Being a Broadway musical fan as well as a movie buff has paid handsome dividends in recent years as movies, particularly comedies, have been adapted for the stage on a now predictable basis. We’re at the point where it’s becoming increasingly difficult, especially for younger audiences, to trace the origins of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels or […]
I was more than intrigued when I saw that EPIC Theatre was staging an adaptation of Moliere’s Tartuffe. As nerdy as this sounds, I love Moliere. There is something to be said about theater that has lasted over 350 years and can still make audiences laugh. Tartuffe is about the blind adoration Orgon (Stevie Smith) […]
For over 40 years, A Prairie Home Companion has graced radios with its presence all across the United States, whether it’s at its home base at the Fitzgerald Theater in Saint Paul, Minnesota, or at one of its numerous stops on the road. Last June, long-time host Garrison Keillor announced that he’ll retire from his […]
I would pay good money to see “The Payton St. James Show.” There, I said it. Now, you may not know who on earth Payton St. James is – yet – but let me tell you, (s)he is the real deal. And yes, there is no such thing as The Payton St. James Show – […]
Jane Eyre, by Chrlotte Bronte, is a beloved classic. It’s on reading lists for English classes, it’s been adapted for stage and screen and it’s on bookshelves in even the tiniest of bookstores. It is one of those pieces that you feel a familiarity with, and can’t possibly imagine someone coming up with a new […]
Festival 51, the brainchild of actress and director Leann Heath and her co-producer actor/director (and Motif critic) Terry Shea, is putting the spotlight on the work of women playwrights. Last spring, Festival51 put out the call for new and emerging New England women writers to submit their work for consideration in the first annual festival. […]
It is far from a chore to find yourself in Wakefield on a Saturday night. Great restaurants, beautiful sights and, of course, Contemporary Theater Company. This company of homegrown talent produces a comedy every summer, and this summer’s choice is Peter Shaffer’s Black Comedy. The first thing you notice is, of course, Christopher J. […]
Can there be a more perfect setting that Theatre By The Sea for a production of The Little Mermaid? Theatre By the Sea’s penultimate production of their 2015 season is a delight for children and adults. As I took my seat, I couldn’t help but overhear subscribers worry about the show. They had never heard […]
Describing MAC to someone else makes it sound like little more than the nth in a line of gimmicky reworkings of Shakespeare, or of Macbeth specifically. The Scottish Play as a two-person show with close-up card magic! Don’t let that deceive you. The play reduces to a two-hander with ease, and having the major characters […]
It’s a testament to the feats achieved by NASA in the past few years that parts of Stuart Wilson’s one-man show It’s a Spaceship Now, premiered in 2013, already feel dated. The Mars rover? Old news – we have color photos of Pluto now! On the other hand, it doesn’t hurt that our sense of […]