Around the World in 80 Days — Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
While at times muddying the action that is supposed to taking place or allowing zaniness to go a tad unbridled, director Russell Treyz grants enough quarter to cogent, cohesive storytelling … Continue reading
I Hate Hamlet — Montgomery Theater
We need to start a Paul Rudnick fund. We need to find some way of rerouting Paul Rudnick from whatever he might be doing and encouraging him to write a … Continue reading
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee — Princeton Festival
“The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee” is a delicate piece. On one level it always works because of William Finn’s irrepressibly upbeat score and the goofy characters conceived by … Continue reading
My Mother Has 4 Noses — People’s Light & Theatre Company
The title of Jonatha Brooke’s presentation with music, “My Mother Has 4 Noses,” is literal. Her mother, Darren Stone, a published poet, was a Christian Scientist. She developed cancer in … Continue reading
Les Misérables — Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival
Regional theater productions of the perennial Broadway staple, “Les Misérables,” have confirmed how durable Alain Boublil, Claude-Michel Schönberg, and Herbert Kretzmer’s musical adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 19th century epic is. … Continue reading
Hands Up — Flashpoint Theatre at Caplan Studio Theatre
The power of “Hands Up,” a compendium of six monologues commissioned by The New Black Fest and presented by Flashpoint Theatre, is not in the originality or variety of what … Continue reading
Post Haste — Hedgerow Theatre
Emily Post was a well-published, well-connected writer who found her enduring cash cow of a subject, etiquette, while observing the manners of people she met during a 1915 cross-country automobile … Continue reading
How to Write a New Book for the Bible — People’s Light & Theatre Company
I say it often, and I mean it sincerely. There’s no pro like an old pro. I uttered that line first after seeing Helen Gallagher and Eddie Bracken in a … Continue reading
Passion — Arden Theatre
Stephen Sondheim’s musical, “Passion,” comes to a pivotal point at which a young soldier, driven to a range of emotions, most of them negative, by the unwanted, unencouraged love he’s … Continue reading
Forbidden Broadway’s Greatest Hits — Act II Playhouse
To someone who has been seeing Broadway fare since Roscius was an actor in Rome, Gerard Alessandrini is as valued a being as Stephen Sondheim or Fred Ebb. For more than 30 … Continue reading
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