This review aired on KBAQ May 13, 2013

PHOENIX THEATRE’S “OUR TOWN” PERSONIFIES SMALL TOWN AMERICAN LIFE

“OUR TOWN”
Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix, AZ

Back in 1938 when Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” premiered, its simple telling of turn-of-the-century life in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire, earned the playwright a Pulitzer Prize.  At that time, the play personified small town American life.

Today the classic play is usually only performed in badly staged high school productions.  Polished professional productions rarely occur.  “Our Town” is an odd choice for musical-theater-oriented Phoenix Theatre but they deliver a commendable production featuring many of our area’s best performers.  The cast creates touching characterizations … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ May 6, 2013

EXEMPLARY “CLYBOURNE PARK” OPENS AT ARIZONA THEATRE COMPANY

“CLYBOURNE PARK”
Arizona Theatre Company, Herberger Theater Center
Phoenix, AZ

“Clybourne Park,” Bruce Norris’ Pulitzer Prize winning new Broadway comedy/drama uses the characters of Lorraine Hansberry’s 1959 “A Raisin in the Sun” to explore race relations over 50 years.  Norris discusses this touchy theme with brilliant bursts of humor that lighten the play’s message that neither race can accept the other race into segregated neighborhoods.

In the play’s local premiere, Arizona Theatre Company in conjunction with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater stages an exemplary production.  Mark Clements stages the piece with … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ May 2, 2013

STAGE ADAPTATION OF “FLASHDANCE” EMBARRASSINGLY INEPT

“FLASHDANCE”
Broadway Across America – Arizona, ASU Gammage
Tempe, AZ

The stage adaptation of the popular “Flashdance” film, at ASU Gammage this week in a tacky touring production that has never played Broadway, is embarrassingly inept.  The show itself is awful but we all knew that from the mundane film version it is based on.  The movie song hits are included but they are surrounded and ambushed by mediocre sounding filler tunes.  And the production is so awful that to label it professional will doom Broadway theater forever.

Everybody knows Tom Hedley … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ April 29, 2013

CHILDSPLAY STAGES INNOVATIVE ADAPTATION OF “A WRINKLE IN TIME”

“A WRINKLE IN TIME”
Childsplay, Tempe Center for the Arts
Tempe, AZ

Leave it to the fabulously creative, endlessly innovative Childsplay to cleverly adapt Madeleine L’Engle’s popular children’s science fiction fantasy, “A Wrinkle In Time,” into a marvelously inventive theater piece.  If you have or know children who have read and relish the book, get your tickets and enjoy this magical story with your young friends as it unfolds on stage.  The kids at the opening performance applauded wildly and enjoyed themselves immensely.

L’Engle’s story starts on a bleak, … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ April 22, 2013

LATEST STRAY CAT PRODUCTION IS A FAST PACED COMIC DELIGHT

“CHICKS WITH ?????”
Stray Cat Theatre, Tempe Performing Arts Center
Tempe, AZ

Biker chicks, mock but noisy motorcycles, scads of unrestrained innuendo, riotous sexual excesses, some mud wrestling, and tons of raucous laughs are the wacky ingredients of the show I’m reviewing tonight that has such a sensitive moniker that I can only say the first two words of the three word title, “Chicks With ?????.”  You get to fill in that inevitable last word of the Stray Cat Theatre’s latest production and, as a suggestion, think … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ April 15, 2013

BTT’S “BUBBLY BLACK GIRL” WELL STAGED BUT NOT A VIABLE MUSICAL

“THE BUBBLY BLACK GIRL SHEDS HER CHAMELEON SKIN”
Black Theatre Troupe
Phoenix, AZ

The Black Theatre Troupe’s new production, “The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin,” is a prime example of a theater company struggling to find viable new plays and musicals.

The show is a terrible, self-serving musical.  Author Kirsten Childs tells about her agonizing climb to become a Broadway musical theater performer and to accept her Black heritage.  It is lifeless because the girl the musical portrays, Viveca Stanton or Bubbly, and her tribulations … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ April 8, 2013

2012/13 ARIZONA OPERA SEASON ANALYSED AND ASU PREMIERES A PLAY

2012/13 ARIZONA OPERA SEASON
Phoenix Symphony Hall
Phoenix, AZ

And

“SOOT AND SPIT”
ASU School of Theatre and Film, Paul V. Galvin Playhouse, ASU
Tempe, AZ

The just concluded 2012/13 Arizona Opera season further enhanced the company’s place as a major American regional opera company as they continue to bring the best young operatic singers to town.  Productions continue to improve and are all consistently well sung.  Staging, while still sometimes awkward and archaic, has improved.  The season’s best opera was the new local production of Verdi’s “Il Trovatore.”

The company had … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ April 1, 2013

ATC’S PLODDINGLY SLOW “THE SUNSHINE BOYS” DRAGS ON FOR AN ETERNITY

“THE SUNSHINE BOYS”
Arizona Theatre Company, Herberger Theater Center
Phoenix, AZ

“The Sunshine Boys” is far from Neil Simon’s best comedy and in the plodding Arizona Theatre Company production, the show drags on for an eternity.  Although each act runs an hour, by the eagerly anticipated intermission, the first act seemed far longer.  Back in 1972, when the show premiered, it seemed funnier, faster, and much more fun.  It apparently hasn’t stood the test of time at all.

“The Sunshine Boys” looks at an old vaudevillian team … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ March 25, 2013

“MUSICAL OF MUSICALS” FUNNY LOOK AT MUSICAL THEATER FOIBLES

“THE MUSICAL OF MUSICALS”
Theater Works, Peoria Center for Performing Arts
Peoria, AZ

Peoria’s Theater Works crafts a wry and funny insider look at the musical theater’s foibles and hysterical absurdities in “The Musical of Musicals.”  The fast-paced show is filled with ribald laughter and it is performed by a farcical four-person ensemble and accompanied by a clever piano player and narrator who adds his own bits of innuendo and malarkey.  It helps to know every musical theater nuance but I attended with two people who posses just … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ March 18, 2013

PHOENIX THEATRE’S “LA CAGE AUX FOLLES” IS DELIGHTFUL ENTERTAINMENT

“LA CAGE AUX FOLLES”
Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix, AZ

“La Cage aux Folles” is a delightful entertainment extravaganza that explodes all over the Phoenix Theatre stage.  It’s a less formalized production than the recent Broadway revival but it’s still an outrageously fun and frolicking delight.

Director Michael Barnard attracted a superb cast who execute the various roles with style as they find amazingly subtle comic moments that adds much humor to the already hysterical Jerry Herman musical.  The familiar story is set in a St. Tropez nightclub where female impersonators … Continue Reading