Monday, December 5, 2011
"Madama Butterfly" at the Met you would expect to be a safe, repertory performance. In the hands of Placido Domingo however, it was a decidedly mixed bag. Moments of strength mixed with mome…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:21PMSunday, December 4, 2011
Wandering into "Lysistrata Jones" I must confess I was hoping for the next "Legally Blonde". A college comedy shot through with dirty humour, slick dance routines and hum along tunes. Unfort…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 04:44PMThursday, December 1, 2011
"Satyagraha", as delivered through the minds of Improbable, is a fascinating, beautiful, even mesmerising evening's theatre. The trade off is that it's so opaque that it becomes so much easi…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:46PMWednesday, November 30, 2011
Last year the buzz around "Spider-man - Turn Off The Dark" was so great I took a detour to New York to catch an early preview. I came away bitterly disappointed, a turgid evening that failed…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:35PMMonday, November 28, 2011
Franco Zeffirelli's production of "La Bohème" is probably the closest thing to Disney Opera you're going to find. Chocolate box sets that scarcely look like reality. There's no stopping Puc…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:04PMSunday, November 20, 2011
When the "Blue Man Group" had a show in London a few years back, I developed a mild addiction to their drumming insanity. That show died a death but they're still going strong in N…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:55PMThursday, November 17, 2011
After the happy go lucky concerts of my previous two nights, "The Infernal Comedy" made for a big change. A combination of John Malkovich and Baroque Opera retelling the life of Jack Unterwe…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:02PMWednesday, November 16, 2011
So I received a text at the interval of Juilliard's "Kommilitonen" that read, "urgent! spare ticket to Katy Perry now!!!". Being the total sucker I am: I dashed to Madison Square Garden to w…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:36PMTuesday, November 15, 2011
I've never been the biggest fan of solo theatre, there's something invariably self-indulgent about it, but Hugh Jackman is a man born to dominate the stage. A classy singer and dancer but mo…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 09:42PMThe Met isn't exactly a typical Baroque house so they deliver Handel's "Rodelinda" in the sort of manner you might predict. Big and bumptious but delivered with loving commitment. Stephen Wa…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 12:32AMSunday, November 13, 2011
It's in the title really: "Christmas Spectacular". The Rockettes do spectacle very, very well. A mindblowingly impressive ninety minutes of high kicking backed by huge sets, sparkling costum…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 03:28PM"Dark Sisters" is Nico Muhly's second opera inside of a year. The first, "Two Boys" premiered at the English National Opera and showed much promise, delivering something relevant and accessi…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 03:27PMWednesday, November 9, 2011
"Nevermore in Concert" is the launching pad for "Musically Human", a new Off-Off-Broadway musical theatre company. A one night event at the tiny Duplex Cabaret Theatre in Greenwich Village. …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:30PMTuesday, November 8, 2011
Few shows have managed to make me feel quite so young. The current revival of "Follies" made me feel positively embryonic. A musical about a showgirl reunion and the ghosts of the past …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 02:18PMMonday, November 7, 2011
I became a fan of Tim Minchin not long after I started blogging and have followed him ever since. His star has fast risen and then went right through the roof when he composed and wrote the …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 08:07PMSaturday, November 5, 2011
"Crumble", written by Mark O'Neill, is site-specific theatre at its most intimate: 15 odd people greeted on arrival at 95 Wall Street (the location changes) by a gregarious Northern English …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:47PMWednesday, November 2, 2011
The Fall For Dance festival is one of those events that just has to be celebrated. Five different programs spread over two weeks with 3 or 4 dance pieces in each, all by different companies.…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:09PMTuesday, November 1, 2011
I made a last minute decision to go see "Milk Like Sugar" and entered the theatre without the slightest clue what I was in for. The enigmatic title reveals itself to be an affecting metaphor…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 04:52PMFriday, October 28, 2011
With all the technology in the world, Robert Lepage's "Ring Cycle" couldn't be more traditional if he tried. For all the wizzy visual tricks, the only difference between these backdrops and …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:26PMTuesday, October 25, 2011
I'll keep this brief as I reviewed the opening night of the Metropolitan Opera's new "Anna Bolena" a couple of weeks ago. I was drawn back principally by the presence of Angela Meade in the …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 03:43PMFriday, October 21, 2011
The first ten minutes of Roundabout's "Sons of a Prophet" did not fill my heart with glee. A flurry of major 'isms thrown about so fast it was hard to know what on earth Stephen Karam was ai…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:07PMFriday, October 14, 2011
I don't think Michael Grandage has quite grasped the size of the Metropolitan Opera. His new "Don Giovanni" is so minutely detailed that it comes across looking under directed. A fabulous ca…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 07:00PMThursday, October 13, 2011
As kooky, symbolic sets go this is a pretty one. Sliding doors and autumnal colours bringing the stage to life. It's a pity then, that the stagecraft that comes with it, is so numbingly stra…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 03:41PMMonday, October 10, 2011
I clearly can't get enough of the New York City Ballet. Heading along to yet another diverse mixed bill of ballets. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason to the way these bills are p…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 10:05PMSunday, October 9, 2011
There are some shows that just beg to be seen. The Berliner Ensemble performing "The Threepenny Opera" under the direction of Robert Wilson is one of those shows. Not an easy night out by an…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 07:01PMFriday, October 7, 2011
My prayers were answered and I finally got myself to "The Book of Mormon". A show so lauded it was surely doomed to disappoint. But it didn't. Relentlessly funny, with hum-along tunes and cr…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 07:47PMSunday, October 2, 2011
The New York City Ballet's biggest event of the fall season has been, without doubt, the premiere of Sir Paul McCartney's new ballet "Ocean's Kingdom". It's probably also going to be the eve…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 11:31PMFriday, September 30, 2011
Deary me. After Monday's radiant "Anna Bolena", I suppose it was almost inevitable that "Nabucco" would fail to live up. As it happens, it failed to live up by quite some margin, looking unr…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 05:07PMTuesday, September 27, 2011
Divorced, Beheaded, Died. Divorced, Beheaded, Survived. Thus begins and ends my knowledge of Tudor history. Donizetti's "Anna Bolena" which opened the Metropolitan Opera's season last night …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:32PMWith "Swan Lake" now in the pleasantly distant past, we can get down to what the New York City Ballet (NCYB) do best. Short works. I'll be hitting up a fair few evenings over the next month,…
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 12:19AMSunday, September 25, 2011
I'm becoming something of a Cirque du Soleil junky. A regular dose still blowing my mind however formulaic their productions have become. "Zarkana" is very much par for the course …
SOURCE: The Tyro Theatre Critic at 06:53PM 
