Brett Cullum - Page 9

Dequina Moore is a marvel as the titular role of Josephine Baker. She plays this wide eyed and breathless, a girl who knows she is on the verge of something more and impatient to get there. She dances with abandon and sings like an angel.

It feels curatorial now, a gorgeous museum exhibit that we are intrigued by decades later. Society for the Performing Arts opens the hall for musical theater fans to gaze for just six days here in Houston.

JEROME ROBBINS' BROADWAY pays tribute to a brilliant choreographer and becomes a testament to the enduring history of great Broadway shows. If you love musical theater this one will be right up your alley, and if you love dance it is even better.

It might be that the directors were looking for something of 2019 in 1985's A LIE OF THE MIND. Malinda L. Beckham and Trevor Cone are certainly the best candidates in Houston to wrangle this one out since their company is noted for wildly masculine testosterone-fueled theater. They may have sought more of the humanity and less of the brutality that the original work seemed to have.

It's two women playing writers - one older and one younger. An ALL ABOUT EVE tale spins out, and the show has interesting dynamics to share about artists when they become close friends.

THE EFFECT sets a high bar for the rest of The Houston Equity Festival. It's a testament to what impact a small intimate theater space can do with outstanding actors and a daring piece of written work.

MISS SAIGON feels like a sequel to 'Les Miserables' crossbred with 'Cabaret.' We get sleazy nightclubs and sweeping war scenes mixed together with a simple love story.

An outstanding cast takes on a very funny book, and the result is shimmering perfection that is just what audiences need to kick off the summer season. It's like ice cream for the theater world.

MURDER FOR TWO is an exciting piece of theater that is daring in its concept and brought to life by Stages with technical pizzazz. Ben Miller and Trace Pool deliver amazing performances with crackerjack comic timing.

The script spins out a fast funny farce that reminds me of a politically informed Monty Python skit. Even though the premise sounds like a stuffy costume drama, this is more SOUTH PARK meets 1500s Spain.

Who wouldn't want to spend an hour and a half in a traditional pub with old country codgers spinning out ghost stories? It's a winning proposition, and Main Street delivers all the goods from the actors and the technical department.

It's the right time to resurrect the 1982 off-Broadway phenomenon LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS. It's a catchy little musical that says a lot about greed combined with materialism, and it reminds audiences of how brilliant Howard Ashman and Alan Menken have always been.

It has a lot to offer audiences, and women will appreciate the portrayal of their struggle to choose which path they should take. There is the traditional one including a family, as well as the ambitious career-centered one that risks not having that. What do women really want? And are they game enough to go for it once they realize what it is.

I realize part of the fun of THE SECRETARY is it never comes down heavily on one side or the other on the gun debate, but that also means I sat there frustrated as I felt there was little point to whipping out pistols and taking on issues.

It is perversely funny, profane at many points, but in the end shows huge heart and calls for the virtue of love and service to your fellow man. It's not exactly a family-friendly show, but it is one your 16 year-old son would prefer to see over THE SOUND OF MUSIC.

This is an irreverent retelling with no apologies about what it is doing.  The performers know this, and camp it up to the level of… well… that drag queen who hosts the whole thing.

The common themes seem to be 4am, animals and their instincts, an obsession with INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM, and lots of introspective angst about miscommunication.

Technically the effects still work, and I watched as the shocked younger members of the audience witnessed practical effects to contrast all the CGI they had grown up on. PHANTOM OF THE OPERA still has the same magic three decades later.

It's basically THE SOUND OF MUSIC set in a cabin and good fun for the entire family! Well…. Addams Family perhaps.

In a way it is like watching a heady special episode of CHEERS set in London in the early 1620s. It seems like a place where everybody would know your name, and in the case of Will they did.