How does a community face up to its history? And how does that community both move on while holding onto a pivotal moment that still elicits reactions from tears to indifference to denial? These questions rose to the surface as I experienced the powerful production of The Laramie Project: Ten Years Later produced by Dark […]

Three different people, an eternity of living with the judgment of others in one tiny room, and one “hell” of a play. I could only be talking about one particular piece of vintage world theatre, No Exit, Jean-Paul Sartre’s 1943 existentialist rumination. Not frequently seen onstage today, Dark Horse Theatre Company has brought No Exit […]

“Sisters, Sisters, There were never such devoted sisters,” warbled Rosemary Clooney and Rosemary Clooney in White Christmas. (Yes, Clooney was the stand-in singing voice for Vera-Ellen for that number in the 1954 film.) But what if siblings are not so devoted to each other? What if their lives have taken too many wrong turns, individually, […]

Except for one thing, one crucial element, this would be Jerry Springer on steroids, a ménage á schlock involving coke addiction, childhood pregnancy and personal assistant abuse. Here is the crucial element which turns Mr. Marmalade into outrageous comedy: the heroine, Lucy (Rebecca Vail) is only four years old. And her coke-snorting, p.a.-slapping boyfriend, Mr. […]

The brand new Dark Horse Theatre Company arrived with a splash last week by mounting a new production of Oleanna, David Mamet’s controversial two-person drama about an academic counseling session gone horribly wrong. Oleanna is good, old-fashioned socio-political drama at its best, and it’s a surprisingly polished production for a fledgling company.