In the theatre, nothing is more fun than a door-slamming farce like Michael Frayn’s Noises Off or Georges Feydeau’s A Flea in Her Ear. Why door slamming? It is because the exact timing of entrances and exits done with maximum energy fuels the comedy. When perfectly done, the effect is a roar of gut-busting laughter … Continue reading “Boeing Boeing” at Little Fish Theatre
The title of Kevin Armento’s play, Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally, is a reference to the old mnemonic device that is meant to help students remember the order of mathematical operations in solving equations, which I am sure all of you readers will remember as PEMDAS: parentheses, exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction. It should … Continue reading “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” at Odyssey Theatre
Playwright Tom Jacobson’s new play, Walking to Buchenwald, now in production at Open Fist Theatre Company, is thematically complex, weaving together the stories of an elderly couple and their adult child and her long time partner, as they take a trip to Europe. The play is set in the current time after a presidential election … Continue reading “Walking to Buchenwald” (Die Damen) at Open Fist Theatre Company
The musical Once (book by Enda Walsh, music and lyrics by Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová) sweeps into South Coast Repertory trailing clouds of glory, first as a film that earned the 2007 Independent Spirit Award for Best Foreign Film, the Oscar for Best Original Song (“Falling Slowly), and a Grammy nomination for the film’s … Continue reading “Once” at South Coast Repertory
The extended title of playwright/actor/director Gary Lamb’s new work says it all. It lays out the minefield of family relations with a classic hint towards the emotional bomb that will accompany the “Who” of the title. People of a certain age or experience will feel a tingle of recognition that will be confirmed midway through … Continue reading “Somewhere in the Middle (or Guess Who’s Coming for Passover)” at Crown City Theatre Company
The Echo Theater Company mounts a unique program, Nevertheless, She Persisted, five world-premiere short plays by female writers that explore the treatment of women in today’s political climate. Commissioned by Echo Theater for the Echo Associate Company, “a group of young actors who, over the past year, volunteered with the Echo: acting in readings or … Continue reading “Nevertheless, She Persisted” at Echo Theater Company
Without a doubt, Joseph Kesselring’s Arsenic and Old Lace is a glistening jewel of Twentieth Century American Theatre. The giddy, dark comedy debuted on Broadway in January of 1941 as the world was becoming more and more mired in the horror of yet another world war. Written by Kesselring as a thriller, it was turned … Continue reading “Arsenic and Old Lace” at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble
