Elizabeth Van Dyke By R. Pikser Not only important history but breathtaking performances A theatrical biography could be tedious, but Laurence Holder’s 20 year old piece about the life of Zora Neale Hurston, mounted again in celebration of the 125th anniversary of her birth, is stunning. As narrated by Ms. Hurston at…
David Hyde Pierce By Michall Jeffers David Hyde Pierce is lovable. There’s a vulnerability and a wry humor that’s totally endearing; from the moment he steps on stage, the audience is with him. This proves to be almost a liability as the play progresses. The show opens with Pierce, as Nate Martin, delivering a…
Patrick Graver and Jessica Ernest; photos by Michael Portantiere. By Marc Miller If you know “Funny Face” at all, it’s probably from the classic 1957 film version, which shares with its 1927 stage counterpart 1) Fred Astaire, 2) a handful of George and Ira Gershwin standards, and 3) little else. For a look at…
Andy Striph and Mary Adams Photos by Michael Blase By Marc Miller Folk music is not at the forefront of American popular culture these days. There was the Coen Brothers’ Inside Llewyn Davis a couple of years back, and Christopher Guest and the Second City bunch’s hilarious A Mighty Wind some years before…
Jimoon Cole, Nilaja Sun and cast photos by Russ Rowland By Ron Cohen A provocative and slimmed down adaptation of Ibsen’s drama of civic corruption vibrates with timely relevance “People who don’t vote should be arrested and charged with evasion of duty,” says a character early on in Public Enemy. It’s…
Photo Credit: Jeff Farkash by Julia Polinsky Wandering Bark’s speed-dating pace cuts Ibsen’s problem play down to a 90-minute, high-concept version. Clickbait-worthy headlines on the promotional material (“Hedda Tesman (nee Gabler) has everything, but wants none of it.”), and those parentheses around her name: these clues, among others, send you all kinds…
Phillip James Brannon I Joan Marcus Nat Turner in Jerusalem By Ron Cohen A powerful play and a discomfiting depiction of the malaise bred by slavery on the American soul. The hot buttons of racism get pushed with poetic fervor and chilling contemporary resonance in Nathan Alan Davis’s Nat Turner in Jerusalem. The Jerusalem of…
Hershey Felder photo courtesy of Hershey Felder Presents By Eugene Paul Maybe consummate master of words William Shakespeare wondered if music be the food of love, but Leonard Bernstein, master of music knew that music is love. And God. And all. At least in Hershey Felder’s richly emotional, deeply moving solo drama in…
Rebeckah Brockman photos by Russ_Rowland by Deirdre Donovan “Dear Miss Littlewood, Along with this letter comes a play, the first I have written. I wonder if you would read it through and send it back to me because no matter what sort of theatrical atrocity it might be, it isn’t valueless as…
L to R: Theodore Errig, Ruby Spryte Balsamo, and Benjamin Errig by Nicholas Linnehan Hope is a miracle. That line, uttered so sincerely, strikes us to the core. Isle of Shoals production of Occupation Dragonslayer is a little confusing, but hits a chord when it needs too. Billed as a contemporary musical…