Theater programming usually doesn’t get any more conservative than Gilbert & Sullivan, late 19th century purveyors of light opera and bad puns. But Chicago’s avant-garde company The Hypocrites’ Theatre’s returning smash production of The Pirates of Penzance shows a new spin on an old G & S to be one of the more exciting musicals of […]
Review: The Hypocrites’ hijinks with Gilbert & Sullivan’s Pinafore. Bring the kids.
I am generally not a forced gaiety and audience-participation kind of guy. And yet Saturday night, there I was some 20 minutes before show time for H.M.S. Pinafore, in Olney Theatre’s Mulitz-Gudelsky Theatre Lab, tossing little stuffed animals back and forth to unnervingly cheerful guitar and ukulele playing thespians clad in pajamas, as well as […]
Review: On the Town at Olney Theatre Center, pure perfection.
Olney Theatre celebrates its 80th season this year with this splendid production of On the Town, the Leonard Bernstein/Betty Comden/Adolph Green musical which made its Broadway debut in 1944. Thanks to the canny direction of Jason Loewith and its effervescent cast, dazzling choreography and a creative team on hyper-drive, Olney delivers a show that is […]
Review: Olney’s Invisible Hand packs a mighty punch
An American banker abducted by jihadists in Pakistan must earn his $10 million ransom by making a killing on the market. And as he introduces concepts of high finance to his kidnappers – some concepts that tanked the US economy a decade ago – the term ‘making a killing’ becomes both figurative and literal in […]
Powerful production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at Olney Theatre Center (review)
A witch hunt, properly viewed and conducted, is a necessary part of society’s advancement — if we understand “witch” to be some part of the invisible universe which causes human pain and havoc, and if we conduct the hunt with scientific rigor and humility.
Olney Theatre’s 2018/2019 season: 4 musicals in its 9 play mainstage series
There will be a whole lotta theater going on at Olney Theatre Center next season. In addition to its nine-production subscription series, Artistic Director Jason Loewith and his crew will welcome The National Players for two summer productions, stage three Theater for Young Audience productions, produce the concert version of three audacious musicals and present, […]
Every Brilliant Thing at Olney Theatre Center (review)
The Narrator (Alexander Strain), stands on the top step of an aisle and says that he has three words for anyone in the audience who is contemplating suicide: his voice lowers to nearly a whisper: “Don’t do it.”
Julia Cho’s Aubergine, a Korean-American family’s drama (review)
In Julia Cho’s Aubergine, a Korean-American chef deals with his dying father. Cho uses food as the cornerstone for a sensitive though meandering meditation on the difficulties of family, communication, and coming to terms with one’s life in this entry in the Women’s Voices Theater Festival.
Annie inspires Olney’s pajama drive for children in foster care.
Annie finds a new family in the holiday musical, now onstage at Olney Theatre Center. Olney’s meeting with Bob Scheer of Comfort Cases inspired the company to open a drive to bring new pajamas to children in need. We loved the idea and thought you might welcome this chance to help make children’s lives a […]
Annie at Olney Theatre Center (review)
Forty years ago, I was introduced to the world of musical theater with my first visit to Broadway, where I was lucky enough to see Andrea McArdle play the title role in the original production of Annie. I’ve seen the show countless times since, and am always pleased that audiences are filled with young ones […]
Olney’s Our Town is everyone’s town (review)
It took Olney Theatre, surprisingly, 80 seasons to get around to Thornton Wilder’s iconic Our Town, and with acclaimed director Aaron Posner at the helm, they tackle the challenge of what this admittedly overproduced and arguably misunderstood play has to say to a contemporary multi-cultural audience, and how best to reach them. Perhaps that challenge […]
In the Heights at Olney Theatre Center (review)
In the Heights, now packing them in at Olney Theatre Center, has a visceral and emotional score coupled with a story of finding your home and your heart closer than expected. Behold the power of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s freshman effort – being followed next year by his Hamilton at the Kennedy Center. In the Heights is brought […]