We've got issues.
Within minutes of meeting Becky (Storm Kennedy), the modern-day Madame Bovary at the center of Steven Dietz’s comedy Becky’s New Car, this frenetic, chatty woman has addressed the congregated, welcomed us into her cluttered living room and even enlisted an unsuspecting audience member in helping her stop a drip in the ceiling. Continue reading
The plays of Shakespeare are infinitely flexible, capable of being transported across time to various historic eras and transplanted into soils that are vastly different than those originally intended. Some adaptations work splendidly, others not so much: I’ve seen the Bard by turns relocated to late-20th-century Venice Beach, wedged wickedly into Nazi Germany and, not too long ago, given the hipster goose of modern Manhattan. Continue reading
Intellectual though he was, writer H.L. Mencken positively came undone, his friend Anita Loos observed, under the beguiling spell of some … blonde. Continue reading
Ellie Greenwich is the boss. A master songwriter, Greenwich had a hand in composing buckets of Top 40 hits, such as “Chapel of Love,” “Hanky Panky,” “Da Doo Ron Ron” and other baby-boomer jams. Continue reading
Throughout the opening night performance of Grease at Actors Cabaret of Eugene, I noted that my 8-year-old companion, and the elderly gentleman next to him, were both alternately laughing, clapping or simply enthralled. Young and old, they were watching a musical from the 1970s about teenagers from the 1950s; they were both loving it. Continue reading
A limitless cosmos of doorways and dead-ends, New York City is a dream, as much a state of mind as it is a place on the map. Adam Gwon’s 2009 musical Ordinary Days beautifully captures the chaotic flux of NYC in a nutshell, by reflecting in microcosm the city’s everyday influence on the romantic lives of two couples. Deceptively simple in form, Gwon’s love letter to Gotham is a minor masterpiece of lyricism and perk, condensing worlds of emotion into a mere 90 minutes. Continue reading
According to Aristotle, comedy is harder to pull off than tragedy, and farce is the most challenging genre of all. How to get the audience to emotionally engage with all of the goofy plot twists, the ridiculous sight gags and the improbable situations? How to, in the immortal words of film star Donald O’Connor, “Make ’em laugh?” Well, if the lofty goal is a good old-fashioned giggle, then Cottage Theatre’s Moon Over Buffalo doesn’t disappoint. Continue reading
“A lot of people around age 13 are trying to find themselves,” says Jenny Bryant, performing this weekend in 13 at Actor’s Cabaret of Eugene. Castmate Angel McNabb adds, “The play relates to middle school, because kids are always trying to find a group where they fit in.” With music and lyrics by the Tony award-winning American playwright Jason Robert Brown, book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn and direction and choreography by Lanny Mitchell, 13 features a cast of young people from around the region, ranging in age from 10 to 16. Continue reading
Claire, Jason, Warren and Deb are just four ordinary New Yorkers, but their lives intersect in the most extraordinary ways as they search with classic longing for love and fulfillment in a very modern setting. Ordinary Days is a contemporary musical by up-and-coming American composer Adam Gwon. According to Charles Isherwood of The New York Times, “Mr. Gwon writes crisp, fluid and often funny lyrics that reflect the racing minds of the four New Yorkers on a nervous search for their immediate futures.” Continue reading
According to Dr. La Donna Forsgren, playwright and associate professor of theater arts at University of Oregon, there are three things newcomers should know when they sit down to enjoy her adaptation of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at Hope Theatre: 1. Clap when you want. 2. Laugh when something funny happens. 3. Dance along if you like the music. (Oh, and there will be a bathroom break, too.) Continue reading