THE SCHOOL OF ROCK: Joy Arrives

THE SCHOOL OF ROCK: Joy Arrives

It takes a while for The School of Rock — the musical itself, more than the  production — to find its groove. Or maybe it just takes a while for it to find my groove. If you asked the creators of School of Rock, the musical or the non-musical movie upon which it’s...
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS: Some Errors, Some Comedy

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS: Some Errors, Some Comedy

Watching this production of The Comedy of Errors is kind of like waiting in a two-hour lineup for a 15-minute ride. The show doesn’t really pay off until the very end. Before that, it burbles along pleasantly enough, but it’s weirdly shapeless. So what’s going on? A...
RING OF FIRE: It’s Empty

RING OF FIRE: It’s Empty

If you’re looking for a musical revue with no story or ideas, you’re in luck. This Arts Club production of Ring of Fire is well staged, well designed, it contains some strong performances and, of course, it features a bunch of great songs by Johnny Cash and others,...
HAMLET: Unexpected Elsinore

HAMLET: Unexpected Elsinore

Clarity is both the blessing and the curse of director Stephen Drover’s production of Hamlet — mostly the blessing. I was grateful to have some parts of the story more clearly defined than they’ve ever been for me. But it’s also important to remember that the play is...
TWELFTH NIGHT: What country, friends, is this?

TWELFTH NIGHT: What country, friends, is this?

A couple of hours before the lights went up on this Bard on the Beach production of Twelfth Night, Kate Besworth got the call that she’d be going on as Viola: Camille Legg, who is cast in the role, has been laid low by a nasty bug. Besworth is the understudy for...
MEDICINE: I Could Use a Stronger Dose

MEDICINE: I Could Use a Stronger Dose

For at least the first two-thirds of Medicine, I was bored. It was never the actors’ fault, it was the script’s. When hope made an appearance in the story, I started getting into it. Irish playwright Enda Walsh’s 2021 work is set in an activity room in a psychiatric...