquarePants has been blamed for everything from causing ADD to promoting violence. Despite these criticisms, the show has survived to earn over $13 billion dollars across its many iterations of books, movies, video games, and even roller coasters. Given the franchise’s reach, a Broadway musical […]
Review: Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit from Live Garra Theatre
Though written over 75 years ago, Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit endures as a staple in Existentialist thought. Set in hell, the play focuses on three damned souls set to share the same room for all eternity: military deserter Joseph (Todd Leatherbury), upper-class trophy wife Estelle (Karen Lawrence), and lesbian postwoman Ines (Rosita Choy). Director Wanda […]
Review: Matilda The Musical at NextStop Theatre
Despite being one of the last books Roald Dahl ever wrote, Matilda has remained one of the British author’s highest-selling works. Even so, The Guardian notes a significant jump in Matilda’s global sales since 2016, the year of Brexit and the last U.S. presidential election. At its core, Matilda is a lesson in learning about […]
Only Queen Latifah’s fabulosity kept ABC’s The Little Mermaid Live! afloat
In 2013, NBC made a splash in event television by airing The Sound of Music Live!, attracting over 18 million viewers to a live telecast of the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage musical. Ever since, other productions and networks have tried to whip up a magic combination of nostalgia, stunt casting, holiday viewership, and integrated marketing […]
Review: Poly-Theist at Charm City Fringe
Theatre and religion have been intertwined since the beginning – the very, very beginning. One of the earliest forms of theatre developed in Ancient Athens with public festivals of music, poetry, and dance held to honor the Greek god Dionysus. Religion has also long served as inspiration for artists’ expression, from Leonardo da Vinci’s painting […]
Review: My Barking Dog. What happens when a coyote shows up with a message
In 2017, the American Psychological Association acknowledged the existence of a new psychological disorder: eco-anxiety. The disease can cause a spectrum of despair in response to the effects of climate change, including substance abuse, anxiety, depression, and chronic stress and fear. However, some psychologists do not classify eco-anxiety as a mental illness, despite many overlapping […]
Review: The Winter’s Tale. The Wheel Theatre Company fittingly exits the scene with this play about new beginnings
With the holiday season quickly approaching, so do the stresses that accompany the tricky social etiquette around visiting and hosting loved ones. You might do your best planning and preparation – altering seating arrangements to keep divergent personalities away from each other, creating three different menus to appease everyone’s dietary preferences, diffusing every conversational time […]
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