Arts >>

Theater

Musical man

Jason Simon ends his run in The Producers
When holographic projection technology gets perfected, you can be sure that Mel Brooks’s The Producers will be one of the first holograms released.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 08, 2008

Still Funny

PC brings Fanny Brice back to life
The musical Funny Girl wasn’t made for just Barbra Streisand.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 08, 2008

Mark Peckham directs a ‘scary piece’
“That’s what I demand of my actors, that they come in with ideas and work,” Peckham insists. “I’m not interested in someone who stands there and says, ‘What do you want me to do?’"

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 02, 2008

A brutal world

2nd Story’s Orpheus Descending
Orpheus Descending is such an urgent work that you can see how Tennessee Williams allowed an earlier version of it to pop squalling into the world before it was fully gestated.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | April 02, 2008

Seeing the light

In House Freestyle connects on many levels
When Oscar suggests they bunk school and visit the museum across the street, because of the cafeteria’s two-pound burritos, they don’t realize what they have in store for them.

By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | March 25, 2008

Parlor games

Gamm’s Boston Marriage is a ticklish toss-off
The 19th-century practice of the lesbian “Boston marriage” was packed with enough human urgency and necessary social hypocrisy to supply any number of plays.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 25, 2008

Killing time

Theater of Thought’sBash is a must-see
Every once in a while a playwright comes along with a distinct point of view and a voice that can’t be ignored.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 12, 2008

An identity crisis

Brown tackles Ibsen’s knotty Peer Gynt
On stage there’s nothing like a bad boy, mugging brazenly like Mick Jagger or hurtling toward comeuppance like a medieval morality play sinner.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 12, 2008

A royal treat

Camelot shines brightly at PPAC
You’ve got to hand it to the Obama team for going that extra step.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 05, 2008

The music men

URI Theatre rocks Amadeus
Like the playwright’s Equus, the spotlight focuses like a laser beam on an obsession.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 05, 2008

Court and spark

Brown/Trinity Rep Consortium’s lively Figaro
Theater productions sometimes go to great pains (often ours) to make a period play relevant to modern audiences.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | March 05, 2008

American Dream

Mixed Magic’s latest Spirit Warrior
The songs are woven through a myth-like tale, set in a post-apocalyptic America, when the population is centered within 60 square miles and a corporate gang of the Mighty Four has taken over.

By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | February 27, 2008

Story time

Milbre Burch’s ‘Theatre of the Spoken Word’
She’d no sooner set down her suitcases than she crawled under a dragon costume for a midsummer celebration, and she thought, “This is the place for me.”

By JOHNETTE RODRIGUEZ | February 27, 2008

Nude vs. prude

Some Things at Trinity
Sally Mann doesn’t take photographs, she does Rorschach tests.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 27, 2008

Both sides now

The ugly beauty of Some Things Are Private
The actors were shown a number of photographs by Sally Mann and asked to decide which of them they found the most beautiful and which the most disturbing.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 20, 2008

Seeing Red

2nd Story’s Sunset scares up some laughs
Theatergoers just like to have fun. If you agree with that statement, or at least don’t sputter, you might enjoy 2nd Story Theater’s take on Charles Busch’s Red Scare on Sunset .

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 12, 2008

Identity crisis

Providence Black Rep’s The Bluest Eye
“My eyes,” she says. “I want them blue. I want them blue so my mama love me and I have friends and people don’t do ugly things in front of me and I stop being invisible.”

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 12, 2008

The art of violence

Gamm’s Pillowman is unsettling
The most frightening thing about this play is the prospect that less than first-rate actors can perform it, skating upon its sensationalism rather than sinking into its depths.

By BILL RODRIGUEZ | February 05, 2008