The popularity — and profitability — of programming an evening of one-act plays is quite undeniable for most smaller theaters. In our current short-attention-span culture, televised entertainment is often doled out to viewers in 20-minute packages, so it stands to reason that live theater would easily follow suit. While television and plays are commonly produced […]
Phil Olson is not a well-known playwright, and most of his output has involved rewriting classics into the rather hyperlocal Bunyan Bay, Minnesota, where the main activities are being really cold, complaining about being really cold and ice fishing. I’m not exaggerating: A Don’t Hug Me Christmas Carol is a rewrite of Dickens’ A Christmas […]
While watching the Academy Players’ current production of Agatha Christie’s The Mousetrap this week, it occurred to me that one of the starkest ironies in pop culture is that the most famous pieces tend to suffer over time from their own success. When a truly groundbreaking play, movie, TV show or even book gets released, […]
The Stadium Theatre’s production of Sister Act may not take you to heaven (especially considering some of the devilish humor you’ll find yourself laughing at), but it does make for a fun night of theater, featuring a wildly talented and enthusiastic cast. Based on the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg-led film, this stage adaptation features some notable […]
For those who prefer their Shakespeare done “traditionally,” times are tough. The idea of what constitutes traditional staging of Shakespeare’s work is elusive, at best, since at least eight of his scripts have no defined time period and “traditional,” in most people’s minds, comes down to tights and some sense of Elizabethan trappings. Whatever stance […]
You know you’re about to have a few laughs when the curtain speech over the sound system starts with, “Bonjour Bitches.” Good writing, good direction and good acting intersect perfectly in Epic Theatre’s newest production, The Revolutionists by Lauren Gunderson. While Gunderson has been performed widely across the county, her witty and wise words were […]
David Mamet used to be one of the most heavily produced playwrights in the country with smash hits such as Glengarry Glen Ross and Oleanna regularly appearing at any theater that wanted to be seen as “edgy.” Mamet had the golden ticket — his work was considered high art while also appealing to the masses. […]
The moment the lights go to black, the audience is captivated by a film of water that slowly becomes backlit to reveal dancers moving, floating and drowning behind the screen. It is both disturbing and beautiful at once. The image fades and viewers are thrust into a scene with a therapist and a woman, which begins the […]
Dust off your rolling pins, kiddies. It’s contest time! In honor of their May performance of Waitress, the Providence Performing Arts Center (PPAC) is holding a pie recipe contest, open to anyone with a pie plate and a dream. Follow in the footsteps of Jenna, the main character in Waitress, who creates whimsical pies, like […]
It’s commonplace in theater for a show to get a lot of press leading up to its opening, then reviews, then disappear off our critical radar even though most professional productions run for weeks after that and, in fact, get even better as the actors and artists working on them settle into the work. In […]