In response to Christian criticisms of the portrayal of Jesus Christ put forth in Godspell, composer Stephen Schwartz added the following note to the script: “Godspell is about the formation of a community which carries on Jesus’ teachings after he has gone. In other words, it is the effect Jesus has on the others which […]
The new original play Me Three: A Guide to New Beginnings by Lenny Schwartz could charitably be described as genre-defying, swinging between farce and serious social critique, or less charitably as careening wildly from one random thing to another. What could be a passable magical-realist comedy – the advertising describes it as “darkly funny and […]
“Who will provide the grand design, what is yours and what is mine? ‘Cause there is no more new frontier, we have got to make it here Don Henley, “The Last Resort” The wanderlust and notion of manifest destiny that drove our forefathers west spoke to the American character, warts and all. Alongside noble ideals […]
The show that has been dubbed “the best musical of this century,” The Book of Mormon, returns to PPAC this month. Irreverent, unconventional and insanely popular, Mormon still has the ability to shock while providing a superior musical comedy experience. The musical stretches all boundaries of conventional taste, but contains a warmhearted core that continues to […]
For my money, and for as silly and irreverent as it truly is, there is almost no musical more difficult to pull off well than Little Shop of Horrors. Equal parts comedy and tragedy, camp and melodrama, it straddles so many lines that it’s nearly impossible to hit the right balance. Play it too hard […]
The Epic Theatre Company and Kevin Broccoli have got game. There is no denying it. Theatre 82, at the Artists’ Exchange in Cranston, is on fire through April 27 with dance, humor and the American Dream. “You’re about to be transported to the backstage and dance floor of a drag bar. The performers are getting ready […]
In TCRI’s Norman, Is That You?, Ben Chambers (Steven Taschereau), a dry cleaner from Dayton, Ohio, who is just past 50 years old, arrives at the Manhattan apartment of his 23-year-old son, Norman (Michael Capalbo), to tell him that 49-year-old Beatrice (Lisa Scotti-Johnson), Ben’s wife of 26 years and Norman’s mother, has run off to Canada […]
It’s a beautiful spring day as I climb the stairs at the Courthouse Center for the Arts, where I can clearly hear “Seasons of Love” spilling down from the performance space. Upon entering I find a group hard at work, but not a group of adults — this is a group of teens and younger […]
There are few things that make me happier than young people taking on the responsibility and vision of putting on a theatrical production. Stories need to be told; in these times of school budget cuts, creative outlets need to be there, and there needs to be something for kids to go to and enjoy. Academy Players […]
The diary of Anne Frank is among the most widely read historical documents of the 20th century, but its provenance is often misunderstood. There has been endless debate about why this one particular diary by one seemingly ordinary teenaged girl has become the iconic and most recognizable narrative of the Nazi Holocaust. Hundreds if not […]