By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The latest production of Jesus Christ Superstar bowed this weekend, presented by the Jefferson Performing Arts Society (JPAS) at the J…
By ALEX MILLER In the Algonquin Room of the Placid Pines Senior Care Center, a small group of New Yorkers gather to chat, drink coffee or juice and tell the same old stories. On one side of …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") With a subtitle " The Carole King Musical " it's easy to conceive that Beautiful is a musical that only concerns the life of legendary…
By ROY BERKO Northwestern grad, Selina Fillinger, was the first Judith Barlow Prize winner, an annual student award given to work inspired by a historic female playwright. "In 2019, her …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The producers from the Tennessee Williams Theatre Company of New Orleans had already planned for a major opening night on March 8 at M…
By LOU HARRY There are Broadway shows that seem destined for long lives after the New York production folds. I'm willing to bet, for instance, that we will be seeing productions as wide rang…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Producers of Broadway shows that performed reasonably well on the Great White Way have largely been upping their game in the years sin…
By ALAN SMASON Biting satire must be carefully presented. If it doesn't go far enough, it can come across as insincere and tepid, but if it goes too far, it can be considered as inappropriat…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Patrick Page chooses his words very carefully or, perhaps, it should be said he chooses Shakespeare's words carefully. In All the Devi…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic Following his 2019 Tony Award win for Tootsie, writer Robert Horn was offered several projects of his choosing, but none seemed more appropriate than r…
By ROY BERKO Langston Hughes, the author of Black Nativity, now on stage at the Allen Theatre, in a joint production between Karamu, the country's oldest black producing theater and the Clev…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Since its release in 1982, New Orleans native Bob Clark's "A Christmas Story" has been part of the holiday landscape, helped along by …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") After celebrating its 20th anniversary this past October, the juggernaut that is Stephen Schwartz's Wicked on Broadway seems like i…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") "Harmony: A New Musical," the Barry Manilow and Bruce Sussman work is hardly a "new" musical, having simmered off the Broadway range f…
By ANNE SIEGEL MILWAUKEE, WI. " Don't be late for this class: the School of Rock is astonishing audiences at Milwaukee's Skylight Music Theatre. Based on the successful 2003 film of the same…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The history of Here Lies Love dates back almost two decades ago when David Byrne and Fatboy Slim came up with an improbable concept al…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") There was a time when Tallulah Bankhead was as well known a celebrity as any who dominate the social media channels of our own time. S…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") The history of Onepiece, billed as "A Splashy Musical Play" goes back many years to a time when Randy Bibb felt especially creative. I…
By ROY BERKO David Greene, the Senior Vice President of Programming at Playhouse Square, informs theater-goers in his program notes for Girl from the North Country that "it is a non-tr…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When award-winning playwright Lynn Nottage accepted the task as book writer for MJ, the Michael Jackson musical, she probably knew the…
By ANNE SIEGEL The American musical theater has been graced with another revival of Company, Stephen Sondheim and George Furth's 1970 musical about our basic human need for togetherness. In …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") Following the record setting production of The Producers, Mel Brooks set his sight on bringing another of his film classics from the s…
By ROY BERKO Former South Euclid resident and Brush High School graduate, Dr. Alan Wieder, is on a quest "to stem the time of forgetfulness." An oral historian, Wieder has been on the facult…
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") When most people consider the macabre work of Stephen Sondheim and his delicious sense of dark humor, they typically point to Sweeney …
By ALAN SMASON, WYES-TV Theatre Critic ("Steppin' Out") One of the most eagerly awaited new musicals in the country bowed recently in Milwaukee, not a typical launching place for such produc…