Monday, October 17, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Back when I was still in high school, writer Peter Stone and composer and lyricist Sherman Edwards got together to reimagine a p…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:50PMSaturday, October 15, 2022
By ROY BERKO When Les Misérables last came to Cleveland in November of 2018, in part I wrote: “From the very first time I saw Les Miserables, shortly after its opening in London, to the N…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:42AMThursday, October 13, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) It’s taken 16 years since it first bowed at the Public Theatre and 15 years after it became a Broadway smash, but In the Heig…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:12PMSunday, October 9, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) There are some classic movies that easily make the transition from the big screen to the stage. Because some have first been ind…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:28AMFriday, October 7, 2022
By ROY BERKO The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, now on stage in the Senney Theater in the Beck Center complex, is a play by Simon Stephens which is based on British writer Ma…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:07AMSunday, October 2, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic It’s not going to reshape your concept of the Founding Fathers through inventive use of choreography and hip hop music. It’s not going to give you …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:57PMSaturday, October 1, 2022
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI. – Race-based violence – especially against young Black men – is not unknown in this Midwest city, although most of the conflicts seen on the local TV ne…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:08AMTuesday, September 20, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) It wasn’t that long ago when theaters were shuttered and charges were leveled at many theatrical institutions for a perceived …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:12AMWednesday, September 14, 2022
By EDWARD RUBIN What is it to become a word? To become or even create an emotion that doesn’t exist…at least not yet. How much power does the artist have to convince and make believe? Th…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:39AMTuesday, September 13, 2022
By ALAN SMASON Tennessee Williams’ last play on Broadway was the terribly titled Clothes for a Summer Hotel, which lasted for 14 performances before it shut down. The play bears the explan…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 07:18PMSunday, September 4, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) From the first few lines in the opening number (“We’re Live”) of “Mr. Saturday Night,” it is apparent this is a throwb…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:37PMWednesday, August 17, 2022
By ANNE SIEGEL CHICAGO – It’s no secret that the recent opening of The Devil Wears Prada is a mere precursor to its 2023 Broadway run. Although no dates, theater or cast has been announc…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:54PMFriday, August 12, 2022
By ROY BERKO In the fall of 1957, I had a mind-blowing experience. I saw the newly opened Broadway production of West Side Story. At the time, all I knew about the show was that it was bas…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 09:38PMThursday, August 11, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) One of British playwright Pam Gems’ early stage successes was Dead Fish, which has since been renamed Dusa, Fish, Stas & …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:47AMWednesday, August 10, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Since its founding, the mission of the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company (TWTC) has been to tell the stories of New Orleans’ …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 03:06PMSaturday, August 6, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When the musical Mrs. Doubtfire was preparing to open in 2020, the show became a victim of the forced lockdown of all theaters …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:54AMSaturday, July 23, 2022
By EDWARD RUBIN I seem to remember reading, in all of the hoopla surrounding the Baryshnikov Art Center’s Production of Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, somebody saying “Unlike anything th…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 06:34AMMonday, July 18, 2022
By ROY BERKO Theater history books refer to The Black Crook, which opened in 1866 in New York, as the first musical. However, according to Karey and Wayne Kirkpatrick, the conceivers of …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 02:31PMSaturday, July 9, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) One of the funniest comedies of the big screen of 1983 was “Trading Places,” Eddie Murphy’s sophomore vehicle in which he …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:40AMTuesday, June 21, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) SCROLL DOWN SCROLL DOWN MORE KEEP SCROLLING …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:59AMThursday, June 16, 2022
By JACK LYONS, Special to Theatrecriticism.com With a film title like “The Jewish Jail Lady and the Holy Thief,” how could one not be intrigued? This film documentary digs deep into the …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:05AMSaturday, June 11, 2022
By ROY BERKO What do Rogers and Hammerstein, Irving Berlin, Frank Loesser and Cole Porter all have in common? Yes, they are all composers of American musicals, but they are also just some…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:37AMMonday, June 6, 2022
Between the years 1848 and 1851 over four thousand Irish females took passage on ships from Ireland to Australia under the Orphan Emigration Scheme, established by Earl Grey. This action had…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 12:45PMTuesday, May 31, 2022
By ROY BERKO Mathew Lopez, the author of The Legend of Georgia McBride – now on stage in the Studio Theatre at Beck Center – also wrote The Inheritance, which, in 2018 was the most hon…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:31AMMonday, May 23, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Tina Fey’s success as a screenwriter for the film “Mean Girls” was supported by her husband Jeff Richmond’s music. So, w…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:42PMFriday, May 20, 2022
By ED RUBIN MCC Theater’s production of Which Way To The Stage running through Saturday, May 28, at the Robert W. Wilson Theater Space at 511 West 52nd Street in Manhattan, is one of the …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 07:41PMThursday, May 19, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) Le Petit Theatre du Vieux Carré has been trying to bring Janis Joplin to New Orleans for more than two years and, as any music …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 08:02AMMonday, May 16, 2022
By ALAN SMASON Jason Petty strides onto the stage of BB’s Stage Door Canteen wearing a classic white country and western suit. On the sleeves and lapels are black musical notes and staffs …
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 04:39PMSunday, May 15, 2022
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out“) When Robert Louis Stevenson penned his classic tale of buccaneers and buried booty, “Treasure Island,” he could not have had…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 09:41AMSaturday, May 14, 2022
By ANNE SIEGEL (MILWAUKEE, WI.) – The most surprising thing about Get Happy: Angela Ingersoll Sings Judy Garland is that the Milwaukee Repertory Theater has taken so long to bring this sho…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 11:21AMBy ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic (“Steppin’ Out”) It seems children’s writer Roald Dahl and his dark prose will never go out of fashion. More than 30 years after his death, the…
SOURCE: Theatre Criticsm at 10:27AM 
