A DO-NOT-MISS REGIONAL PREMIERE Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen at San Jose Stage Company I was lucky enough to catch the limited run of Martin McDonagh’s tense and very funny Hangmen on Broadway, and it was sensational. Now, San Jose Stage Company, where not long before the lockdown I saw The Humans done better than the original […]

{ 0 comments }

A LIFE IN DANCE Dongpo (Su Shi’s art name) is a beloved and revered Chinese poet, writer, politician, calligrapher, and painter who was born during the Song dynasty, in the year 1,037. His life and art have inspired great minds; among them is an artist of broad talents, Shen Wei, the award-winning Chinese-American director, choreographer, […]

{ 0 comments }

THE IDES HAVE IT It’s 44 BCE, March 15, and Julius Caesar walks toward his death, changing the course of Western history. Exactly 2,067 years later, at the West End Theater in New York, a commendable, ambitious experiment, adapted and directed by Bedlam Artistic Director Eric Tucker, tackles the scorching subject, and leaves us with mixed […]

{ 0 comments }

CUMMING OR GOING, YOU’LL WANT TO SEE THIS ONE Man of many parts, Alan Cumming discusses life’s big issues: death, love, and, yes, the size of his scrotum in Alan Cumming Is Not Acting His Age, a cabaret that started on the West End and will soon be returning to Broadway’s Studio 54.  Accompanied by […]

{ 1 comment }

You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul. — George Bernard Shaw With Avenue Q, Mid-Century Moderns, and The Boy Band Project, Palm Springs’ newest professional theater group, Revolution Stage Company (RSC), has been knocking it out of the ballpark since it launched its inaugural […]

{ 0 comments }

OUR PUPPET, WHO ART IN HELL, HALLOWED BE THY BLAME When a newly widowed mom tries to lead three teens in a wholesome, Lutheran, extra-curricular church class, tasked with creating a Christian puppet show, what could go wrong? Thankfully for us, plenty, in Robert Askins’ gripping, darkly-comic drama which premiered Off-Broadway in 2011. Adam Daniel […]

{ 0 comments }

IT’S DELIGHTFUL, IT’S DE-LOVELY, IT’S DE-HARNAR It was as a 16-year-old boy in a suburb of Chicago that Jeff Harnar fell in love with the songs of Cole Porter. He encountered these songs not through his parents’ huge record collection or by attending local concerts, but rather through the old films he watched on television. […]

{ 0 comments }

WINNING ASSIST Big hits can come in small packages. The wonderful production of King James — which opened last night at the Old Globe Theatre — has only two characters and runs only about 1 hour and 45 minutes (plus one intermission), but it has enough humor, drama, and warmth to stoke a play twice […]

{ 0 comments }

FINDING NEW ABILITIES Cost of Living is full of surprises, and I don’t mean inflation or unexpected banking fees. Speakeasy Stage Company brings the Pulitzer-winning play from playwright Martyna Majok to Boston in an affecting and satisfying production directed by Alex Lonati that made an hour and three-quarters of intermission-free time fly by. Cost of […]

{ 0 comments }

UNPACKING PACKS IN TOO MUCH INFO WITHOUT PACKING ENOUGH PUNCH Set in the East Coast Summer gay mecca Provincetown in 1959, four old vaudeville friends reunite anxiously awaiting the promising 60s decade to come. “Handsome young Massachusetts Senator John Kennedy with his gorgeous wife Jackie will hopefully throw his hat in the ring to run […]

{ 0 comments }