This review aired on KBAQ June 17, 2013

“JERSEY BOYS” AND DAVID COOPERFIELD GREAT LAS VEGAS SHOWS

“JERSEY BOYS”
Paris Hotel
Las Vegas, NV

and

DAVID COPPERFIELD
MGM Grand Hotel
Las Vegas, NV

A recent three day Las Vegas trip netted the chance to see four diverse shows – the Broadway musical, “Jersey Boys,” a Cirque du Soleil classic, “Mystere,” the famed Las Vegas illusionist, David Cooperfield, and a Las Vegas musical tribute to the Great White Way, “Broadway Celebration.”  In order to critique these shows, this week’s review will look at “Jersey Boys” and Cooperfield’s magic show.  Next week I’ll review “Mystere” and “Broadway Celebration.”

“Jersey Boys,” at the … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ June 10, 2013

“BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON” EXPOSES FIRST POPULIST PRESIDENT WITH A DIFFERENT SLANT

“BLOODY BLOODY ANDREW JACKSON”
Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix, AZ

Phoenix Theatre will never be the same after Friday’s opening of the history-bending retelling of America’s 7th President in the musical “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.”  It’s a raucous, down-and-dirty way of exposing our first populist President as author Alex Timbers paints Jackson as a rock star.

Before Jackson, the country was steeped in formal decorum and even those born in the trenches took on an aristocratic snobbery when they became President.  Jackson threw aside that accepted arrogance and … Continue Reading

This review aired on KBAQ May 27, 2013

FASCINATING “SIDE SHOW” IS BEST EVER NEARLY NAKED THEATRE STAGING

“SIDE SHOW”
Nearly Naked Theatre, The Little Theatre at Phoenix Theatre
Phoenix, AZ

The musical “Side Show” explodes from its vibrant opening as it tells with sophisticated realism and touching poignancy the fascinating story of Siamese twin performers Daisy and Violet Hilton.  The first local production is the best thing Nearly Naked Theatre has ever done with a superb Damon Dering directed production and an outstanding cast that tackle difficult and complex roles with sincerity and conviction.

“Side Show” wasn’t a hit when it premiered on Broadway in … Continue Reading

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