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BILL RODRIGUEZ

Latest Articles

Still Wonderful

Center Stage interprets Capra’s Life
It's a risky gamble, creating a stage version of Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life .

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 16, 2009

Fears and rages

Dehumanization is at the heart of Woyzeck
Woyzeck isn't a play, it's a Rorschach inkblot test for directors and theater companies.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 16, 2009

Spelling-bound

URI’s makes Putnam County worth visiting
The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is a harmless enough little confection for, say, when you've had enough high-protein Shakespeare.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 08, 2009

The Carols of Christmas

The song’s the thing in The Gift of the Magi
One can't just break out into Christmas carols, even in this warm and fuzzy season.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 08, 2009

Trinity Rep’s Carol delivers the gift of joy
Christmases come and Christmases go, as psychedelic wrapping paper gives way to orderly Republican stripes, as sweet little Jimmy grows into gruff Uncle James.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 02, 2009

Being Scrooge

Timothy Crowe on Dickens’s ‘life-changing message’
Over the 33 years that Trinity Rep has been staging A Christmas Carol , many actors playing Ebenezer Scrooge have growled and grumped, cantankered, and curmugeoned around the stage.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | December 02, 2009

Doing the right thing

2nd Story’s inspiring To Kill a Mockingbird
There are plenty of stories that harken back to a Golden Age, but Harper Lee's 1960 novel To Kill a Mockingbird was different.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 24, 2009

The human condition

Who’s to say what’s Crazy ?
Kevin Broccoli, the writer and directorial ringmaster, announced before the performance that we were going to see not a play, but rather an experiment.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 23, 2009

Café Fresco

A terrific Monday night special, and more
Restaurants come and restaurants go.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 23, 2009

Mesa Café and Grill

Imaginative choices, low prices
Usually there's something special about a neighborhood restaurant, which by definition is as much about community as about commerce.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 18, 2009

A neighborhood theater is reborn

The Arts
It took quite a while, and north of $10 million, but last month the long-closed Park Cinema in Cranston opened as the ambitiously named Rhode Island Center for Performing Arts.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 11, 2009

Music and revenge

Elemental Theatre’s masterful Amadeus
As a play, Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus has more than its share of theatrical muscle.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 12, 2009

Brick Oven Meatballs

Secretly, but deliciously, Italian
You can imagine them arguing about whether to ’fess up before they named the restaurant.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 04, 2009

Madness and mayhem

Perishable’s Anna Bella Eema gets primal
So you think that ghosts and goblins and vampires and werewolves are pretty scary creatures even when it’s not Halloween, hmmm? Well, that’s perfectly natural, but there’s one word in that sentence that lords it over every gibbering monster ever conceived: think.

By: BILL RODRIGUEZ | November 03, 2009