When attending a play, especially one from such a well-defined genre as murder-mystery, there are certain expectations you can reliably count on – well-defined characters, an intricately woven plot, gradually revealed secrets and lies, and a twist ending you never saw coming. You are likely to find none of these things in Contemporary Theater Company’s […]
There’s an old adage in show business that says you should never work with children or animals. That fact alone should strike fear into any theater company attempting to perform Annie, since it heavily features both. So, when a local company like Granite Theatre in Westerly decides to mount it for their holiday show, they […]
As anyone who attends plays regularly knows, community theater is the biggest of crapshoots. Due to the limitations of space, resources, money, manpower and talent base, each production has a host of hurdles to overcome before it gets to opening night. Because of this, I typically expect certain things when I attend community theater: small […]
One day in high school, I sat in an assembly where some earnest actors tried to show us how “edgy” Shakespeare was. I remember thinking the whole thing was pointless, since by then, we all knew that Shakespeare was filled with sex, violence and murder. The REAL challenge – or so I thought – would […]
There is something uniquely demanding in staging a production of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. As one of the most well-known murder mysteries of all time, your production must be clear enough for newcomers to follow, and yet still refreshing to those who know it already. This is the exact challenge undertaken by […]