An enjoyable evening of roasting the current crop of West End shows, Jest End is amusing, loud, well executed—if not slightly under-polished at times—and a whole load of fun for anyone who is up to speed with London’s musical theatre. The structure is simple: take the music of any song from a West End show […]
I recently had the extreme pleasure of seeing The Lone Bellow at Boston’s House of Blues, and I can’t have asked for a better way to spend a Wednesday night. The first opener of the show was Hugh Masterson, a singer-songwriter out of my very own Nashville, TN. He said at the beginning of his […]
Bridewell Theatre offers a very entertaining evening about the struggle between reality and stories. The musical adaptation of Cervantes’ novel, Don Quixote de La Mancha, directed by Roger Harwood and Dawn Harrison-Wallace, portrays this beautifully. Unlike Cervantes’ novel, Man of La Mancha is about both the author and the characters. Dale Wasserman’s adaptation keeps every […]
Young People’s Theatre’s new musical version of Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang is fun and silly in perfect tune with the original book by Mordecai Richler, which marks its 40th anniversary this year. The new music by Britta and Anika Johnson is catchy and pretty, especially as sung by the excellent cast. My […]
Directed by James Barrett, Stones in His Pockets is a two-hander performed by Ireland’s own Stephen Farrell and Mark Whelan. The lights come up on two Irish extras, Jake and Charlie, in a big Hollywood production that has descended on County Kerry, Ireland, to shoot the feature ‘Quiet Valley.’ But Farrell and Whelan play all […]
My relationship to reality TV is uneven. I’m fanatical about Survivor, grumpily fanatical about Big Brother and the Bachelorette, passively loyal to So You Think You Can Dance, and sporadically interested in American Idol and Dancing with the Stars (there was a Backstreet Boy on this season! I couldn’t not watch). I long ago gave […]
Both of Canadian Stage’s current offerings are about people sleeping with people they shouldn’t be sleeping with. Both remarkably self-satisfied domestic dramas purport to be about “so much more” but that’s really about it. In the one-act contemporary opera Julie, well-to-do scorned woman Julie (Lucia Cervoni) sleeps with her callous, manipulative, engaged servant Jean […]
The Road to Paradise is certainly timely. As we continue to battle wars and tragedies of all sorts across the world, we need pieces that bring people together to reflect and dialogue on what truths lie untold, and what we can do about it. Playwrights Jonathan Garfinkel and Christopher Morris wish to create a dialogue […]