Terry Shea

“Stunned by the news that my friend/co-writer Tom Meehan has died. I’ll miss his sweetness & talent. We have all lost a giant of the theatre.” – Mel Brooks Theatre by the Sea closes out its 2017 season with the utterly ridiculous (in all the best ways) Mel Brooks musical, The Producers, running through Sep […]

As 2nd Story Theatre closes in on the final weekend of its charming, melancholic take on Truman Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s (by way of Richard Greenberg’s taut adaptation of the original novella), a transformation is taking place. Upstairs, Holly Golightly is sweetly fast-talking her way into our hearts, while, in the basement, the bones of […]

With an offering as light and breezy as the ’60s jukebox musical Beehive, it seems somewhat petty to pick apart any aspect of the production, especially one so seemingly crowd-pleasing as the current 2017 season-opener at Theatre by the Sea. Capacity houses, exuberant audience participation and crisp musical performances are something with which it’s hard […]

Providence’s ever-challenging OUT LOUD Theatre spent last year exploring the public domain, with material such as Dracula and Shakespeare’s Coriolanus free to use, develop and interpret at will. The result was a grab bag of vision, sound and fury that often reached further into some of the material than any imagined possible. For 2017, artistic […]

Bill Hanney’s Theater by the Sea continues its summer 2016 season this week with their second offering, West Side Story, the classic American musical adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set amidst the backdrop of interracial gang warfare and urban strife. Those only familiar with the multi-award winning film are often surprised at the subtle differences […]

Two sound cues provide a bittersweet frame for the trajectory of The Buddy Holly Story, now in a swaggeringly triumphant run at Bill Hanney’s Theatre by the Sea in Matunuck. As the show opens, before the glittering ice blue curtain opens to reveal what seems to be the tiniest of sets, we hear a radio […]

The story could end there, as Bill Hanney, owner of TBTS, has enthused about the new development to everyone who will listen. Advance ticket sales are at an all-time high and the new rust-proof transformer outside (“all that salty sea air, you know,” explains Hanney) has something to do with it. However, the storied old […]

Kira Hawkridge’s OUT LOUD Theatre Company is in the thick of its fourth season, pulling quite a neat trick by upending material in the public domain and presenting it all admission-free. For some, that would mean endless Shakespeare rehashes (of which there is one included in the roster) or a steampunk Mikado, but Hawkridge and […]