by Colin Thomas | Jul 15, 2025 | Review
The material isn’t immortal, but it’s substantial enough and the production is perfect. Yep, that’s what I said: perfect. Jessie Nelson’s book for the musical is based on the movie, which was written by Adrienne Shelly. In the story, a waitress and piemaker named...
by Colin Thomas | Jul 15, 2025 | Review
The play is slight. Director Dean Paul Gibson’s production is inconsistent. And young actor Jacob Leonard is a star. If The Two Gentlemen of Verona hadn’t been written by Shakespeare, I can’t imagine it would still be getting produced today. In the simple and...
by Colin Thomas | Jul 15, 2025 | Review
Playwright Jessica B. Hill’s The Dark Lady kept me listening for the most part, but I was never fully or consistently engaged. The Dark Lady imagines a relationship between William Shakespeare and Emilia Bassano, the first woman in England to claim the status of...
by Colin Thomas | Jul 8, 2025 | Review
This Bard on the Beach production of Much Ado About Nothing explains ideas that don’t need explaining and misses ideas that should be obvious. The script is about the cruelty of patriarchal gender dynamics. In the central story, Beatrice and Benedick, who are...
by Colin Thomas | Jun 6, 2025 | Review
Mediocre skills and a terrible concept do not make for a fun night at the circus. In HAUS of YOLO, which was created by a New Zealand company called The Dust Palace, four acrobats venture into the world of fast fashion — very fast: the acrobats launch the show in...
by Colin Thomas | May 31, 2025 | Review
Because theatre has so many moving parts, several of which are moving actors, who come complete with independent sensibilities, stylistic adventure in the theatre is a dangerous game: if you don’t get all those moving parts coordinated, the show will crash in...
