The Guthrie Theater’s 50th season begins with “A Celebration of Christopher Hampton†and Hampton’s play, Tales from Hollywood, a canny “what if†that follows the fortunes of  writers forced out of Europe prior to WW II by the Nazi’s mounting violence and…
Category: Theater
Red at Park Square Theatre
John Logan‘s Red (at Park Square Theatre, through Oct 7) suffers from a problem often afflicting two character plays: sameness. Indeed, in Red, the same basic scene gets played and replayed. Mark Rothko paces his NYC atelier, contemplating the large…
Buccaneers at the Children’s Theatre Company
The Children’s Theatre Company sets sail this fall with Buccaneers by Liz Duffy Adams (book) and Ellen Maddow (music). Billed as a “swashbuckling pirate musical,†the show for children delivers on all the appurtenances you’d expect, with scrappy pirates (in…
The Way Of Water by Frank Theatre performing at the Playwrights Center
Even in the best of times, the characters in Caridad Svich‘s intense The Way Of Water (Frank Theatre performing at the Playwrights Center, through September 30) lead a close-to-the-bone life: living in shacks, enduring the choking humidity of southern Louisiana,…
The Brothers Size by Pillsbury House Theatre performing in the Guthrie’s Dowling Studio
Tarell Alvin McCraney‘s The Brothers Size (a Pillsbury House Theatre and The Mount Curve Company co-production, performing in the Guthrie‘s Dowling Studio, through September 29) is, on a superficial level, a troubled-young-brother drama. Oshoosi Size, recently released from the penitentiary,…
Waiting For Godot at the Jungle Theater
Lord preserve Samuel Beckett (and Harold Pinter, and Eugene Ionesco and Edward Albee, et al) from the predations of literary theorists who have declared him “important,” a practitioner of something called, airily, “theater of the absurd,” a playwright with deep…
King Idomeneo, Mixed Precipitation’s Picnic Operetta
Mixed Precipitation returns for a fourth season with opera outdoors, paired with snacks and set in a community garden. It’s about music, theater, community, sustainable food production and eating locally—and simply delightful entertainment. The annual production is masterminded by one…
Chicago at the Ordway
The dominant creative force in Chicago (at the Ordway, through Aug 12) has been dead for 25 years: Bob Fosse. Fosse directed and choreographed the original 1975 production (and co-wrote the book with Fred Ebb). The present touring show takes…
Fringe 2012
It’s here! It’s here! If you haven’t “done the Fringe,” you are in for several days of theatrical surprises. Part of the fun is the comraderie, so get into! Swede Home, Nebraska The name’s not made up. That’s…
Fringe 2012
A wonderful festival: 160 plus performances in ten delightful days. It’s hard to know which to see. I’ll be averaging at least two shows a day. Check here for reviews and keep checking back. I will indicate at the top…