Nunsense 2: The Second Coming is like an endurance test for the audience. If you can survive two hours of corny puns, cheap gags and forgettable songs, then you deserve some sort of award. The original Nunsense, which I have not seen, was a huge international hit. The plot of Nunsense 2 is as threadbare as […]
Marilyn Busch: Your shows are literally a laugh a minute – how much of that is scripted and how much off-the-cuff improv? John Thayer: What’s with the hard-hitting questions? Just back off and I’ll tell ya! Actually our shows are heavily scripted. By that I mean we have four set scenes we perform in between courses […]
With the recent passing of Patty Duke, Ocean State Theatre Company’s current production of The Miracle Worker seems fitting, for she and Anne Bancroft immortalized the Tony Award-winning play both on stage and screen. Dramatizing the volatile relationship between teacher Annie Sullivan and her student, the blind and deaf Helen Keller, OSTC artistic director Amiee […]
This continues a series of interviews where Epic artistic director Kevin Broccoli interviews other ADs in the area to create a more in-depth conversation about theater in Rhode Island. This month’s interview is with Counter-Productions Theatre Company artistic director Ted Clement. Kevin Broccoli: Can you talk a little bit about how Counter-Productions started? Ted Clement: […]
If high school was the best time of your life, and you feel like that’s when you met your best, lifelong friends, High School Revenge Murder Mystery is for you. As soon as you enter the door at the Artists’ Exchange on Rolfe Square, the energy and excitement hit you. You’ll never be so warmly […]
I have a rule. Read the book first. Always. I never deviate from it. Matt Damon was nominated for an Oscar and virtually everyone I know has seen the movie. I haven’t read the book thanks to my ever growing “to read” pile, combined with my book buying addiction. (Although I bought The Martian, and […]
Becky’s New Car was written as a birthday gift from a husband to his wife, and in many ways it rings like permission to make mistakes. It was not, however, the writer’s wife who was on the receiving end of the production, but the wife of the Seattle commercial realtor who commissioned the piece. Written […]
Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound is like a family holiday dinner at your aunt’s house; everyone is there, and you know you’ll be chided for your life decisions, patted on the back by an understanding distant relative, cry in the bathroom, find the humanity in one of your parents, be extremely annoyed with your sibling and […]
The Catholic Church has been embattled in scandal about priest sex abuse since the original reporters of Spotlight (same as the recent film) broke the story in Boston. However, the current production of Mass Appeal, playing at 2nd Story Theater in Warren, shows that a variety of closed-minded biases have existed in the church for […]
Racism is the curse of American history and slavery was America’s original sin. Abraham Lincoln warned that expiating the sin of slavery might demand that “every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword.” Seven score and 11 years later, #BlackLivesMatter is a hashtag adopted as the […]