AS IF TELENOVELAS WEREN'T MELODRAMATIC ENOUGH FOR YA'… As someone who blew off after-school activities because he just couldn't miss General Hospital (in the grand days of Luke and Laura v…
XANA-DOOZY OF A MUSICAL Playwrights of musicals have frequently, with varying degrees of success, taken a successful non-musical movie and worked it into a staged musical. Billy Elliott, Wai…
VISHNU WERE HERE First, a little history lesson:Â In the Hindu religion, the god Vishnu incarnated ten times as different "avatara," which can be interpreted different ways, including "de…
VISITING THE PAST FOR PRESENT LAUGHTER If you're looking to expose yourself to the plays of Noël Coward, this is where to start. Not only did he write Present Laughter (in six days!) to a…
WE BUILT THIS SILLY ON ROCK AND ROLL Most musicals start with a premise, develop a plot, and then write songs to fit the themes. Rock of Ages flips the process by starting with class rock so…
LIFE AIN'T JUST A BOWL OF CHERRIES IN 1903 RUSSIA Written and set in 1903 Russia, Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard would be the master playwright's final creation. Unless one already has k…
ANOTHER FEATHER IN MOXIE'S CAP Playwright Anna Ouyang Moench uses the setting of a wooded area " beautifully designed at MOXIE Theatre by Robin Sanford Roberts " as the backdrop of this beau…
A STORM IS BREWING IN THIS FAMILY Perhaps the two most chilling words that can be uttered in a family are "Alzheimer's" and "dementia."Â Physical pain, as horrible as it may be, is someth…
NO ONE'S WEEPING ABOUT THESE GREAT BLUES Everything comes out in blues music: joy , pain , struggle. Blues is affirmation with absolute elegance. " Trumpeter Wynton Marsalis The blues is a s…
SPELL "DELIGHTFUL" "D-E-L-I-G-H-T-F-U-L" " DELIGHTFUL! OB Playhouse used to do all of their own productions, but nowadays it is primarily a rental space. When I saw that The 25th Annual …
2 PIANOS + 4 HANDS = 194Â HAPPY ATTENDEES Around twenty years ago, piano bars started featuring "dueling pianists," who would go back and forth, taking turns playing pop songs and, occasio…
REELING IN A SWEETLY SUNG FAIRY TALE Some theater should cause you to think deeply, stir your motivations, and cause you to be a better person for the ride you were on. And some theater is j…
THE CHILDREN IS NOT CHILD'S PLAY One of the challenges of reviewing theater is figuring out how much to divulge without giving away what the playwright wants to let unfold. The Children is o…
DAY OF THE DEAD, WITH A TOUCH OF KAHLO'S HUMOR If you think this is going to be the story of Frida Kahlo's life set to operatic music, you've got another think coming. Conversely, if you mig…
WOMEN IN PANTS? WHERE WILL IT ALL END? It's 1942 and most of the men in Rhode Island are off to war. As such, most theatres, especially those who focus on the heavily male casts of Shakespea…
WHEN SHERLOCK ISN'T A SURE LOCK Arguably Arthur Conan Doyle's most successful Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hounds of the Baskervilles was actually first run as a serial from 1901-1902. It dre…
PLANT YOURSELF AT SDMT Let's start with the fact that it's a show about a plant that craves human blood. Oh, and there's this nerdy botanist Seymour who raises him, whom the plant intimidate…
A MUSICAL ABOUT PRESIDENTIAL ASSASSINS & ASSASSINATION ATTEMPTS? WELL, SHOOT! At the very least, you have to give credit for anyone coming up with this bizarre idea: A musical about the …
SKI RESORT SKETCH SKILLFULLY SKIPS ALONG AND SKYROCKETS INTO OUR HEARTS Saturday Night Live has been notorious over the years for coming up with some bits that are funny enough to fill an en…
COME SEE THIS CABARET, MY FRIEND One of the wonderful things about period pieces, including musicals, is that they rarely feel dated because the book writer (Joe Masteroff, in this case) sta…
THIS MUSICAL IS RIGHT AT HOLMES When we think of Sherlock Holmes in the dank, foggy streets of London, investigating death and deception, probably the next thought we have isn't, "This would…
QUITE THE AWAKENING Watching Spring Awakening in 2008 at the Balboa Theatre and again in 2022 at the OB Playhouse, it is interesting how different the play struck me. Not because of the q…
WILD ABOUT WILDSONG A relatively new theatre company (and totally new to this reviewer) taking on a musical with a huge cast, intricate costuming, a stage smaller than you find in most eleme…
A TIDE THAT RISES SLOWLY STILL HAS POWER The description on North Coast Rep's website for this show is quite vague and, having just come home from the program, it's clear why. One of the gre…
YOU THINK YOUR DAUGHTER WAS A HANDFUL? Joan of Arc is remembered as a hero and a martyr for her active role in France's defense from British invasion in the 15th century. How much the averag…