Mixed Blood Theatre has just opened Mermaid Hour: Remixed by David Valdes Greenwood with music by Eric Mayson, as part of the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere. The non-musical version is playing at other theaters around the country,…
Category: Theater
Review | Something Rotten!: Yes, it’s that funny!
What if two brothers got together and decided to write a musical about two brothers writing a musical? (A few adult beverages, perhaps, and …) The brothers come up with a wacky idea about how musicals were born in Shakespeare’s…
Review | The Wolves: breezy charm
The Wolves (Jungle Theater, through Apr 29) concerns a group of young women, 9 by my count, prepping for a series of soccer games. Soccer-haters (a category that includes myself) take note: you don’t have to watch these women play.…
Review | Measure For Measure: theater underdone
It isn’t surprising that Theatre Unbound, a company formed by women for the advancement of women theatre artists, was drawn to mount a production of Shakespeare’s Measure For Measure (playing through April 8, in the lovely Gremlin Theatre). In their…
Review | Familiar: timely, thoughtful, and uproariously funny
Cultural identity is rarely simple for immigrant populations. In leaving home for new frontiers, immigrants are daily tasked with balancing the dual ideals of assimilation and heritage. To nurture both is a lofty undertaking that demands determined effort and can…
Review | The Great Divide II: wonderfully uneven
The Great Divide II is a collection of 5 short one acts presented without intermission by Pillsbury House Theatre (through March 25), a follow-up to last season’s successful The Great Divide. The plays – by Andrew Rosendorf, Christina M. Ham,…
Review | Newsies: First act: terrific. Second act: not so much
I must admit I had low expectations when I arrived for opening night of Newsies, the Broadway Musical at the Chanhassen Dinner Theatre. When our waiter took our orders and told us that in the seven years he’s been at…
Review | Indecent: beautifully dilapidated
Your two agèd (make that astute and intelligent) www.HowWasTheShow.com reviewers, John Olive and Janet Preus, recently attended a performance at the G of Paula Vogel‘s Indecent. They then repaired to the bar downstairs and prepared the following review: John Olive:…
Review | The Pirates of Penzance: a fresh reframing of a beloved classic
There is a reason Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance is a theater mainstay – it is clever, approachable, and hilarious. Yet, with so many productions of the show over the years, it’s charm inevitably has faded for all…
Review | Park & Lake: a hoot and a half
What gives with all these outré comedies currently gracing stages in the twins? Two Mile Hollow. 21 Extremely Bad Breakups. Noises Off. And now the latest offering from Ten Thousand Things: Park & Lake. Are the sanctimonious clowns in Washington…