It’s a dark and stormy night. Working in a rented and calculatedly funky New York City rehearsal studio, director slash playwright slash occasional actor Thomas is ending a long day of auditions for his adaptation of the obscure German novel…
Author: John Olive
The Tiger Among Us by Mu Performing Arts at Mixed Blood Theatre
Lauren Yee‘s The Tiger Among Us (Mu Performing Arts performing at Mixed Blood Theatre, through Feb 10) sprawls. Literally: director Ellen Fenster utilizes Mixed Blood’s widest configuration and in her firm hands the play ranges from Dad’s extreme stage right…
Pinocchio by the Children’s Theatre Company
Good Lord, what are they going to do on two show days? Pinocchio (at the Childrens Theatre Company, through Feb 24) is the clutch-poppingest, lustiest, take-it-to-10-and-let-her-rippest, most insanely creative show to come down ye olde pike in a long long…
As You Like It, by The Acting Company performing in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio
Do we count William Shakespeare‘s pastoral romance As You Like It (the Acting Company, performing in the Guthrie‘s Dowling Studio, through Feb 3) among the bard’s weaker efforts? A mere pot-boiler, a crowd-pleaser? Lovers and court sophisticates retreating to the…
Aida by Theater Latté Da, performing at the Pantages Theatre
First the good: Aida (Theater Latté Da performing at the marvelous Pantages, through Jan 27) is a rippingly good show. If you like full-bore, rock-’em-sock-’em musicals, Latté Da delivers the goods. Anchored by a stirring Elton John/Tim Rice score (those…
La Natividad, a co-production of In The Heart Of The Beast Puppet And Mask Theatre and St. Paul’s Lutheran Church
If you want to glean a sense of the transformative power of masks watch as Maria dons the Virgin Mary mask in La Natividad (a co-production of In The Heart Of The Beast Puppet And Mask Theatre and St. Paul’s…
The Servant Of Two Masters at the Guthrie Theater
The Servant Of Two Masters (at the Guthrie, through January 20). First some mechanicals come out in semi-darkness, speaking pidgin Italian. They kill the lights and we have an exquisite firefly effect: twinkling lights, hundreds of them, seeming to float…
A Behanding In Spokane at the Gremlin Theatre
Playwright Martin McDonagh has a rep as a hard-drinking Irishman, an angry and dyspeptic glorifier of domineering mothers, gravediggers, cripples (okay, let’s say differently abled wheelchair-bound schemers) and, in the case of A Behanding In Spokane (now playing at the…
Kill Me Don’t Go by the Workhaus Collective performing at the Playwrights Center
Looking for something congenial? Sweet-tempered and entertaining? A play to reinforce your values, to send you strolling into the chilly evening, smiling, “Why, yes, I know those people well. They’re just like me.” If this is what you require I…
Company by Theatre Latté Da performing in the Ordway McKnight Theatre
Last night your indomitable HowWasTheShow.com reviewers, Janet Preus and John Olive, attended the Theater Latté Da opening of the masterwork Company (at the Ordway McKnight Theatre, through Nov 18). After the show they repaired to the bar at Kincaid’s for…