The only question about the touring blockbuster musical Mamma Mia! was whether it keeps up the phenomenal energy and high performance standards that have made its long runs in the world’s major theater centers so magical. And the answer is a resounding yes. Completing two-weeks at the Auditorium Theatre this Sunday, December 8, Mamma Mia! continues to […]
Theater
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Billy wins twice at Geva
Who’d want to go see a two-person show about a Canadian air ace in World War I, with songs? Well, if you like Billy Bishop Goes to War as much as I did, you’ll try to see it twice at Geva Theatre to enjoy the cast-switch. Until the play closes December 8, the two leads […]
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Six Characters in search of Pirandello
The University of Rochester’s International Theatre Program is playing Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Authorto surprisingly potent effect. It’s hard to tell, though, whether that theatrical strength comes from, or despite, director Michael Barakiva’s “adaptation” of this modern masterpiece. Like two other plays from Pirandello’s early collection, Naked Masks, Six Characters […]
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Another beautiful mind
I think back fondly on an article called “On The Nature Of Mathematical Proof,” published more than 40 years ago by a bright undergraduate math major at Harvard named Joel Cohen. In it, Cohen proved mathematically that “Alexander the Great did not exist and he had an infinite number of limbs.” It follows that […]
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Still misbehavin’
What becomes a legend most? Revival. For what must be the biggest theatrical touring venture in Rochester’s history, Downstairs Cabaret Theatre is producing a 63-city tour of the legendary Fats Waller musical Ain’t Misbehavin’. The original award-winning show opened in February, 1978, off-Broadway, as a cabaret show, but quickly moved to Broadway for 1,604 […]
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Surefire comic spirits
More than six decades after Noel Coward took about two weeks to toss off his enchanting ghost-frolic, BlitheSpirit, it is still delighting audiences in frequent productions around the world. Everybody loves the show, but it’s about time to start respecting it as a modern classic of foolproof comic theater, as well. Blackfriars’ enjoyable revival this […]
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When tolerance is merely academic
Although its subject is controversial and its characters’ responses are emotional, Shipping Dock’s current, challenging production is thoughtful, rather low-key, and pleasant. Rebecca Gilman’s Spinning Into Butter takes its central character, Sarah Daniels, the dean of students at an elegant, Vermont liberal arts college, through conflicts with both minority students who feel discriminated against and […]
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Geva cooks up a mouth-watering blues musical
“You go to the theater night after night, hoping that something magical will happen,” my guest said to me as we were leaving Geva Theatre on Saturday, “and tonight it did.” Everybody knows what a tough business it is to try to produce new theater, especially a new musical show. But I don’t think I’m […]
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Christopher Plummer’s controlled despair
Distinguished alumni continue to return to the Stratford Festival to make its 50th anniversary season stellar indeed. Alumnus Brent Carver, a Tony Award-winner for Kiss of the Spider Woman, returns to Stratford in the world premiere of Timothy Findley’s play, Shadows. Findley, an actor in the first 1953 company at Stratford, later became a […]
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Rewards and surprises at Shaw
The final three productions of the Shaw Festival’s 2002 season are impressive indeed. The world premiere of Simon Bradbury’s Chaplin, though, looks more like a brilliant work in progress than the final solution to the problem of Charlie Chaplin’s tramp having to deal with Hitler. Christopher Newton’s choice for his final directing stint before […]
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Comic chameleons
One of the most eye-opening, hilarious shows you’re likely to see for some time is playing at Shipping Dock Theatre through the end of this month (and ought to be extended past then). In The Kathy and Mo Show: Parallel Lives, Mo Gaffney and Kathy Najimy created a series of connected sketches exploring feminist […]
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Summer treat
Unfortunately, InterPlay, Shipping Dock Theatre’s annual festival of new plays, can schedule only three performances each during two summer weekends, so you have only this coming weekend to see the two plays that opened last week. I suspect, though, that Craig Pospisil’s delectable Months on End will show up again. In 1995, InterPlay introduced […]
