Photo: Cat Laine It’s a slow fuse that burns throughout the first act of Topdog/Underdog, but once the flame hits the dynamite in act two, the entire theatre explodes. That’s the best way to describe the season opener at Gamm Theatre. This is the long – two hours and 20 minutes – but riveting exploration […]
Photo: mortal/women, OutLoud Theatre. Recast the back-to-school anticipatory excitement of your youth into enthusiasm for the start of the 2023-2024 theater season. From drama to comedy to the opening of Broadway touring productions, the next few months promise to hit every human emotion while reaffirming the quality of options available to Rhode Islanders seeking live […]
Jenay Naima (Rachel Marron) and the cast of The Bodyguard: The Musical playing at Theatre By The Sea thru August 5. Photos by Mark Turek. When challenged to stage a show closely associated with an iconic performer, you can try to mimic their work and likely fail, or take a different tack and make it […]
It’s telling when the introduction to a musical includes the admonishment: “Just because you know the songs, doesn’t mean you need to serenade the other 491 people here.” Thus begins “Beautiful: The Carole King Musical” at Theatre by the Sea. Featuring the show’s Broadway understudy in the lead role, the production dedicates almost three hours […]
“Attend the tale of Sweeney Todd,” as the opening lyrics entreat, and embark on an unusual theatrical journey. Written in the 1970s, this Victorian tale of love and revenge overlays jokes and physical comedy with macabre murders to create its own genre, is playing through June 25 at Trinity Repertory Company. On an innovative rotating […]
Like the nuclear disaster that inspired it, The Children is a simmering, explosive morality play and eco-drama that festers in its audience’s belly until a final blinding burst fades to black after a whirlwind 90 minutes. On stage now at the Gamm Theatre, British playwright Lucy Kirkwood’s Tony-nominated piece gives a jarring look at a […]
Bobbing green strobe lights and eerie music playing as the audience fills seats are a harbinger of the off-beat adventure ahead, but nothing can truly prepare viewers for the inanity of a character self-described as “Ghost Zombie Jesus.” Welcome to Beetlejuice! The musical adaptation – truly, only the first act was adapted; the second offers […]
As the saying goes – the more things change, the more they stay the same, and while Trinity Repertory Company’s latest play is set in 1972, its themes may as well be current. Or from 1922. The premier of Jacqueline Lawton’s “Inferior Sex” probes familiar inequalities women and minorities face. But, her writing is poignant […]
If ever you wanted to hear the unapologetic roar of womanhood, playwright Whitney White is the maestro cueing up the estrogen. White, a graduate of the Brown University/Trinity MFA program, returns to Trinity Repertory Company with the world premiere of her piece “By the Queen,” an energetic look at Shakespeare’s male-centric plays based on the […]
Few can weave a tale that casts a spell of mystery and enlightenment as well as the Irish, and Brian Friel was one of the nation’s most talented 21st-century examples. His “Faith Healer” – now on stage for a limited run at The Gamm Theatre – is an honest look at the complexities and frailties […]