Gilligan’s Ghetto Island
The music here is a heady mix of Latin rhythms, hip-hop, pop and rap. The latter is what one would expect from Lin Miranda, creator of the play Hamilton. Fortunately…
Good Out-Trumps Evil
Destry Rides Again is famous as a 1939 movie, less so as a 1959 play, even though it won a Tony award in 1960 for Best Choreography. The singer who…
Picasso and Einstein
The year is 1904, and the place is Paris. Specifically, the Lapin Agile, a bar; in English, it means Nimble Rabbit. In 1904 Picasso painted a portrait of Suzanne Bloch;…
The Sound of Music
Twenty years ago I saw Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer on stage in Toronto for a Sound of Music reunion. As Ms. Andrews had already pretty much stopped singing by…
War of the Worlds
The threat of alien invasion is very much with us now, as it actually happened on Jan. 6, 2021. It was a worn-out Hollywood cliché that when aliens invaded they…
Dot: A Proverbial Play
A key dynamic in the play Dot, which had its premiere in 2015, is between Shelly and her Mother Dottie. Early in the play Shelly utters one of most famous…
Birthday Club
What do five women do when they get together for a birthday? If this play is any indication, they drink a lot and whine (pun) even more. Birthday Club is…
Drinking Habits: Lucifer’s Libation
What would result from a heady cocktail of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors, Rocky Horror, and the TV show Laugh-In, most definitely not gently stirred? Answer is this play, Drinking Habits.…
Are You Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
Probably not, but you should be. There is a famous jingle in Edward Albee’s play, which is also the title of his play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?. It has…
Leading Ladies
Seven Shakespearean plays feature cross-dressing as a plot. Don’t tell that to the Lt. Gov. of Texas – he might start banning Shakespeare. Also on the ban list would surely…