Theater Review: Little Mermaid Has Just Enough Disney Sparkle To Avoid Shipwreck
When it premiered on Broadway in 2008, The Little Mermaid was a footnote in Disney’s curiously declining theatrical presence (Tarzan had unfortunately come along two years earlier, while The Hunchback...
View ArticleTheater Review: Uptown Players’ Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike is a...
It’s a running joke in Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike that the housekeeper, Cassandra, makes outrageous predictions that nobody heeds. If she’d predicted that Uptown Players’ production of...
View ArticleTheater Review: Does We Will Rock You Do Queen’s Music Justice?
“Do you want Bohemian Rhapsody?” the projection screen teases at the end of We Will Rock You. Yes, the crowd does want. They are stomping and hollering, amped up after a nonstop stream of Queen hits,...
View ArticleTheater Review: Trick Boxing at Out of the Loop Fringe Festival
The premise of Trick Boxing might sound familiar—unscrupulous manager transforms a naive immigrant into a boxing sensation—but Sossy Mechanics presents the tale in a way that is anything but expected....
View ArticleTheater Review: Butcher Holler Here We Come at Out of the Loop Fringe Festival
Last night I spent a little over an hour sitting next to a possible dead body. Aztec Economy, an arts collective out of Brooklyn, is inventively staging its eerie short play in near-darkness inside the...
View ArticleTheater Review: Honky at Out of the Loop Fringe Festival
Want to unite an audience with laughter? Write about race. That must have been Greg Kalleres’ thinking when he wrote Honky, which is WaterTower Theatre’s showy yet oddly empty offering for this OOTL....
View ArticleTheater Review: Searching for Gertrude Lawrence on Out of the Loop Fringe...
If all you know about Gertrude Lawrence is her performance of “Getting to Know You” from the movie The King and I, Diana Sheehan is on mission to change that. Sprinkled throughout her newest cabaret,...
View ArticleTheater Review: Sprawling Fortress of Solitude Soars at Dallas Theater Center
“This is the story of Mingus Rude,” sings Dylan Ebdus (Adam Chanler-Berat) in The Fortress of Solitude. It’s not really, though. The further you delve into Dallas Theater Center’s world-premiere...
View ArticleTheater Review: Uptown Players’ Pageant Returns, Sparkle Intact
The existence of pop culture entertainment like Toddlers and Tiaras and Drop Dead Gorgeous confirms that the wacky, tacky world of pageants has a weird hold over us all. Uptown Players, knowing a hit...
View ArticleSecond Thought Theatre’s Nocturne Offers Poetic Discomfort
Those who saw Drew Wall in Red Light Winter at Second Thought Theatre in 2011 already know that he is an adept interpreter of the playwright Adam Rapp. In Nocturne, Rapp’s harshly poetic one-man play,...
View ArticleYoung Plano Theatre Excels in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead
The clever, often confusing dialogue in Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead is expertly tackled at Fun House Theatre and Film, but you may not hear it for all the laughter. Rather than...
View ArticleTheater Review: The Passing Show Pays Homage to Beat Era Comic
To those unfamiliar with The Ochre House, its shows can often be summed up thusly: perhaps not always the best show you’ll see, but damn if it isn’t among the most memorable. Matthew Posey and his...
View ArticleMystery Detracted by Dullness in DTC’s Sherlock Holmes: The Final Adventure
It’s no mystery why Sherlock Holmes has remained so popular throughout the decades. Since his debut in 1887, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s detail-oriented detective has delighted readers and audiences with...
View ArticleTheater Review: Overwrought The Lyons More Noxious Than Fun
The regional premiere of Nicky Silver’s The Lyons attempts to put the “fun” in “dysfunctional family comedy,” and on the surface it appears to succeed. But dig past the shocking insults and there’s...
View ArticlePromising Co-Production Venus in Fur Yields Brooding Eroticism
A little over two months ago, I drove out to Fort Worth to see Circle Theatre’s production of Venus in Fur, just for funsies. The sexy David Ives play had made a splash off and on Broadway about three...
View ArticleSecond Thought Theatre’s Booth is Uneven, yet Oddly Compelling
Playwrights Steven Michael Walters and Erik Archilla have been tinkering with Booth, their searing and at times confounding play about Lincoln’s infamous assassin, for six years. For better or worse,...
View ArticleBarbecue Apocalypse is a Balanced Mix of Funny and Awkward
Matt Lyle has found the recipe for the perfect summer blockbuster: take one part breezy comedy, two parts social commentary, and add zombies until well done. And well done is exactly what Barbecue...
View ArticleMamma Mia! Stirs Pleasant Nostalgia
The current non-equity tour of Mamma Mia! that’s playing at Dallas Summer Musicals for two weeks has forced me to acknowledge a phenomenon I’ve termed “rememberiscing.” This combination of remembering...
View ArticleGood People Falls Short of Excellence
“Good” is an ambiguous word. Its meanings range from “of high quality” to “of somewhat high but not excellent quality.” Much the same can be said for Good People. Playwright David Lindsay-Abaire...
View ArticleLyric Stage’s Titanic Stuns with ‘Hauntingly Beautiful’ Score
Those who go into Lyric Stage’s Titanic expecting the grand opulence and special effects wizardry of James Cameron’s blockbuster film will be sorely disappointed. Indeed, aside from boldface society...
View Article