I’m always curious when people choose to adapt a work from another source. I wonder what they’ll choose to highlight from the original work, or what theme they’ll decide to expand upon. I love adaptations for this reason. But even after much thought and reflection, I’m still not sure why Andrew Barbato chose to adapt […]
Seeing that I was in a festive upbeat mood, it being my birthday and all, I decided to forget how many figurative candles were on my cake and I took my somewhat conservative wife and theater-savvy teen daughter to see Avenue Q at Arlington Friends of the Drama (“AFD”) Theatre. We were treated to a […]
The history of Shakespeare Bash’d, up to and including their current production of Macbeth at the Monarch Tavern, reveals a pattern of wonderful comedy and middling tragedy. Some of this has to do with the Fringe Festival comedies being shorter and more fun, enlivened by the festival environment. But, mostly, I think it comes down […]
Good solo shows are undeniably impressive. It takes a lot of energy, storytelling skill, and presence for one actor to capture and maintain an audience’s attention. That said, Bob Brader has all of those qualities (and then some) in his one-man show Spitting in the Face of the Devil, which I saw at the United […]
Hart House’s Tempest, which runs until November 22, was certainly big on ambition. While there were moments of brilliance here, they often came too few and far between. The ensemble of nymphs, expertly choreographed by Ashleigh Powell, executed coherent and well-rounded physical and vocal performances. The Troupe of white-clothed and white-powdered spirits (compliments of […]
Australian acrobatic company Circa has livened CanStage with a refreshingly new and desperately needed contemporary circus show. Opus is 75 non-stop minutes of circus feats, but also shows the audience a new side of modern circus. It was a difficult transition, it seemed, for many patrons to adjust their pre-show anticipation into respectful awe and […]
That strange, spooky family familiar to most of us comes to Stoneham, Massachusetts, with their own style of family values. Stoneham Theatre’s The Addams Family, A New Musical brings a wonderful and energetic concoction of silly and memorable characters with family morals that just might not be so creepy after all. The Addams Family franchise […]
At our My Theatre Awards party back in April, there was an extremely loud table in the back corner, which the inhabitants called the “Single Safe Soup” table (a mashup of Single Thread, safeword, and Soup Can Theatre). In a theatrical landscape with limited resources from money to playing space to really great actors, one […]