Kim Maguire’s A Night in June is well produced, aurally entrancing. This is an album for lovers, and for lovers of great vintage American music.
Critical Condition
Critical Condition
Critical Condition: Off To See The Wiz
Tacoma Musical Playhouse’s The Wiz is a too seldom produced small gem of its era, and the leads and ensemble members had enough heart and energy to transport us back to Oz.
Critical Condition: Like Yours, Like Mine, Like Home
Home and family are at the heart of the shows I recently attended. Whether the home is Detroit or the shores of Cape Cod, home and family, and all the struggles that are attached to them are universal. Both tales are also largely cast with African-American performers, and there is no dearth of exquisite talent in that community, whether the show is fresh from Broadway or locally produced.
Critical Condition: All in The Family
A sage, aging woman plans for and faces what she is sure is her imminent death. A callow youth’s growing obsession with ballet risks tearing his close-knit family apart. In this week’s column I consider two shows with two dissimilar protagonists, though both are grappling with fractured family dynamics.
Critical Condition: Working to Death
One is a venerable golden age Broadway drama, the other a musical that was short-lived on the Great White Way yet has thrived in regional revivals ever since. Seeing the two just days apart made me appreciate how timely and timeless the subject of Americans at work really is.
Critical Condition: A Ton of Glitter, A Sprinkle of Mystery
One production sizzles while another sort of fizzles in this review of Kinky Boots at 5th Ave and Sherlock Holmes and The American Problem from the Seattle Rep.
Critical Condition: Power vs. Passion
Aaron Posner’s stage version of the popular Chaim Potok’s popular novel My Name is Asher Lev, from New Century Theatre Company at 12th Avenue Arts, is a powerful yet distant theatre experience.
Critical Condition: Heart’s in the Right Place With Village Theatre’s My Heart is the Drum
My Heart is the Drum, currently filling houses at Issaquah’s Village Theatre, is the penultimate show of their 2015-2016 season. It has a big heart and big problems, but also a fervent and hugely talented cast. They present this original musical (seen here first at...
Critical Condition: Mourning Becomes Kevin Kent, Janis Joplin Raises the Dead
Despite the seemingly dour and depressing title, Eulogy, Kevin Kent’s most recent non-Teatro Zinzanni related performance (also written by La Kent, with a double dose of it changes every show improve thrown in) is a master class in comedy with a delicious dollop of...
Critical Condition: Southern Discomfort Powerfully Set to Song
Parade is a historically based musical produced in 1998 on Broadway. It's a Tony Award winner for composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown and librettist Alfred Uhry. It also has 7 other nominations, including Best Musical, plus 6 Drama Desk Awards. A national tour of the...
Critical Condition: Annapurna, When Less is More
Annapurna is the latest production by Theatre 22 at 12th Avenue Arts. It's a two-hander, one set play. It is not an epic. It may not change your life. It is not immersive theatre in the sense that the audience moves around the stage with (which is fine by me and my...
Critical Condition: Six Degrees of Stephen Sondheim
This week’s column spotlights a new Seattle staging of a classic Stephen Sondheim show, and a cast recording of a musical “fable” about the legendary leading lady of one of his early efforts, Gypsy. The profound impact of Stephen Sondheim on the Broadway musical, post...